{"id":261100,"date":"2026-04-10T13:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/261100\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:14:08","slug":"californias-density-bonus-outpaces-other-yimby-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/261100\/","title":{"rendered":"California’s density bonus outpaces other YIMBY laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Construction<\/a>Half of California mutlifamily homes are now in projects that relied on the density bonus law. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

California lawmakers have passed a flurry of high-profile bills in recent years<\/a> aimed at spurring home building by eliminating local development restrictions to combat a housing shortage built up over decades<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But of those legislative efforts, it\u2019s the state\u2019s density bonus law that developers have mostly taken advantage of, according to a new report by Circulate Planning & Policy, a development and transportation advocacy group.<\/p>\n

The law, which lets developers exceed density and other development restrictions if they reserve some units for low-income tenants, wasn\u2019t always as powerful as it is now. State lawmakers have bolstered it multiple times in recent years \u2014 and many of those reforms came from San Diego lawmakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report, \u201cWin-Win Bonus,\u201d found that since 2020 when a series of changes supercharged the benefit available to developers, it transformed from a little-used benefit to the most widely used policy tracked by the state to speed up housing development.<\/p>\n

In 2024, nearly half of new California townhouses or apartments were in projects that relied on the density bonus \u2014 and 78% of homes in projects of 100% low-income housing.<\/p>\n

It was also used in projects that represented 10 times as many homes as every other piece of recent housing deregulation tracked by state housing officials.<\/p>\n

Those four other laws, including the contentious SB-9 from San Diego\u2019s former state Sen. Toni Atkins \u2014 have typically drawn much more attention. But \u201cuse of these laws has been very limited,\u201d concluded a review from advocacy group YIMBY Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

California first adopted its \u201cdensity bonus\u201d statute in 1979, but for decades developers rarely used it.<\/p>\n

In 2020, the legislature passed AB 2345 \u2014 proposed by San Diego\u2019s former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez and co-sponsored by Circulate \u2014 increasing the bonus from 35% to 50%, if the project included a higher share of low-income units. In 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed San Diego Assemblyman David Alvarez\u2019s AB 1287 providing another 50% bonus if a project maxed out its low-income housing requirements, and provided homes for moderate-income residents.<\/p>\n

Developers could use both laws at once, effectively doubling the base density allowed by city restrictions, in exchange for a share of price-restricted units.<\/p>\n

The year AB 2345 was adopted, California cities approved roughly 17,000 homes using the density bonus. By the time AB 1287 came around, cities approved more than 42,000 homes.<\/p>\n

Before AB 2345, fewer than 20% of multifamily homes built in California used the law. That proportion jumped to 47% of multifamily builds using the density bonus four years later, in 2024.<\/p>\n

But just as San Diego officials played a central role in expanding the law, there\u2019s also a San Diego official working to reign it back in.<\/p>\n

Newsom last year signed State Sen. Catherine Blakespear\u2019s SB 92, a proposal she said would \u201cstop the exploitation of the law\u201d by developers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She describes the bill as one that closed a loophole that a Pacific Beach developer relied on to propose the controversial \u201cTurquoise Tower\u201d <\/a>in the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her law restricts the bonus available to commercial development \u2014 including hotel rooms \u2014 to 2.5 times the local restriction. The Turquoise Tower developer reached its proposed 23 story height in part by maximizing the bonus on hotel rooms, even though it said it would lease the hotels as if they were apartments.<\/p>\n

The city earlier this year told the developer it \u201ccould not have it both ways,\u201d and said that as proposed the project does not meet local development limits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Half of California mutlifamily homes are now in projects that relied on the density bonus law. (File photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[380,21828,46726,1011,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-261100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-affordable-housing","tag-circulate-san-diego","tag-density-bonus","tag-housing","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}