SB 79 allows apartment buildings within a quarter to half-mile of subway, light rail, and bus rapid transit (BRT). Los Angeles tried to fight this bill but they failed.
One of the big objectives of SB 79 was not only to build a lot of new housing, but to help keep transit agencies afloat. Building more housing near transit stations will help with that, to the extent it will increase ridership.
i will never understand how americans think their zoning system is sane, having the government say “You’re only allowed to build low-density housing here” is fucking dystopian.
Why would anyone be against housing near public transportation?
This is like “yes i would love to spend millions on public infrastructure that nobody will practically use”
And now they are “required to allow”. Were they not allowed to do this before? And yeah is there some kind of car lobby in LA?
The city now isn’t allowed to use zoning restrictions to prevent more dense development from taking place in those locations.
From TFA:
As David Wagner explains in LAist, city leaders oppose bills like Senate Bill 79 that they argue take too much decision-making power away from local authorities in favor of state preemption.
Does this mean we should be reading it as, “if an apartment building is proposed anywhere within half a mile of any transit station, it cannot be rejected for any reason”?
That’s how the article reads to me too, but I didn’t actually read the bill text.
Have you met people?
Higher resolution map:
https://data.streetsforall.org/images/sb79/SB_79_impact_full.jpg
Housing is scarce, so this is good.
Now the bad news
Cities can delay implementation of some provisions. And that’s exactly what Los Angeles decided to do.
There are also concerns people will start opposing transit extensions
That’s literally what’s happening in Burbank right now.
https://laist.com/brief/news/transportation/metro-burbank-bus-olive-avenue
Burbank doesn’t want to implement the BRT that they agreed to earlier because SB 79 would now make those stops covered for higher density housing opportunities (as well as taking away a car lane for a dedicated bus lane).
Their argument that if there’s no dedicated bus lane, then it’s just a regular bus and not subject to SB 79.
Politics aside, that’s one hell of a beauty of a map
