How California’s SB 35 Streamlined Housing Approval Works

California’s SB 35 streamlined housing approval is a ministerial, deadline-driven process that qualifying multifamily affordable projects can use in any city or county that has fallen behind on its state housing targets. Enacted in 2017 and codified at Government Code Section 65913.4, it strips away CEQA review, discretionary hearings, and most parking mandates, replacing them with a checklist of objective standards and hard clocks the local government cannot extend.

What Ministerial Approval Actually Changes

The core shift is from discretionary to ministerial approval. Under discretionary review, a planning commission or city council weighs a project’s merits, holds hearings, imposes conditions, and can reject it for subjective reasons. Ministerial review means staff compare the application to a list of objective standards; if it meets them, it is approved. No hearings. No negotiated conditions. No subjective findings.

Because ministerial actions are not “projects” under the California Environmental Quality Act, SB 35 developments are exempt from CEQA.¹ A city cannot demand traffic studies, air quality analyses, noise assessments, or other CEQA-triggered work. It also cannot require a conditional use permit. The law does not direct developers through CEQA faster; it removes CEQA from the path entirely for qualifying projects.

Which Cities and Counties Are Subject to SB 35

The Department of Housing and Community Development publishes a determination by June 30 each year identifying which jurisdictions must offer streamlining. The determination compares each city or county’s permitting activity against a pro-rata share of its Regional Housing Needs Allocation for the current planning period.²

Where the jurisdiction has fallen short determines the affordability threshold a project must hit:

If the jurisdiction has permitted fewer units than its pro-rata share of above-moderate-income housing, qualifying projects must dedicate at least 10% of units as affordable to households at or below 80% of area median income.
If the jurisdiction has met its above-moderate target but fallen short on very-low and low-income housing, the threshold rises to 50% of units affordable at or below 80% AMI.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, projects on the 10% track may instead dedicate 20% of units to moderate-income households.

Jurisdictions that fail to submit their latest required Annual Progress Report to HCD are automatically placed on the 10% affordability track regardless of their actual building record.² Most California cities have not kept pace with RHNA, so most are subject to SB 35 in any given year.

Project Eligibility Requirements

Meeting the affordability threshold is not enough on its own. Under Government Code Section 65913.4, the project must also:

Contain two or more residential units.
Sit on a legal parcel within a city whose boundaries include part of an urbanized area or urban cluster, with at least 75% of the parcel’s perimeter adjoining land developed with urban uses.
Dedicate at least two-thirds of its square footage to residential use.
Comply with every objective general plan, zoning, and design review standard in effect at the time of application.

That last point is the one cities fight hardest. The statute draws a clear line: a standard that requires personal judgment rather than a measurable yes-or-no determination cannot be used to deny an SB 35 project.³ Vague design guidelines invoking “neighborhood compatibility” or “appropriate scale” do not qualify as objective.

Sites That Are Excluded

SB 35 carves out a long list of sensitive sites. A project cannot use streamlining if the parcel is any of the following:

Within the coastal zone, areas without a certified local coastal program, or parcels vulnerable to five feet of sea level rise. A coastal zone parcel must also be zoned for multifamily housing.
Prime farmland or farmland of statewide importance as mapped by the Department of Conservation, or land protected by a local voter-approved agricultural preservation measure.
Wetlands as defined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A very high fire hazard severity zone, unless the project satisfies the building standards and fire mitigation requirements under Public Resources Code Sections 4290 and 4291 and Chapter 7A of the California Building Code.
A hazardous waste site listed under Government Code Section 65962.5, with limited exceptions for underground storage tank sites that have received a closure letter.
A delineated earthquake fault zone as mapped by the State Geologist.
A FEMA-mapped special flood hazard area subject to the 1% annual chance flood, or a regulatory floodway.
A site identified in a natural community conservation plan, habitat conservation plan, or land under conservation easement.
Habitat for candidate, sensitive, or fully protected species under state or federal endangered species laws.

