California Struggles to Produce Needed Housing Amid CEQA Roadblocks

Lawmakers turn to CEQA workarounds, but experts say the state needs to update its primary environmental review law to address the housing crisis.

Jan. 27, 2026 at 3:55pm

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California's housing crisis continues, with homeownership drifting further out of reach for most people. New housing construction remains stubbornly low relative to the state's housing demand. Rather than fully reforming the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which plays a significant role in blocking and slowing housing development, California lawmakers have increasingly turned to workarounds. Experts say the state needs to move beyond temporary fixes and align CEQA with housing realities.

Why it matters

CEQA was designed to ensure environmental impacts are considered in projects, but it has evolved into a system where lawsuits can be filed by nearly anyone, for almost any reason, often long after a project complies with zoning and local planning rules. This has allowed environmental review to function less as a safeguard and more as a procedural veto on housing development, exacerbating the state's housing crisis.

The details

Since 2014, the median home price has more than doubled statewide. California has slowly been forced to confront the growing conflict between its need for more housing and the ways CEQA impedes housing development. Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed laws that narrow CEQA review for housing, but these changes shield certain projects from CEQA rather than updating the law itself. If housing can only be built by repeatedly bypassing the state's primary environmental review law, then the law needs to be changed.

  • Since 2014, the median home price has more than doubled statewide.
  • Most recently, Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131 created some of the most significant CEQA reforms in decades.

The players

Gavin Newsom

The Governor of California who has signed laws to narrow CEQA review for housing.

Christina Mojica

A senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation who wrote the article.

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What they’re saying

“If housing can only be built by repeatedly bypassing the state's primary environmental review law, then the law needs to be changed.”

— Christina Mojica, Senior Policy Analyst

The takeaway

California's recent CEQA reforms move in the right direction by narrowing the law's reach, but the state needs to go further and update CEQA's core framework to align it with housing realities. Relying on a growing patchwork of exemptions is not a sustainable solution, as it fails to resolve the underlying problems that CEQA poses for housing development.