Status: ACTIVE
Senate Bill 677 (Wiener)
What the bill does:
SB 677 authored by Senator Scott Wiener addresses two separate but related barriers to housing production. First, it closes a gap in existing law: while postentitlement permits are already protected from frivolous appeals, parcel maps and subdivisions are not. In San Francisco's Mission and Bernal Heights neighborhoods, several affordable housing projects were delayed by parcel map appeals on grounds unrelated to the map itself, and the appeals were ultimately denied anyway. But the delay alone can be costly, particularly for projects with grant funding or tax-exempt financing on a clock. SB 677 prohibits interested-person appeals of parcel maps for housing development on urban infill sites served by public water and sewer, while preserving the ability of public officials, advisory bodies, and the applicant to appeal.
Second, the bill fixes a bottleneck in the tax-exempt bond process. Affordable projects awarded private activity bonds by CDLAC still need a local elected official to hold a TEFRA hearing and sign off before the bonds can close. When a jurisdiction drags its feet, developers are forced to transfer the bond issuance to a different issuer, an expensive, time-consuming workaround that can blow through financing windows entirely. SB 677 lets the State Treasurer enter a Joint Powers Authority that can provide TEFRA approval directly, giving developers a reliable backstop when local approval stalls. Together, the two provisions target avoidable delay at two distinct chokepoints, entitlement and financing, without touching the substantive review process itself.
Why this bill matters:
Parcel map appeals and TEFRA delays are two of the lucrative ways housing gets stalled, since neither involves a substantive planning objection. They're procedural chokepoints that can kill a project's financing timeline even when the underlying entitlement is sound. That's especially damaging for affordable projects, where tax-exempt bonds and grant funds often come with hard expiration dates, so a delay isn't just a delay, it can mean losing the financing altogether and having to recompete in a future funding cycle.
SB 677 removes standing for "interested persons" to appeal parcel maps on urban infill sites with public water and sewer service, while still preserving appeal rights for public officials, advisory bodies, and the applicant. On the financing side, it lets the State Treasurer join a Joint Powers Authority that can step in and provide TEFRA approval when a local elected official won't hold the hearing or sign off, so developers aren't forced into the costly, time-consuming process of transferring their bond issuance to another jurisdiction.
Contact Ali Sapirman at Ali@housingactioncoalition.org for more information.
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