California passed an astounding 209 laws between 2017 and 2025 to address the state’s housing crisis. While these legislative efforts are welcome, the volume of new laws has made it increasingly challenging for housing developers, planners, and community advocates to navigate the legal landscape. SPUR’s new guide empowers stakeholders to harness these legislative tools for effective housing solutions.

San Francisco’s permitting system determines what gets built, how quickly businesses can open, and whether public infrastructure projects move forward or stall. But structural inefficiencies in the current system can result in lengthy delays, increased costs, and a sense of governmental obstruction. SPUR’s latest report offers recommendations to modernize the city’s permitting system so San Francisco can grow and adapt to change.

SPUR urges San José to allow more flexibility to create missing middle housing throughout the city. SPUR emphasizes that restrictive zoning has contributed to the housing shortage and increases in density are necessary to improve affordability and expand housing choices.

This letter, signed by dozens of California environmental organizations including SPUR, urges Governor Newsom and the California Air Resources Board to remove a proposed Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive from the Cap-and-Invest rulemaking, warning that creating 118 million additional allowances outside the emissions cap would undermine California's 2030 climate targets. The groups also argue the proposal would shift billions of dollars away from household affordability programs and ratepayer relief toward subsidies for polluting industries, and that the rushed 15-day amendment process violates the Administrative Procedures Act.