Newsom Signs Another CEQA Reform Bill

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed SB 406, a bill that aims to eliminate certain redundant CEQA environmental reviews for affordable housing projects.

The new legislation adds to a long line of pro-housing efforts that have come from Sacramento in recent years, and also represents the latest effort by Newsom to speed up development by streamlining environmental reviews under the California Environmental Quality Act, which is often abused by anti-development groups and partly responsible for the state’s housing crisis.

“Our state and regional housing crisis is complicated, but we continue to work together to find ways to ramp up housing production, particularly affordable housing for people in need,” California Sen. Dave Cortese, who sponsored the bill, said in a release. “SB 406 will speed up housing by cutting bureaucratic red tape while keeping environmental protections intact.”

SB 406 specifically concerns government-funded affordable projects. Under existing California law, affordable housing projects that receive state financing are exempt from additional CEQA reviews if the project will trigger a review by another agency, but funding from local agencies can still trigger additional CEQA reviews even if the project is already subject to one review.

“Implementing CEQA this way is ineffective, repetitive and ultimately causes delays and increased expenses for urgently needed affordable housing,” Cortese’s office said in a release.

The new legislation will cut out that redundancy, extending the same exemption law to locally funded projects.

The law will likely amount to a minor improvement on a major problem: According to one report published last fall, CEQA-related lawsuits, including many frivolous suits, end up challenging more than half the state’s housing production.

In recent months California political leaders, including Newsom, have increasingly highlighted the problems with the decades-old environmental law, although Newsom — who signed a major CEQA reform bill this summer that focused on infrastructure projects — has also come under pressure for failing to extend the reform efforts to housing.