The Architectural and Design Review Commission at its June 17 meeting held a Study Session to review recent California state housing legislation that will affect development in the city.
The commission heard reports on Assembly Bill (AB) 130, AB 2011, Senate Bill (SB) 131, SB 35, SB 684, SB 4 and SB 79.
“These laws affect housing development projects in multiple areas of the city, including residential, commercial, transit-oriented and institutional areas, and may allow multiple state housing laws to be combined for additional development incentives and streamlining benefits,” said Aaron Savage, an associate planner for the city who presented the review at the meeting. “These statutory changes significantly affect how local projects are processed.”
The laws reviewed by the commission will impact new projects in the city, in part, by expanding the use of ministerial approval processes, which require local governments to approve development projects based on objective standards rather than discretionary standards, and by changing certain timelines used by cities to review qualifying projects.
State officials began passing new housing legislation to help facilitate the development of residential units, said Chloe Chen, a principal planner for the city.
“The state legislature, in recent years, has identified that the state of California has a housing crisis, and so they’ve passed a series of laws, including the ones we’ve shown you here, that are designed to encourage housing production,” she said. “They are doing that by allowing ministerial review processes, because that bypasses most of the discretionary review that cities exercise right now on those projects.”
AB 2011, passed in 2022, imposes a ministerial approval process on certain qualifying multi-family and mixed-use residential developments in commercial zones. To qualify for AB 2011, a project must be comprised of either 100% affordable housing or mixed-income housing, depending on its location.
Beverly Hills is currently processing two AB 2011 mixed-income projects: a 34-story development at 8300 Wilshire Boulevard, and a four-building project with heights between nine and 15 stories at 9220 North Santa Monica Boulevard.
SB 79, passed in 2025, significantly increases the density, height and floor-area ratio (FAR) allowed in qualifying properties within one-quarter of a mile of certain public transit stops, including the new Metro D Line stations in Beverly Hills.
On June 9, the Beverly Hills City Council voted to adopt a Transit-Oriented Development Alternative Plan, which, if approved by the state, will shift 50% of the permitted density away from single-family neighborhoods in the area and into a mixed-use overlay zone along the north and south blocks of Wilshire Boulevard east of La Cienega Boulevard.
Applicants will not be able to submit SB 79 projects until July 1, when the law goes into effect.
“It obviously makes it easier for developers to get things approved, and I believe that’s the goal,” said Commissioner Jeffrey Daniels of SB 79.
AB 130 and SB 131, both passed in 2025, collectively provide a statutory exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for qualifying projects on vacant, abandoned or underutilized land, known as infill development projects.
The laws additionally impose approval timelines, public noticing requirements and tribal consultations.
The remaining Senate bills reviewed by the commission impose streamlined ministerial approval processes for certain qualifying residential developments, including multi-family developments in cities and counties that the state identifies as not having made sufficient progress towards their Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers; subdivision and residential developments that will result in 10 or fewer lots or units; and proposed projects on sites owned by a religious institution or independent institution of higher education.
The City Council adopted an ordinance on May 19 that established a uniform ministerial review process for qualifying housing development projects that fall under the jurisdiction of the new laws. That ordinance went into effect on June 19.
Commission Chair Rebecca Pynoos recommended to city staff that more outreach be done in the southern region of the city which, she said, “is an area that’s going to get a lot of these developments.”
“I think it’s important that people understand these projects now, before they show up,” she said. “We are likely to get a number, a mixture of all these coming down the pipeline and you can only be as proactive as possible. This is not on everyone’s radar. It’s not in everyone’s interest until there’s a project, usually, but if there’s any opportunity to hold an evening public meeting at La Cienega or at Roxbury, or both … explaining what’s in our hands, what’s out of our hands; I know that state law doesn’t require us to disseminate that information, but I think we, as a small community, should.”
The Architectural and Design Review Commission will hold its next regular meeting on July 15.
