California Senate Bill 79
Capacity by mandate.
Redistribution by constraint.
SB 79 requires eligible cities to allow dense housing near transit through statewide zoning standards. It includes baseline affordability requirements, but those requirements do not determine where capacity is absorbed. This site maps how those rules interact.
- 128 currently modeled station groups in LA From 471 qualifying stop records — 454 Metro rail stops plus 17 G Line / Orange Line BRT stops — deduplicated by platform and station hub. This is the project's analytical station-group count, not the full legal universe of SCAG-mapped SB 79 stops. LA City DCP uses 145 administrative TOD zones, and the City’s Low-Rise geography uses 57 Opportunity Station Areas; these counts are methodologically distinct.
- 0.5 mi TOD buffer radius This site models each station group with a half-mile radius. Legal implementation depends on parcel-level distance to a qualifying pedestrian access point and the applicable 200-foot, ¼-mile, or ½-mile distance band.
- FAR 2.5–4.5 entitlement range, by transit tier, distance, and adjacency Floor area ratio varies by transit tier (Tier 1 or Tier 2), distance band (200 ft / ¼ mi / ½ mi), and adjacency intensifier. The highest standard — FAR 4.5, 95 ft, 160 du/ac — applies when the project parcel is within 200 feet of a qualifying Tier 1 pedestrian access point. Supports 80–160 units per acre across the range.
- July 1, 2026 operative date for cities
- 7% / 10% / 13% baseline affordability thresholds (ELI / VLI / LI) Projects with 11 or more units must include 7% extremely low-income, 10% very low-income, or 13% lower-income units — unless a stricter local rule applies.
What SB 79 does
Statewide Capacity Standards, Uneven Protection
California Senate Bill 79 (SB 79), signed by Governor Newsom in 2025, requires eligible jurisdictions in urban transit counties to allow increased housing capacity within half a mile of qualifying transit stops. Local zoning codes, general plan designations, and parking minimums cannot override the standard. The law became operative July 1, 2026 for cities.
SB 79's development standards vary by transit tier, distance band, and adjacency to station access points. The full statutory range runs from FAR 2.5 to FAR 4.5 and from 80 to 160 dwelling units per acre, with the highest standards applying when a project parcel is within approximately 200 feet of a qualifying station access point. For reference: Koreatown, one of LA's densest established neighborhoods, averages roughly 45–65 units/acre. Single-family residential areas of the San Fernando Valley average 4–7. The new standards exceed current density by ten times or more in some affected corridors.
SB 79 includes baseline affordability requirements — projects with 11 or more units must include 7% extremely low-income, 10% very low-income, or 13% lower-income units, unless a stricter local rule applies. But those thresholds do not resolve the central question: where will capacity land, and who will bear its cost?
Los Angeles now implements SB 79 through a localized framework built around the Low-Rise Ordinance and Phased Implementation Ordinance. That local framework changes where capacity is delayed, retained, increased, or shifted, while SCAG mapping and HCD review remain active implementation dependencies.
The mechanism
The law's mechanism may channel feasible development toward locations where land costs, parcel conditions, local constraints, and project economics make construction more likely — the model identifies exposure, not guaranteed construction outcomes.
The available spatial data suggests feasible receiving areas may include lower-land-cost communities with fewer historic protections and above-average displacement-risk indicators.
The analysis indicates that the communities facing the greatest housing cost burden may not be the primary beneficiaries of this mechanism.
- 20 station areas flagged for Alternative Plan review Of 128 named station groups. Threshold: locally designated historic resources must cover >10% of the TOD zone.
- 63 HPOZs in LA City Historic Preservation Overlay Zones (HPOZs). Concentrated in Brentwood, Hancock Park, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Highland Park, and Los Feliz.
- 18 stations with redistribution score above 60 Redistribution Pressure Score >60. Adjacent to potential Alternative Plan zones; above-average renter burden. 15 stations are in the high-pressure tier (score ≥66).
The mechanism and its consequence
Who Can Shift Capacity—and Where It May Be Absorbed
SB 79 allows a city to file an Alternative Plan for a station area when locally designated historic resources cover more than 10% of the transit-oriented development zone. Eligible designations include Historic Preservation Overlay Zones (HPOZs) and Historic-Cultural Monuments (HCMs). State and federal historic designations do not qualify.
An Alternative Plan must maintain total net zoned capacity. Capacity shifted away from one area must be accommodated elsewhere — the citywide total cannot decrease. When capacity is shifted away from one area, equivalent capacity must be maintained elsewhere.
In Los Angeles, HPOZ designations are concentrated in higher-income, higher-homeownership neighborhoods. The available data suggests receiving zones, without historic protection, concentrate in South LA and the Southeast Valley, in communities with above-average renter rates and below-median household incomes.
What this site shows
The Maps page presents the current analytical atlas for modeled SB 79 geography, redistribution pressure, compound vulnerability, and 3D capacity context.
The local Alternative Plan pathway is framed around historic-resource criteria. This site separately models where those criteria overlap with neighborhood exposure indicators.