A 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.
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.
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.
“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.
Portion of an article by BEN CHRISTOPHER FEBRUARY 24, 2025 at: https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/02/california-yimby-laws-assessment-report/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Are%20CA%20s%20housing