On June 30, 2025 California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law AB 130 and SB 131, the most significant reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in decades. These changes are a vital course correction—restoring CEQA’s original mission of environmental protection while finally clearing a path for the housing and infrastructure that California desperately needs.
AB 130 exempts qualifying urban infill housing projects from CEQA review provided they comply with existing zoning and avoid sensitive areas like wetlands, historic sites, or high fire-risk zones. The reform clears a path for dense, transit-accessible housing where urban infrastructure already exists.
SB 131 goes further, streamlining or exempting a broader range of climate-aligned and public-serving projects: affordable housing, wildfire mitigation, water infrastructure, childcare centers, broadband, public transit, and even high-speed rail. Importantly, projects still must comply with zoning, design standards, and environmental safeguards. Tribal consultation and habitat protections remain intact.
Since these two bills went into effect, I’ve heard dozens of responses from all sides of the architecture community. Developers say these reforms are long overdue. Preservationists say they weaken oversight and reduce public input. As an architect I see this as only the beginning of dismantling a bureaucratic machine that has turned delay into policy, deepening the housing crisis that has left millions priced out or fighting over inadequate housing scraps.
CEQA as a Visionary Policy
When CEQA was passed in 1970, it was groundbreaking: building on the newly enacted federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), California became the first state to require its own public projects to study and mitigate environmental impacts, at a time when smog choked Los Angeles and unchecked development threatened wetlands, farmland, and communities. CEQA was a visionary policy. Mono Lake stands as proof of its power: CEQA compelled action that stabilized a collapsing ecosystem and protected a haven for migratory birds. However, a court decision dramatically expanded CEQA’s reach. In Friends of Mammoth v. Board of Supervisors (1972), the California Supreme Court ruled that CEQA applied not only to public works but also to private projects requiring any government approval. Since all construction projects require a government-issued building permit, suddenly every construction project in the state of California was potentially within the jurisdiction of CEQA.
That interpretation transformed CEQA from a shield against pollution into a powerful weapon to block nearly any kind of construction. Over the decades, CEQA lawsuits have been used not just to stop environmentally harmful projects, but to delay or kill housing, homeless shelters, bike lanes, solar farms, and even California’s high-speed rail, which has now been stalled for nearly 20 years. While CEQA has prevented some projects with genuine risks, it has more often been manipulated into a tool of obstruction for the “Not in My Backyard” folks (NIMBYs) whose first priority is guarding their property values, not the vitality, health and growth of their cities.
I have experienced this firsthand through my architecture practice, Marmol Radziner. A client of ours spent years entitling a multifamily development at the former Sportsman’s Lodge in Studio City: 520 apartments, including 78 designated for very low-income households, plus ground-floor retail and a public connection to the Los Angeles Riverwalk. It took three years just to get the approvals from the Los Angeles City Council. And now? The project is tied up in yet another lawsuit, filed by the local Neighborhood Council under CEQA. Not over pollution or loss of habitat, but rather, alleges that the City improperly applied an expedited review process designed for projects that support local sustainability goals.
AB 130 and SB 131 have been small and vital steps toward restoring CEQA’s original mission: protecting the natural world while allowing us to responsibly shape the one we build.
These reforms won’t solve California’s housing crisis overnight. But they do something critical: they cut through duplicative reviews and frivolous lawsuits, ensuring projects already aligned with State and local plans don’t get mired in years of legal delay. The reforms make it possible to build the housing and infrastructure California urgently needs: dense, transit-accessible homes for families, solar farms to power our future, transit that helps us break car dependence, and wildfire-resilient infrastructure to protect communities.
Just the Beginning
Reforming CEQA alone is not enough. We still face barriers of restrictive zoning, exorbitant permitting fees, and a fear of change that would rather see neighborhoods preserved in amber than allow them to evolve to meet today’s housing needs. If we truly care about future generations, we must build. If we fail, housing will remain a privilege, not a right.
I don’t say all this only as an architect. I say all this as a father of two teenagers who will one day struggle to establish lives in our beloved State. If California can’t deliver on the basic social contract—affordably housing its people and growing sustainably—we risk losing not only families and talent to other States, but faith in democracy itself. CEQA reform is only a beginning. Now we must finish the job and establish clear, efficient and predictable pathways to building the housing, infrastructure and transportation networks that we so desperately need.
Leo Marmol is the cofounder of the architect-led design-build practice Marmol Radziner, founded in 1989 with Ron Radziner. Based in Los Angeles, with offices in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, the firm is known for its innovative approach that includes architecture, construction, landscape architecture, interior design, and fabrication. Since its inception, the firm has developed a reputation for innovative design, sustainable architecture, and prolific restoration work.
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