Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis’s Statement on Her Support for Legislation to Accelerate Housing Production

 

For Immediate Release
Friday, June 20, 2025
Contact: Press@ltg.ca.gov, (916) 445-8994

 

SACRAMENTO, CA – Today, Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis announced her support for a suite of bills in the California State Legislature aimed at accelerating housing production across the state. This includes several key bills from the Fast Track Housing Package—a bipartisan legislative effort led by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), to reduce delays, cut red tape, and make housing more affordable for Californians. 

 

Lieutenant Governor Kounalakis issued the following statement: 

 

“As California faces a staggering shortfall of 2.5 million homes, it’s clear that we must act boldly and swiftly to address our housing crisis. Too many families are suffering—living in overcrowded conditions, paying unsustainable rents, or being pushed into homelessness—because we haven’t built housing at the scale or speed we need.  

“That’s why I’m proud to support a set of bills aimed at streamlining housing production. These bills take meaningful steps to reduce bureaucratic delays while maintaining our high standards for safety and environmental protection. I commend Assemblymember Wicks and members of the Legislature for working together to address the urgent need for housing in California to make our state more affordable for everyone.” 

 

The housing bills supported by the Lieutenant Governor include:   

 

  • AB 1294 (Haney): Establishes a statewide uniform entitlement application for housing projects by July 1, 2026, that all local governments must accept beginning October 1, 2026.  
  • AB 357 (Alvarez): Requires the California Coastal Commission to approve or deny an application for a coastal development permit for a student housing project or a faculty and staff housing project within 90 days of submittal of a complete application. 
  • AB 920 (Caloza): Requires larger cities, by January 1, 2028, to have a centralized application portal that allows a housing development project applicant to track the status of an application.  
  • AB 961 (Avila Farias): Extends the sunset date for the “California Land Recycling and Reuse Act of 2004” from January 1, 2027, to January 1, 2037, which encourages cleanup and redevelopment of blighted contaminated properties.  
  • AB 1007 (Rubio): Shortens the time frame for a public agency acting as the responsible agency to approve or disapprove applications for residential or mixed-used development projects.  
  • AB 1276 (Carrillo): Expands protections of SB 330 (Skinner, 2019) to state and regional agencies. Requires those agencies to use a “reasonable person” standard when they are considering whether a housing project is consistent with an applicable regulatory plan.  
  • SB 489 (Arreguin): Requires public agencies to post their application requirements online for a housing development project to be deemed complete. 
  • AB 660 (Wilson): Builds on AB 2234 (Rivas, 2022) by making changes to the approval and issuance of post entitlement phase permits.  
  • AB 782 (Quirk-Silva): Removes double-bonding requirements by prohibiting local governments from requiring bonding or other financial assurances related to subdivision improvements that will be privately owned and maintained.  
  • AB 1050 (Schultz): Establishes a procedure to remove existing private reciprocal easement agreements from property title deeds.