Assembly committee hears mixed progress on housing laws; ADUs and subsidized projects cited as bright spots

The California State Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee opened its first informational hearing of 2025 to take stock of recent housing production laws and their implementation, Chair Haynie said, noting bluntly: “California is in a housing crisis. Plain and simple, we do not have enough housing.”

The hearing brought together researchers from UC Berkeley, staff from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), developers and local officials. Testimony emphasized that while select state policies have sped approvals and raised affordable-housing production, many barriers remain — most notably persistent funding shortfalls, litigation and infrastructure and permitting constraints that can stop approved projects from being built.

Committee members said the stocktake was intended to inform any new legislation this year and to identify where existing laws need better enforcement or funding. The panelists described a mix of measurable wins and continuing bottlenecks: ADU growth and streamlining for subsidized projects produced clear upticks in permits, but CEQA litigation, financing gaps, construction costs and local capacity still slow or stall housing on the ground.

Ben Metcalfe, managing director of the UC Berkeley Turner Center for Housing Innovation, framed the scale of the problem and the partial progress to date. Metcalfe presented RHNA-based production targets and told the committee the state is far behind its goals across income categories. He flagged two “bright lights” in recent years: ADUs and streamlining for subsidized affordable housing. “Accessory dwelling units are 1 very clear and tangible bright spot,” Metcalfe said, adding that state data showed an increase “from 8,900 units in 2018 to more than 28,000 in 2023.” He also noted larger trends: cost-burdened renters across income levels, rising entry-home prices, and a multidecade shortfall in permitted units.

Megan Kirkabee, deputy director for housing policy at the California Department of Housing and Community Development, described HCD’s enforcement and technical-assistance work to translate laws into housing. Kirkabee said the department’s Housing Accountability Unit has written hundreds of advisory letters and intervened when jurisdictions do not implement laws. “We have written 616 of those letters,” Kirkabee said, and she described outcomes HCD counts as unlocked housing: oversight of the Surplus Land Act alone has supported sites expected to yield “nearly 32,000 homes, with nearly 20,000 of those being affordable.” She also highlighted measurable reductions in entitlement timelines: “The average timeline decreased from a hundred and 45 days in 2018 to 64 days in 2023,” she said, and noted construction-phase timing has shortened as well.

Practitioners and local officials said the streamlining laws have real, practical benefits but do not eliminate other blockers. Anne Silverberg, CEO of Related California, said the combination of land availability programs and land-use streamlining has materially improved feasibility for many affordable projects and that streamlining has “saved years” in development time. Tom Pace, Sacramento’s community development director, credited state planning and grant programs for enabling infill and transit-oriented projects but stressed water, sewer and drainage infrastructure remain a critical constraint.

Several panelists and the committee returned frequently to funding. Developers reported intense competition for state funding programs — grant and tax-credit rounds described as oversubscribed by multiple factors — and said the pipeline of entitled projects is now bottlenecked by money. One practitioner described the financing squeeze this way: dozens of projects that are entitlement-ready cannot close without more state dollars or a predictable permanent source of funding.

Panelists also described litigation and permitting risk as a major practical hurdle. A land use attorney who represented projects in court recounted a case in which a city-approved, 100% affordable project that qualified for ministerial or plan-based streamlining was nonetheless delayed by litigation; although courts ultimately upheld the approvals, the developer lost tax credits and financing and the project remains unbuilt years later. Several panelists said statutory streamlining and CEQA exemptions reduce but do not eliminate litigation risk for projects, particularly when opponents appeal approvals.

Committee members asked for clearer regional and jurisdictional data on production, and HCD staff pointed to the department’s annual progress report (APR) dashboard, which aggregates permit and entitlement data by jurisdiction. Kirkabee said APR submissions are due each spring and that the dashboard is updated when jurisdictions submit their reports — the department uses those reports to check progress against RHNA milestones and to trigger additional streamlining tools if jurisdictions fall short.

Panelists recommended several legislative or administrative priorities: (1) restore and expand state funding for affordable housing (including proposals for a housing bond and a durable revenue source), (2) invest in local implementation capacity and permitting technology, (3) expand and protect surplus public land for affordable housing, (4) consider targeted CEQA reforms and protected ministerial pathways that reduce litigation risk for projects consistent with adopted plans, and (5) develop financing tools to de‑risk projects and expand the developer pipeline.

The hearing closed with Chair Haynie urging stakeholders to submit legislative proposals before bill deadlines, saying the committee intends to use the stocktake to guide its 2025 package. No formal votes or committee actions were taken at the hearing; the session was a fact-finding informational hearing to surface enforcement, funding and implementation gaps for future legislative work.