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   https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/02/california-yimby-laws-assessment-   
   report/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqEAgAKgcI   
   CjCbvYILMJ-8_wIwu4rcAw&utm_content=rundown   
      
   One California law was supposed to flip defunct strip malls across   
   California into apartment-lined corridors.   
      
   Another was designed to turn under-used church parking lots into fonts of   
   new affordable housing.   
      
   A third would, according to supporters and opponents alike, “end single-   
   family zoning as we know it.”   
      
   Fast-forward to 2025 and this spate of recent California laws, and others   
   like it intended to supercharge the construction of desperately needed   
   housing, have had “limited to no impact on the state’s housing supply.”   
      
   That damning conclusion comes from a surprising source: A new report by   
   YIMBY Law, a pro-development nonprofit that would very much like to see   
   these laws work.   
      
   The analysis, released today, studied five state laws passed since 2021   
   that have swept away regulatory barriers to building apartment buildings   
   and other dense residential developments in places where such housing has   
   been historically barred.   
      
   The laws under review include:   
      
   SB 9 from 2021, which allows people to split their single-family homes   
   into duplexes, thus ending single-family-home-only zoning across   
   California. In practice, according to the report, building permits for   
   only 140 units were issued under the law in 2023.   
   AB 2011 from 2022 was designed to make it easier for developers to convert   
   office parks, strip malls and parking lots into apartment buildings. In   
   2023, developers on just two projects were given local regulatory approval   
   to start work under the law. In 2024, the total was eight. The report   
   found no projects that have made use of SB 6, a similar bill passed that   
   same year but with stricter labor requirements.   
   SB 4 from 2024, the so-called Yes In God’s Backyard law, which lets   
   churches, other houses of worship and some schools to repurpose their land   
   for affordable housing. The report found no takers on that bill too.   
   “It’s grim,” said Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law. Though   
   she acknowledged some of the laws are still new, she blamed their early   
   ineffectiveness on the legislative process which saddled these bills with   
   unworkable requirements and glaring loopholes.   
      
   “Everybody wants a piece,” she said. “The pieces taken out during the   
   process wind up derailing the initial concept.”   
      
   What are these requirements and loopholes that have prevented these laws   
   from succeeding? Maybe not surprisingly, they are the frequent objects of   
   critique by YIMBY Law and the Yes In My Backyard movement more generally.   
      
   One is the inclusion of requirements that developers only hire union-   
   affiliated workers or pay their workers higher wages.   
      
   Another are affordability mandates which force developers to sell or rent   
   the units they build at below-market prices.   
      
   A third is the strenuous opposition by local governments and the failure   
   of these state laws to override it. In the two years following the passage   
   of SB 9, for example, YIMBY Law tracked 140 local ordinances that, in the   
   view of the report, were “designed to reduce or prevent” the bill from   
   working on the ground. They included tight limits on the size of   
   buildings, affordability requirements, or restrictions on which types of   
   owners can make use of the law.   
      
   “The ADU boom stands alone. No other form of housing production took off   
   in California during this period.”   
      
   Law paper by UC Davis professor Chris Elmendorf and UC Santa Barbara   
   professor Clayton Nall   
   Last year, the state Legislature passed a “clean up” bill meant to void   
   some of these local add-ons.   
      
   There are plenty of other possible impediments to construction in   
   California, which may explain why these bills have seen such tepid uptake.   
   Sky high interest rates, chronic shortages of construction workers and   
   high material costs (all of which could be exacerbated by current or   
   expected changes to federal tariff, immigration and fiscal policy) all   
   work to make residential housing development a less appealing financial   
   proposition. Insufficient public funds and expected cuts to federal   
   housing programs may weigh down on the affordable housing sector too.   
      
   But the report is not the first to point to the preconditions and   
   omissions included in so many of the state’s legislative efforts to goose   
   housing development as the reason for their lack of impact.   
      
   In a recent law paper, UC Davis law professor Chris Elmendorf and UC Santa   
   Barbara political scientist Clayton Nall wrote that the relative success   
   of California’s efforts to boost the construction of accessory dwelling   
   units is the exception that proves the rule. Over the last decade, a   
   cavalcade of state laws have stripped local governments of their ability   
   to subject backyard cottage projects with environmental review mandates,   
   significant fees, affordability mandates, union-hire rules, confining size   
   or aesthetic limitations or added parking requirements.   
      
   “The ADU boom stands alone. No other form of housing production took off   
   in California during this period,” the authors wrote. A likely reason why,   
   they argue, is that ADU projects don’t come with nearly as many strings   
   attached as other forms of dense development permitted by various   
   California laws.   
      
   In 2023, the state permitted more than 28,000 ADUs, according to state   
   data.   
      
   The history of ADU legislation in California is instructive, said Trauss.   
   “It took about like five years of revisions before they were really   
   getting going.”   
      
   The YIMBY Law report is based on self-reported permitting data submitted   
   by cities and counties to the California Housing and Community Development   
   department. The nonprofit complemented that messy database with its own   
   internal collection harvested from its own litigation and activism. That   
   means the data on what is actually getting built — and therefore how   
   effective any of these laws really are — is imperfect.   
      
   That fact isn’t lost on many legislators.   
      
   The Assembly housing committee’s first hearing of the year was dedicated   
   not to new legislation, but to evaluating the state’s existing “pro-   
   production” laws.   
      
   “We shouldn’t just keep passing more and more bills just because we can,”   
   Chair Matt Haney, a San Francisco Democrat, said. “We should actually look   
   at what is working, why it’s working, how we can do more of what’s working   
   and if it’s not working, we should do more to fix it or change it.”   
      
   https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/02/california-yimby-laws-assessment-   
   report/   
      
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