Last night Governor Newsom signed a new bill into law, Assembly Bill 2097. This bill eliminates parking requirements for new residential developments near public transit. This bill will open up new development opportunities in locations that previously had archaic parking requirements that either made the projects cost prohibitive or eliminated certain options that could have housed more people.

You may have noticed many of the 3 story townhomes that were previously built in Costa Mesa, by way of example, were mostly 2 bedroom floorplans, despite being large enough for 3-4 bedrooms. These homes were a great opportunity to provide relatively affordable housing to larger families or people who wanted to live in roommate situations. The image above is a of project that we are building in Hollywood. This project consists of 2 three bedroom units in the front and 2 five bedroom units in the back. These homes are ideal for young adults, multigenerational families and others  who want to live in a roommate situation in walkable locations. The three bedroom homes in Hollywood are projected to rent for $6k per month (or $2K per room) and the five bedrooms are projected to rent for $7K per month (or $1.2K per month) when compared to a studio nearby apartment, asking over $2,500 per month, our Hollywood project is relatively affordable. Similar options will now be available throughout the state.

Now with AB 2097, we can re-envision projects and provide parking based on market driven factors, versus arbitrary requirements. For example, on our 1592 Redlands project, we are now able to consider a 5-bedroom home, whereas before we were not able to due to additional required parking. It will be interesting to see how AB2097 impacts affordable housing and creates new development opportunities.

Below is a link the Assembly Bill -

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2097