How California’s SB 35 Streamlined Housing Approval Works

California’s SB 35 streamlined housing approval process requires cities and counties that have fallen behind on their state housing targets to approve qualifying multifamily projects ministerially — without public hearings, discretionary review, or environmental review under CEQA — as long as the project meets the law’s affordability, labor, siting, and objective-design requirements. Enacted in 2017 and codified at Government Code Section 65913.4, the law puts hard deadlines on local review and treats missed deadlines as automatic approval of consistency with local standards.

What Ministerial Approval Actually Means

Ministerial approval is the heart of SB 35. Under a normal discretionary process, a city council or planning commission weighs a project’s merits, holds public hearings, negotiates conditions, and can reject the application for subjective reasons. Ministerial approval flips that: staff check the application against a fixed list of objective standards, and if the project meets them, it gets approved. No hearings. No subjective judgment. No conditional use permit.

Because ministerial actions are not “projects” under CEQA, qualifying SB 35 developments are exempt from environmental review.¹ A city cannot require traffic studies, air quality analyses, noise assessments, or any other CEQA-triggered work. The law does not just accelerate CEQA compliance; it removes it for eligible projects.

Does SB 35 Apply Where You Want to Build?

Not every California jurisdiction is subject to SB 35 in every year. The Department of Housing and Community Development publishes a determination by June 30 each year identifying which cities and counties must offer the streamlined process, based on each jurisdiction’s permitting progress toward its Regional Housing Needs Allocation for the current planning period.²

The affordability level a developer has to hit depends on where the jurisdiction has fallen short:

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

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

Project Eligibility

Hitting the affordability threshold alone does not qualify a project. The development must also satisfy several baseline requirements under Government Code Section 65913.4:

The project must contain two or more residential units.
The site must be a legal parcel in a city whose boundaries include some portion of an urbanized area or urban cluster, and at least 75% of the parcel’s perimeter must adjoin land developed with urban uses.
At least two-thirds of the project’s square footage must be designated for residential use.
The project must meet all objective general plan, zoning, and design review standards in effect at the time of application.

That last requirement is the most litigated part of the law. Cities sometimes argue their design guidelines are objective when they still contain subjective language. The statute draws a clear line: if a standard requires personal judgment rather than a measurable yes-or-no determination, it cannot be used to deny an SB 35 project.³ HCD’s guidelines add that even when design review is conducted by a council, board of supervisors, or planning commission, subjective standards cannot be used to block a compliant project.²

Sites That Are Off-Limits

SB 35 excludes a long list of environmentally and historically sensitive parcels, evaluated as of the application date. A project cannot use streamlined approval if the site falls within any of the following:

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.
Very high fire hazard severity zones, unless the project meets the applicable building and fire mitigation standards under Public Resources Code Sections 4290 and 4291 and Chapter 7A of the California Building Code.
Hazardous waste sites listed under Government Code Section 65962.5, with limited exceptions for underground storage tank sites that have received a closure letter.
Delineated earthquake fault zones mapped by the State Geologist.
FEMA-mapped special flood hazard areas subject to the 1% annual chance flood, or regulatory floodways.
Sites identified in natural community conservation plans, habitat conservation plans, or lands under conservation easement.
Habitat for candidate, sensitive, or fully protected species under state or federal endangered species laws.

The list is broad, but most urban infill parcels in developed areas — the kind of sites the law is designed for — will clear these restrictions.³

Deadlines and the Deemed-Approved Rule

SB 35 imposes hard deadlines that local governments cannot extend. The clock runs from application submittal:

Consistency determination: 60 days for projects of 150 or fewer units, 90 days for larger projects.
Design review: 90 days for projects of 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.

The enforcement teeth are what set SB 35 apart from earlier housing legislation. If a 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: if the city misses the deadline, the project is deemed consistent with objective design review standards.² This is the strongest enforcement tool in the law, because it strips cities of the ability to stall indefinitely.

Affordability Covenants

Developers using SB 35 do more than promise affordability. They record a binding land use restriction or covenant against the property. Rental units are locked in for 55 years; ownership units for 45 years. During those periods, the designated units must remain available at affordable housing costs to households at or below the income thresholds set in the application.³ These covenants run with the land, so they bind future owners.

Labor and Wage Rules

SB 35 projects carry California labor standards that many market-rate builders are not used to. For developments of 50 or more housing units, the developer must certify all three of the following:

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

These provisions add real cost. Prevailing wage rates for California residential construction can run significantly higher than non-prevailing rates, and the skilled-workforce requirement effectively requires union or union-equivalent labor on most projects above 50 units.³ For 100% subsidized affordable projects, the skilled-workforce requirement is waived, though prevailing wages still apply.¹

Parking Limits

SB 35 sharply restricts parking mandates. A city cannot impose any parking requirement at all when any of the following applies:

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 categories, the city still cannot require more than one parking space per unit.³ Because SB 35 projects skew toward transit-served infill sites, the practical result for most developers is zero required parking.

Stacking With Density Bonus Law

SB 35 streamlining and California’s Density Bonus Law are separate tools, and a single 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. A qualifying project can also receive concessions that reduce construction costs and waivers from development standards, such as height limits or setback requirements, that would physically prevent building at the higher density.

Any concessions or waivers obtained through Density Bonus Law are treated as consistent with the city’s objective standards for purposes of 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 city carries the burden of proof.

Trade-Offs and Criticisms

SB 35 has drawn genuine opposition. Community groups argue that ministerial review eliminates meaningful public input, because no hearings are held and CEQA review is waived. Neighbors and local organizations have no formal venue to raise concerns about a qualifying project.

The financial picture is the other persistent criticism. Prevailing wage and skilled-workforce requirements can increase construction costs by 10% to 30% compared to open-shop projects, depending on the trade and region. Combined with rent-restricted affordable units, some developers find the faster timeline doesn’t offset the higher costs. Smaller and mid-size builders without established union relationships have been particularly vocal.

There is also a distributional concern. RHNA targets are set through a regional process, and jurisdictions subject to SB 35 are the ones furthest behind on production. Critics in those cities argue they face disproportionate development pressure while wealthier, exclusionary jurisdictions that meet their above-moderate targets still avoid the law’s reach. Between 2018 and 2021, more than 18,000 housing units were proposed through SB 35 applications across 156 projects statewide.

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