Neighbors for a Better San Diego (NFABSD) continues its leadership of community empowerment with this “Update on 2026 State Legislation.”
The California Legislature introduces thousands of bills every year, and 2026 was no exception.
Working with a statewide coalition of policy analysts, NFABSD tracked more than 100 bills relating to land use and housing development, which were boiled down to the ones that we predict will have the greatest impact on the lives of Californians.
Click here to review the list of bills and see how your state legislators voted.
The Legislature has largely taken away land use decisions from California’s cities, so advocates for sensible planning have to include state legislators in their efforts. Much of state policy is based on the premise that that housing production is limited by available sites, which is disproven by NFABSD’s estimate that San Diego has the zoned and bonus capacity to build over 2 million new homes, twenty times San Diego’s state-assigned housing target (Regional Housing Need Allocation – or RHNA).
As detailed in a recent NFABSD study, focusing policy on upzoning ignores other affordability factors, particularly that the incomes of low-income households have grown much more slowly than those of high-income households.
While it is going to be a long road to getting the Legislature to repeal the worst of the land deregulation bills adopted over the past few years, NFABSD has developed commonsense proposals that may attract interest from Legislators who are concerned about the potential negative impacts of these bills on homeownership and communities.
These proposals focus on fixing the most egregious deficiencies in California’s transit-oriented development initiatives, including SB 79 and Transit Priority Areas (TPAs).
Bill Idea 1. Base TPA on walking distance and Regional Transportation Improvement Program (RTIP).
Bill Idea 2. Remove bus service from SB 79.
Bill Idea 3. Remove single-family zoned parcels from SB 79.
Bill Idea 4. Measure SB 79 distances to transit by walking distance.
Bill Idea 5. Create a single, unified definition of transit proximity for state regulations.
Bill Idea 6. Make setbacks 5 feet (instead of 4 feet) for ADUs and other new development to be consistent with Zone Zero requirements.??
