Will New CEQA Reforms Bring More Housing to California?

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

California is the most expensive state in the country to buy a house for a host of reasons, including a lack of inventory and high costs of building. One oft-blamed culprit is the California Environmental Quality Act. Developers say CEQA, enacted in 1970, made housing more expensive by piling on environmental regulations and making it too easy for individuals to file lawsuits against projects in their communities. This summer, the state legislature amended the law with the goal of making it faster and less expensive to build housing in California. We’ll talk about how much of a difference CEQA reform could make in addressing the Bay Area’s housing shortage and where – and when – we might see new developments. Guests: Adhiti Bandlamudi, housing reporter, KQED Sarah Karlinsky, director of research and policy, Terner Center for Housing Innovation, University of California, Berkeley Buffy Wicks, member, California State Assembly - she represents California’s 15th Assembly District, which includes all or portions of the cities of Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany, El Cerrito, San Pablo, Pinole, El Sobrante, Hercules, Kensington, and Piedmont Patrick Kennedy, owner, Panoramic Interests - a development firm that has been building in the Bay Area since 1990 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Kiki Weedy Podcasts comes from San Francisco Opera,
0:03.7	accompanied sister Helen Prejean on a life-altering journey where her faith is put to the test.
0:08.4	This fall celebrate the homecoming of one of America's most important operas, Dead Man Walking.
0:13.1	September 14th through the 28th.
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0:18.1	So, Benny's parents, thanks for coming. Hi-ya. So, Benny has really blossomed this term. You're telling me, he outgrew his bike. We sold it, on eBay. Oh, that's not quite what I meant. It's free to sell on there. Free to sell? Easy too. Sold Benny's bike, your guitar, my jacket. You sold my guitar? Shall we talk about Benny? When it's this easy to sell for free,
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0:46.4	From KQED.
1:02.6	No. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:08.2	We're back this morning with more on the changes to our state's landmark environmental legislation,
1:11.8	the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.
1:17.3	Today we're going to be talking about the new legislation that amended CEQA with state assembly member Buffy Wicks who drove that change.
1:21.0	Then we'll step back to consider how much a revised CEQA could actually change housing
1:26.2	production in the region with a panel of experts.
1:29.4	That's all coming up next, right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:52.3	You know, for decades, developers have wanted changes to CEQA, the California legislation that required them to create environmental impact reports and open them up to
2:01.9	lawsuits by anybody who thought their reports were inadequate.
2:05.8	Yesterday, we talked about the policy context for CEQA and when it was passed in our state
2:10.9	and also in our times.
2:13.3	Today, we're going to look at whether the changes to CEQA, pushed by state assembly member Buffy Wix,
	...

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