Opinion: Will Legislative Efforts Like SB 79 Address Housing Costs?

Key points:

• California’s housing crisis is a structural failure decades in the making.
• High housing costs are driving businesses and workers out of Los Angeles.
• California faces a shortage of at least three million homes statewide.

Will legislative efforts like SB 79 address housing costs? One side of the multifaceted debate believes the short answer is yes — if lawmakers are willing to seize the moment.

For them, California’s housing crisis is not just a matter of high rents and home prices; it is a structural failure decades in the making, where restrictive zoning and political resistance have collided with population growth, job concentration, and transit expansion.

Every morning, over 180,000 workers in the Inland Empire endure long commutes because they cannot afford housing near their jobs in Los Angeles County.

“When workers can’t afford to live near their jobs, businesses lose talent to other regions. And eventually, businesses themselves move,” wrote Tracy Hernandez, chief executive of the New California Coalition, in a recent op-ed. Since 2018, over 100 corporate headquarters have left Los Angeles, many heading to Texas.

Housing costs are now one of the region’s most serious competitive threats. In L.A. County, housing accounts for 77.6 percent of median income, compared to 39.6 percent in Austin. A family of four earning $111,000 is considered “low income” in L.A., a level that elsewhere might be squarely middle class. Austin’s talent pool grows by 4.1 percent a year, while L.A.’s shrinks by 0.2 percent.

Hernandez points to a USC research finding that 75 percent of employers say housing costs affect retention, forcing companies to raise wages beyond sustainable margins.

“These expensive fixes increase operating costs without solving the underlying problem,” she wrote.

SB 79, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, would require cities to allow more homes within a half-mile of transit stations, including up to seven stories near subways and mid-rises near commuter rail stops.

The bill’s goal is simple: give more workers the option to live near their jobs and use public transit, cutting commute times, boosting productivity, and reducing turnover.

The benefits extend well beyond the labor market.

“Households near transit can save approximately $13,000 annually on transportation costs,” Hernandez wrote, freeing up thousands of dollars for local economic activity. She cited one company that saved $50 million over 20 years in capital and operating costs by relocating near transit and reducing the need for parking.

Transit expansions in Los Angeles are well underway. The D Line will reach Century City by 2025–26 and Westwood by 2027, serving job centers where housing costs hit workers hardest. Yet, as Hernandez warned, “Without SB 79, these transit investments will have little benefit — jobs are available near transit, but homes are not.”

The disconnect between transit spending and housing production has long frustrated policymakers.

“California’s disconnect between our public transit investments and our housing policies is failing our communities — and we urgently need reform,” wrote Reps. Laura Friedman and Scott Peters in a joint commentary.

In Los Angeles County, multi-family housing is illegal in most neighborhoods. In San Diego, the Trolley and the Coaster pass through areas where apartments are often prohibited.

This mismatch has statewide consequences.

California faces a shortage of at least three million homes, according to some findings including by the LAO (Legislative Analyst’s Office).

Residents near transit spend 40 percent less per year on transportation, according to the Mineta Center at San Jose State University. Transit stations make up less than 1 percent of urban land but attract more than 20 percent of new regional jobs.

“By building housing near transit stops, we provide a greater return on investment for taxpayers, as farebox returns improve with increased ridership,” Friedman and Peters wrote.

The economic stakes are high as well.

Without reform, “Hospital administrators and school principals regularly tell us their staff can’t afford to live in the communities they serve. Businesses are relocating to states with more affordable housing, taking jobs and tax revenue with them,” Friedman and Peters warned. “California’s future depends on fixing this disconnect.”

For Monica Rivera, a real estate sales manager and chair of the Gateway Cities chapter of Abundant Housing LA, the crisis is deeply personal.

“Thousands of Angelenos are stuck with costly, exhausting commutes because they can’t afford to live near their jobs, burning through more than $14,000 a year on transportation — much of it on car payments, gas and maintenance,” she wrote in CalMatters.

She has watched families forced to move farther from jobs, childcare, and schools because housing near transit is blocked by local zoning.

“In L.A. County, families earning the median income of $88,000 can’t afford sky-high rent, much less a median home price approaching $1 million,” Rivera wrote.

The result is displacement in all but name. Her niece once woke at 3 a.m. to take four buses to class at Rio Hondo College; her younger sister at Cal State Long Beach sometimes paid $50 to $60 each way for rideshares due to poor transit access from home.

SB 79, Rivera argued, “is a step toward fairness: it lets people live near the infrastructure we’ve already built, and ensures good housing doesn’t die in endless meetings.” The bill streamlines approvals for projects meeting its standards, putting money back in families’ pockets and reducing the risk of displacement.

There is evidence that more housing near transit works. The Legislative Analyst’s Office found that Bay Area neighborhoods adding the most housing had half the displacement rates of those that blocked development. The climate benefits are also substantial: cars and trucks account for 30 percent of California’s climate pollution. Residents living near reliable transit or in walkable areas drive half as much as those in car-dependent neighborhoods.

Opposition to such reforms typically comes from existing residents worried about neighborhood change.

Friedman and Peters acknowledged those concerns, stressing that effective legislation can preserve local control and ensure design standards while still making housing possible where it is most needed.

The political challenge, then, is balancing those local apprehensions with statewide urgency.

California is not alone in moving toward transit-oriented housing policy. States like New Jersey, Colorado, and Utah already encourage more homes near transit, and Washington is considering similar legislation. Cities in Maryland, Texas, and Florida are also aligning transit investments with housing access.

For Hernandez, the choice is stark: “State legislators must pass SB 79 or risk economic decline as other metropolitan areas permanently capture the next generation of businesses and workers.” Friedman and Peters put it more bluntly: “We can no longer invest billions on public transportation while artificially constraining who gets to live close enough to use it.”

SB 79 is far from a cure-all — California’s housing crisis is too vast for any single bill to fix — but it addresses one of the clearest and most politically tractable choke points: the gap between where jobs and transit are and where housing is allowed.

It is also a test of whether California’s leaders will match their climate, economic, and equity rhetoric with policy. The state has invested billions in transit infrastructure; failing to ensure that people can live near it would be a colossal waste.

The answer to the question from this perspective is yes: legislative efforts like SB 79 can help address housing costs, by unlocking land for homes in precisely the places where they can do the most good — near jobs, transit, and opportunity. But only if lawmakers have the political will to see it through.

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