By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Sacramento, CA – Assemblymember Ting believes it is “[o]ne of the most important housing bills this legislative session has been signed by the Governor.”
Supporters say that “AB 1633 promotes climate-friendly infill housing in the most location-efficient areas by ending ‘more study’ requirements, once legally-sufficient environmental review has been conducted.”
“California is in a housing crisis, and one way out of it is to build more places to live as fast as we can. Unnecessary delays to projects that have already gone through the mandatory environmental steps are only slowing us down. The Governor’s signature on my bill puts developments on a faster track to completion and helps ease housing shortages that keep prices high,” said Assemblymember Ting.
AB 1633 strengthens the state’s Housing Accountability Act (HAA), clarifying that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) cannot be used to endlessly delay or block housing projects, once all legal requirements have been met. The legislation does not alter CEQA in any way.
“There is consensus among climate and housing experts that we need much more housing in our urban areas—to reduce climate pollution, but also, to make our cities more 
affordable, accessible, and sustainable,” said Brian Hanlon, CEO of California YIMBY. “AB 1633 will end the common practice in some cities of indefinitely delaying CEQA certification for new homes that are clearly in compliance with all relevant environmental regulations.”
UC Davis Law Professor Christopher Elmendorf called AB 1633 “a game changer for CEQA and housing” as well as “a game-changer for the Permit Streamlining Act (PSA).”
He notes that “formerly discretionary ‘exemptions’ are now mandatory, and the political economy of exemption-making is itself about to be remade.”
Elmendorf explains, “CEQA has long had an exemption for infill housing, but it’s riddled with vague exceptions, and cities had no obligation to issue it even for clearly qualified projects.”
The result, he says, was “the path of least resistance for a controversial project was requiring a full EIR. This way, the city could kick the project-approval decision down the road a few years, and prod the developer to buy off local opponents.”
Now, “AB 1633 creates a brand new world,” although he acknowledges “only for dense infill housing on environmentally benign sites.”
Ting’s office illustrates a San Francisco case that in his view “highlights the misuse of CEQA and the need for AB 1633.”
In 2021, the Board of Supervisors overturned the Planning Commission’s approval of a 500-unit project located at 469 Stevenson Street, a site near transit identified as a priority for development under the region’s climate plan.
According to the release, “They provided no clear direction on how to bring the plans into compliance – only declaring the need for ‘further environmental study.’”
While the state intervened to help move the project forward, the project remains pending, and the decision illustrates the problem.
YIMBY noted that, while AB 1633 will apply statewide, the legislation was a response in part to “the gross abuse of CEQA by San Francisco, which had established a pattern of violating the Housing Accountability Act by denying CEQA clearance for new homes in environmentally beneficial infill areas.”
They explain that, by doing this, “the Supervisors alerted housing regulators of a possible gap in state housing law related to CEQA clearance. AB 1633 is designed to ensure that any future denials or withholding of a CEQA clearance to housing developments that are legally entitled to such clearance is a violation of the Housing Accountability Act.”
Elmendorf adds that AB 1633 “defangs the NIMBY litigation threat, because the bill includes a legislative finding that attorneys’ fees should ‘rarely, if ever’ be issued to plaintiffs who challenge dense infill housing on good sites, unless city approved the project in bad faith.”
The bill applies to “all” housing projects that meet infill and modest density criteria of 15 dwelling units/acre.
Elmendorf called this, “This is a real glimmer of hope for widespread affordability.”
