Earlier this year California lawmakers delivered an historic victory for champions of more housing construction by exempting most urban apartment developments from the California Environmental Quality Act, a 50-year-old statute that Yes In My Backyard advocates and the building industry have long blamed as an impediment to building more homes.

A bill proposed Monday night, just days before the end of the legislative session, would punch a very small hole in that landmark law that appears to apply to just one proposed apartment building in California — in the district represented by the incoming leader of the state Senate.

Senate Bill 158 would subject any project within a city of more than 85,000 but fewer than 95,000 people and within a county of between 440,000 and 455,000 people to

See Full Page