Maybe mountain lion sanctuary exemptions and ultra-specific landscaping requirements weren’t necessary to keep Senate Bill 9 at bay after all, as both promises and fears of the “death of the single-family home” have failed to come to fruition.
A recent study from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation found that since taking effect in January 2022, the contentious state law has not fully materialized into the prime opportunity to expand California’s housing stock that housing advocates had hoped for—and that NIMBY neighborhoods feared.
SB 9—also known as the California HOME Act—allows property owners and developers to construct up to two housing units on parcels where only one home was