SF County is 47 square miles. The AI boom — led by OpenAI and Anthropic — is pulling high-income workers and wealth back into the city. C.A.R. pegs the SF County median near $2.13M, up 19.5% year-over-year (the broader Bay Area region, by contrast, slipped ~1.3%). Single-family inventory has stayed brutally tight, and office-to-residential conversions are crawling.

As of the latest county data (January 2026), the median sits near $520K — essentially flat — while sales fall and homes sit longer. The demand thesis rests on Bay Area access via ACE, but the Valley Rail extension to Manteca, Modesto, Ceres and Sacramento still isn’t running as of mid-2026. Until those trains arrive, buyers are pricing against local wages.

California banned owner-occupancy requirements for ADUs with AB 976, effective January 1, 2024 (now Gov. Code §66315). It's not pending — it's two-year-old law, and local ordinances that still impose it are unenforceable.

The "30 days and it's auto-approved" shorthand mixes up two laws. AB 2234's missed deadlines trigger Housing Accountability Act liability, not approval. The real "deemed approved" lever is AB 253, effective October 2025 — which lets you bring in a private plan checker.

Now Chapter 789, SB 838 (Durazo) does amend the Housing Accountability Act — but it narrows protection for developers, carving hotels and motels out of mixed-use "housing" projects. The laws that actually curb cities' power to reject housing are AB 1893 and AB 130.

AB 1893 (effective Jan 1, 2025) lets developers bypass local zoning in cities without a state-compliant housing element, in exchange for modest affordability. With 15 cities just put on notice and the first court test already lost by a city, resistance is getting expensive.

In November, residents vote on the “Responsible Housing Initiative” — slashing the city’s capacity from ~8,200 homes to ~2,900, and routing future decisions back to the ballot. A judge upheld the current plan in June 2025. If the measure passes, the city could lose state certification and face the builder’s remedy citywide.

SB 79 (Wiener), signed October 2025 and taking effect July 1, 2026, makes qualifying high-density housing a by-right use near rail and Bus Rapid Transit stops in eight counties — including all four core Bay Area counties. Cities can adopt alternative transit plans, but cannot lower the development ceiling.