This is a short general-information note on developments that have been showing up in Bay Area real estate, land use, and California landlord-tenant work. It is not legal advice and does not address any particular property or tenancy. Confirm current statutes, ordinances, and case filings before relying on them.
Senate Bill 79, the 2025 transit-oriented housing law, has been in effect since July 1, 2026. In the Bay Area it currently applies in Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties. Contra Costa County is not in that first group, so Richmond and Point Richmond zoning remain primarily a local matter unless a later map or statute changes that. Cities that are covered have been adopting local caps, historic exemptions, and industrial-land carveouts. Palo Alto’s local limits did not take effect until mid-July, and several projects near Caltrain were filed in the short window when the state’s height and density standards applied in full. The practical pattern is familiar: the filing date relative to the local ordinance can matter as much as the project description.
On the residential-tenancy side, the January 1, 2026 package is the current rule set. Assembly Bill 628 treats a working stove and refrigerator as part of habitability unless the landlord and tenant agree the tenant will supply them. Assembly Bill 414 requires electronic return of a security deposit when the deposit was paid electronically, unless the parties agree otherwise. Senate Bill 610 adds landlord duties after a natural disaster. Assembly Bill 246 allows a Social Security hardship showing as a justification for nonpayment of rent in an eviction proceeding. Those statutes are already in force; the open question is how they get pleaded in habitability, deposit, and unlawful detainer files.
A federal case filed July 17, 2026 in the Eastern District of California, Manning v. Kish, challenges California’s requirement that landlords accept Section 8 vouchers, including the inspections that come with the federal program, on Fourth Amendment grounds. New York has already limited a similar mandate. California’s rule has not been struck down. It is a case to watch if source-of-income rules and inspection access are in issue.
Locally, Richmond has already granted entitlements this year for the reduced Quarry project at 1135 Canal Boulevard in Point Richmond (76 small-lot single-family homes) and for Marina Point in Marina Bay (70 homes plus junior accessory dwelling units, with shoreline-park conditions). Those are approved projects, not new overnight headlines, but they are the current land-use backdrop on the waterfront and the Canal Boulevard hillside.
Rules and dockets change. Read the current text and the actual application file, not a weekly summary.