On June 30, 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two budget trailer bills—AB 130 and SB 131—that together work major changes both to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and California housing law. Because these bills were passed as part of the budget, they take effect immediately, making time of essence for a wide range of stakeholders to understand the scope and breadth of what they contain.
In broad strokes, the two bills create a series of changes to existing law that will have major ramifications:
CEQA changes
- A significantly expanded, wide-ranging suite of CEQA exemptions;
- A new way to mitigate significant transportation-related impacts—the Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Fund;
- Litigation streamlining for certain types of projects, as well as administrative record reform;
- Withdrawing Coastal Commission appeal jurisdiction for certain housing projects and requiring Coastal Commission reporting for appealed housing projects; and
- Directing the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (formerly the Office of Planning and Research) to engage in rulemaking to effectuate infill housing streamlining.
Housing changes
- Streamlining application processing for housing projects;
- Ministerial processing clean-up actions for certain housing projects;
- Building code updates;
- CEQA streamlining for mixed use and infill residential projects;
- Transit-oriented development; and
- A wide-ranging list of housing clean-up actions addressing mortgage processing, tenants’ rights, affordable housing funding and many others
Due to the magnitude of the changes worked by AB 130 and SB 131 to both CEQA and housing law, Brownstein will roll out a series of client alerts focusing on these broad categories over the next several weeks. This forthcoming series on AB 130 and SB 131 is intended to provide bite-sized, digestible chunks of information that can help stakeholders understand what these two bills mean to them.