These exclusions are evaluated as of the date the application is submitted.³ Most urban infill parcels in developed areas, which are the sites SB 35 is designed for, will clear them.

Approval Deadlines and the “Deemed Approved” Rule

The deadlines run from the application submission date and cannot be extended by the local government:

Consistency determination: 60 days for projects of 150 or fewer units, 90 days for larger projects.
Design review: 90 days for 150 or fewer units, 180 days for larger projects.
Overall approval or denial: 90 days for smaller projects, 180 days for larger ones.
Resubmitted applications: 30 days.

If the city fails to document inconsistencies with objective standards within the applicable timeframe, the development is deemed to satisfy those standards. The same rule applies to design review: miss the deadline, and the project is deemed consistent with objective design review standards. HCD’s guidelines also make clear that even when design review runs through a council, board of supervisors, or planning commission, subjective design standards cannot be used to block a project that meets the objective criteria.²

This “deemed approved” mechanism is the strongest enforcement tool in the law. A city that drags its feet loses its ability to deny the project. Developers who have faced outright refusals or pretextual denials have brought legal challenges, and California courts have generally enforced the statute’s plain language.

Affordability Covenants

Developers using SB 35 record a legally binding land use restriction or covenant against the property. The covenant locks in the affordable units for 55 years for rental units and 45 years for ownership units. During those periods the designated units must remain available at affordable housing costs to households at or below the income thresholds specified in the application.³ The covenants run with the land and bind future owners.

Labor and Wage Standards

For developments of 50 or more housing units, SB 35 imposes labor requirements the developer must certify:

All construction workers must be paid at least the general prevailing rate of per diem wages for the type of work and geographic area.
Contractors must participate in an apprenticeship program approved by the California Division of Apprenticeship Standards.
Projects that are not 100% subsidized affordable housing must be completed by a skilled and trained workforce as defined in the Public Contracts Code.

The skilled-workforce requirement effectively calls for union or union-equivalent labor on most projects above the 50-unit threshold.³ For 100% subsidized affordable projects, that piece is waived, though prevailing wages still apply.¹

Parking Rules

A city cannot impose any parking requirement at all on an SB 35 project when any of the following is true:

The development is within half a mile of public transit.
The development is within an architecturally and historically significant historic district.
Residents would need on-street parking permits that are not offered to them.
A car-share vehicle is located within one block of the development.

For projects that fall outside all four of those categories, the city still cannot require more than one parking space per unit.³ Because many SB 35 projects target infill sites near transit, the practical result for most developers is zero required parking.

Combining SB 35 With Density Bonus Law

SB 35 streamlining and California’s Density Bonus Law are separate tools, and a project can use both. Density Bonus Law allows a project to exceed the base zoning density by 5% to 35% depending on the number and depth of affordable units provided, and a qualifying project can receive concessions that reduce construction costs along with waivers from development standards like height limits or setbacks.

Any concessions or waivers obtained through Density Bonus Law are treated as consistent with the city’s objective standards for SB 35 review. The city cannot use the density bonus features as a reason to deny the streamlined application, and it cannot refuse a concession unless it proves the concession would cause a specific public health, safety, or environmental problem. The burden of proof sits with the city.

Public Input and Local Zoning

SB 35 does not include a public hearing step. Because the process is ministerial and CEQA is waived, neighbors and local organizations have no formal venue to oppose a qualifying project through the usual planning channels. The law also does not change a jurisdiction’s underlying zoning: a developer still has to conform to the allowed density, height, and setback rules. What it removes is the discretionary layer that cities have used to reject projects that already comply with their own codes. Jurisdictions that want to shape SB 35 outcomes have to do it on the front end, by rewriting zoning and design standards in objective, measurable form.

1
Southern California Association of Governments. SB 35 Affordable Housing Streamlined Approval
2
California Department of Housing and Community Development. Updated Streamlined Ministerial Approval Process
3
California Legislative Information. California Government Code GOV 65913.4