While it’s too soon to assess the full effects of recently passed legislation on housing production in the state, planners and housing advocates express cautious optimism that the new laws could help alleviate the state’s housing shortage.

“Since 2017, the State of California has adopted over 100 new laws designed to increase housing production,” according to a brief by William Fulton, David Garcia, Ben Metcalf, Carolina Reid, and Truman Braslaw from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. The laws have an impact on four stages of the building process: planning, zoning, permitting, and building. The authors make “an effort to characterize the breadth and goals of recent legislation, and to assess practitioner experiences with using these laws to further housing production” in the state and provide “an overview of California’s housing system, catalogs recent housing legislation, and summarizes themes from interviews with stakeholders across the state.”
While the authors warn that “It is too early to know whether the full set of new state laws is having a meaningful impact on spurring increased homebuilding,” there have nevertheless been “positive, measurable impacts on construction starts within some specific housing domains, and interviewees expressed optimism that process changes could unlock significant increases in home-building in the future.”
The brief highlights optimistic developments in three areas: growing support for ADUs and subsidized affordable housing; a shift in culture around project approvals; and changes in California’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) and Housing Element law, which are spurring—despite much local opposition—zoning changes around the state.
FULL STORY: New Pathways to Encourage Housing Production: A Review of California’s Recent Housing Legislation

Manufactured Crisis: Losing the Nation’s Largest Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing
Manufactured housing communities have long been an affordable housing option for millions of people living in the U.S., but that affordability is disappearing rapidly. How did we get here?

Americans May Be Stuck — But Why?
Americans are moving a lot less than they once did, and that is a problem. While Yoni Applebaum, in his highly-publicized article Stuck, gets the reasons badly wrong, it's still important to ask: why are we moving so much less than before?

Using Old Oil and Gas Wells for Green Energy Storage
Penn State researchers have found that repurposing abandoned oil and gas wells for geothermal-assisted compressed-air energy storage can boost efficiency, reduce environmental risks, and support clean energy and job transitions.

Minneapolis Bans Rent-Setting Software
Four cities have enacted restrictions on algorithmic software that can inflate rent costs.

Oakland to Add 244 New EV Chargers
Oakland plans to launch its new charging network at eight locations by the end of 2025.

Jane Goodall Inspires with Message of Hope, Resilience, and Environmental Action
Speaking in Pasadena, Jane Goodall offered a hopeful and inspirational message, urging global compassion, environmental responsibility, and the power of individual action to shape a better future.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
City of Moreno Valley
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Salt Lake City
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
City of Cambridge, Maryland