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You may not have seen the headlines (there weren鈥檛 any). You may have missed the raucous debate (there wasn鈥檛 much of one). But with the last week, California is now on the verge of laying down a welcome mat for most major affordable housing projects across the state.

That鈥檚 not because of a single bill, but a patchwork of current and former legislation that, taken together, 鈥渂asically covers any flavor of affordable housing you could possibly want to build,鈥� said Linda Mandolini, president of Eden Housing, an affordable housing development nonprofit.

Homes designated for low-income occupants, like all housing projects, face a gauntlet of potential challenges and hold-ups that add to the in California. Those hurdles include lawsuits filed under the , extensive public hearings and other forms of opposition from local government.

Now, affordable housing projects 鈥� in most places and most of the time 鈥� may soon be exempt from all that, fitted out in a suit of procedural armor made up of some half a dozen bills and laws.

A bill now sitting on the governor鈥檚 desk would cover up one of the last chinks in that armor. , authored by two Democratic Assemblymembers, of San Diego and of Oakland, would exempt certain affordable apartment developments from review under CEQA. To qualify, projects would have to be located in dense urban areas, set aside each unit for someone earning less than 80% the area median income and abide by , among other requirements.

Though modest and technical-sounding, that鈥檚 unusually broad for new construction in California.

鈥淚 do think it鈥檚 gonna be very consequential but it鈥檚 kind of flown under the radar,鈥� Alvarez said. His explanation why: 鈥淭he politics of where Californians are and certainly where the Legislature is 鈥� we want to see results. We want to see housing being produced.鈥�

Taken together with a handful of other bills and current laws, said Mark Stivers, a lobbyist with the California Housing Partnership, which co-sponsored AB 1449, the new legislation 鈥渆ffectively make it possible for affordable housing providers to develop nearly all viable sites in California by-right and exempt from CEQA review.鈥�

Speeding up approval for these projects comes with a trade-off. Environmental justice organizations, labor unions and various opponents of new development see CEQA as a vital tool to weigh in on what gets built, where and and under what terms.

鈥淥ur communities rely heavily on CEQA to be able to get more information about proposed developments that might be contributing to further pollution,鈥� said Grecia Orozco, a staff attorney with the nonprofit Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.

Local activists also often flood the public meetings of city councils and planning boards to pressure elected officials to or extract concessions from developers.

Whether AB 1449 and a handful of similar bills become law is now up to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Supporters have reason to be optimistic. The Newsom administration is pushing local governments to approve an by 2030, he called the and in the spring he aimed at speeding up environmental challenges to projects 鈥� though .

He has until Oct. 14 to sign or veto the bills now sitting on his desk.

A patchwork of carve-outs

The Alvarez-Wicks bill isn鈥檛 the first legislative effort to grease the skids for new affordable housing.

Two others, both authored by San Francisco Democratic Sen. , would force local governments to automatically approve and most affordable housing projects on the , so long as they comply with a list of zoning, affordability and labor requirements.

A third piece of legislation by San Jose Democratic Sen. exempts the decision by local governments to from environmental challenges, too. Newsom already signed it.

Still awaiting the governor鈥檚 pen are a handful of bills that make it more difficult to stall housing projects through environmental lawsuits in general. That includes a bill by Sen. , a Berkeley Democrat, that would make it easier for or 鈥渟olely intended to cause unnecessary delay.鈥� Another by Assemblymember , a San Francisco Democrat, would give local officials a .

The Ting proposal was fiercely opposed by many environmental activists and the State Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella group that represents many unionized construction workers. The bill would also make it more difficult for courts to award legal fees to groups that sue to block projects through CEQA.

J.P. Rose, a staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which regularly brings such suits, called that provision 鈥渢he largest weakening of CEQA in recent history.鈥�

The fact that this long list of bills passed the Legislature 鈥� some by healthy margins 鈥� amounts to a notable political shift, said Christopher Elmendorf, a law professor at UC Davis who advised Ting on the bill.

鈥淚 think it illustrates that a sea change is underfoot in how people are starting to think about these environmental review laws,鈥� he said, though he noted that the shift in California is still modest compared to those underway in other states.

Earlier this year, the Washington legislature nearly unanimously passed a law to from that state鈥檚 environmental protection law.

The grand bargain continued

Many of the California bills build on a law passed last year that streamlines affordable housing construction along commercial corridors.

In cobbling together , its author, Wicks, : In exempting certain housing projects from environmental challenge and other local hurdles, developers would pay workers a higher minimum wage, provide them with health care benefits and abide by other stricter labor standards. That trade was the and breaking up a legislative logjam that had stymied housing production bills for years.

It also provided a template for Wiener鈥檚 two streamlining bills this year, along with the Alvarez-Wicks CEQA exemption proposal.

鈥淭hat really laid the foundation for those of us who did work in the housing space this year,鈥� said Alvarez.

Not every pro-housing advocate or CEQA critic is so content with the bargain.

鈥淎 lot of these bills help a little,鈥� said Jennifer Hernandez, a land use attorney at the law firm Holland & Knight, who has for years. But she notes that swapping out the threat of environmental litigation with higher payroll expenses just replaces one cost with another.

In practice, she said, these exemptions are only likely to clear the way for substantial new housing construction in higher cost areas where developers can make up the difference by charging higher rents to non-subsidized residents. 鈥淵ou really need premium rentals to pay for those higher labor standards,鈥� she said.

But for many affordable housing developers, it鈥檚 still a trade worth making.

鈥淵ou鈥檝e got really strong laws, clear exemptions, and an attorney general who鈥檚 willing to step up and say you got to build it,鈥� said Mandolini with Eden Housing, who has been working on housing in the state for more than two decades. 鈥淭his is the best it has been in California鈥�If this had all existed 20 years ago, we might have built a lot more housing a lot faster.鈥�

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