The Redwood City City Council voted unanimously Monday to abide by regulations in a state law that went into effect July 1 to increase housing around major transit hubs in California.
Councilmember Isabella Chu said cities that have historically resisted housing development may be caught flat-footed by the new law, Senate Bill 79. Signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall, SB 79 allows multistory housing within a half-mile of a station served by heavy rail, commuter rail, light rail or rapid bus, an area called a transit-oriented development zone.
A neighboring city, Palo Alto, received six applications from developers since July 1.
“I think that our city has been very focused on transit-oriented development,” said Chu. “I think that we’re already ahead of the wave, which is why it’s not crashing over us.”
SB 79 is applicable only in counties with more than 15 passenger rail stations. In the Bay Area, these counties are San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara.
SB 79 sets statewide standards for the height, density and residential floor area ratio of housing developments. The residential floor area ratio limits the square footage of a building by the lot size. If the project has more than 11 units, affordable housing must be included.
Distance dictates height
According to SB 79, the height of the building is dictated by the distance from the station, also called a transit-oriented development stop. A building 200 feet from a stop may rise to 95 feet or nine to 10 stories. Buildings farther away from the hub will be shorter — within a quarter-mile, up to 75 feet, and within a half-mile, up to 65 feet or about six stories.
The Caltrain station in downtown Redwood City is the only eligible transit-oriented development stop in the city.
Redwood City is already geared toward transit-oriented housing. The city created its transit district in 2022 and initiated its Greater Downtown Area Plan in 2024. The plan, expected to finalize next year, began with extensive community engagement and includes housing development around the Caltrain core.
In addition, Redwood City received funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional transportation planning agency, to study residential and commercial development within the half-mile radius of the train station.
Redwood City senior planner Ellen Yau presented a map that showed significant overlap between the city’s Greater Downtown Area Plan zone and the state’s SB 79 transit-oriented development zone.
“Altogether, these efforts demonstrate that the city has consistently supported and taken action intended to increase housing supply and prioritize development near transit,” said Yau.
Limits to the law
Yau said that in the near term, SB 79 will have “limited impact” on the city, because, in addition to other factors, many of the property parcels within the zone have entitlements, the legal right bestowed by local governments to build.
To comply with SB 79, eligible cities have three options — accept the state standards as is; temporarily exclude eligible sites, such as sites that meet 50% of state standards in housing density, historic sites, or sites in low-resource areas; or adopt a bespoke transit-oriented development alternative plan, subject to approval by the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
The Redwood City Planning Commission recommended that the City Council adopt the state standards as is while concurrently creating a local alternative transit-oriented development plan for spring 2027.
Confident that Redwood City could meet the moment, the City Council approved the planning commission’s recommendations.
“I really love that we have all these planners here tonight, because sometimes when the economy is raging and really hot, the developers get ahead of us,” said Vice Mayor Kaia Eakin. “I just think the best kind of planning is planning, and not developer driven.”
