West Hollywood Will Have 43 Days to Act on SB 79. Monday Night Is the Starting Gun

West Hollywood City Council will take up an item Monday night and you can bet a lot of people will be watching. It revolves around a staff report on how the City will finally respond to SB 79, the controversial state housing law, before it kicks in on July 1.

Mayor John Heilman put the item on the May 18 agenda. He’s not asking to lock the City into anything. The item asks Council to give Staff direction, then directs Staff to come back with parcel-level mapping, legal analysis, and implementation options, with 43 days to go. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd.

Senate Bill 79, the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act, allows housing developments of five or more units near qualifying transit stations to bypass local zoning restrictions on height, density, and floor area ratio. Los Angeles County is designated as an urban transit county under the law. Obviously, West Hollywood qualifies as part of the region. The question is where the law actually bites — and how much of the City falls inside the radius.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Three Stations, One Small City

Take the K Line, for example. Metro approved the San Vicente/Fairfax alignment in March. Three stations come with it inside City limits — all along Santa Monica Boulevard: San Vicente, Fairfax and La Brea. They already qualify as Tier 2 TOD stops under SB 79. They don’t qualify when the line opens, which could be decades away. They qualify now.

There’s a fourth station at Beverly/La Cienega, but that one sits just outside the City’s border.

The City’s 2020 Census count is 35,757. That matters. Planning Director Nick Maricich confirmed to WEHOonline after the Metro vote that the City clears the 35,000 threshold in the law. “West Hollywood meets the population threshold identified in the state law,” Maricich said, “but the parcel-level implications still depend on the final mapping and stop qualification analysis.” Cities below that threshold get a quarter-mile radius around qualifying stations. West Hollywood gets the full half mile. In a 1.9-square-mile city, three overlapping half-mile radii cover a lot of ground.

There’s one more complication. SB 79 requires affordable units, which makes qualifying projects eligible for State Density Bonus Law benefits on top of it. Commit to deeper affordability and a developer gets additional height, less parking, tighter setbacks, beyond what SB 79 alone allows. The staff report flags it. Figuring out exactly how far that goes in specific locations is part of what Staff has been asked to map.

What Residents Have Been Saying

West Hollywood residents — homeowners and renters alike, from the Westside to the Eastside — have been sounding alarms on SB 79 and ZIP-related density since at least August 2025.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Jonathan Finestone, president of the West Hollywood West Residents Association, told the City at a December town hall that more than 200 residents had personally contacted him in opposition. At that meeting, residents called what they were seeing government redlining, “a taking of their private property, just disguised as rezoning.” Then-Mayor Chelsea Byers attended the meeting.

Byers told the crowd that night the City wasn’t going to fight Sacramento. “We are not going to let the City get sued into oblivion because we make some arrogant decision that we have a better attitude than the state,” she said. “We can play ball and make sure that we are working our best to be diligent and get these issues dealt with ourselves before the state comes in, or the state is going to do it for us.” She told residents the City’s hands were tied. Beverly Hills didn’t think its hands were tied. Neither did Culver City. Neither did Santa Monica. Neither are West Hollywood’s. Monday’s four-option staff report makes that clear.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Finestone told WEHOonline Wednesday morning. “The City Council’s hands are not tied unless they choose to be complicit in this redlining attack on our neighborhoods,” he said. “West Hollywood still has the ability — and in fact, the responsibility — to create its own local TODAP instead of defaulting to sweeping state-imposed upzoning. If Council refuses to act, then they are choosing to lead the redlining of our neighborhoods rather than protecting them through thoughtful local planning. This is an important moment for the City Council to protect its residents’ private property rights.”

Rainbow District businesses are a separate concern in the staff report. Some residents worry high-density housing replaces the bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and LGBTQ+-serving businesses near one of the planned stations. SB 79 bars demolition of more than two rent-controlled units occupied within the past seven years. Whether that protection holds in practice is one of the questions Staff has been directed to analyze.

What Council Can Do About It

Staff has four options in the report.

Doing nothing is one of them. SB 79 takes effect and the City doesn’t adopt a local ordinance, phase-in, or alternative plan. The staff report is honest about it — development doesn’t happen overnight, parcels have to be acquired, financing has to close, impacts come in project by project. But no action also means no say over where new density lands. Commercial corridors and single-family streets get the same treatment under state law.

A second one would be a local implementation ordinance or phase-in approach. Here the City would hold SB 79 back in specific areas — historic sites, neighborhoods that are already zoned for significant housing — while allowing it to take effect elsewhere along commercial corridors for instance. Temporary either way. Eventually the City still has to comply or replace it.

A third option mirrors what Los Angeles is doing. Rezone targeted areas above SB 79’s minimums and generate enough excess capacity to justify holding the law back in more sensitive locations. It would require the City to upzone beyond what SB 79 itself demands and needs state Department of Housing and Community Development approval before July 1. Staff said that timeline is unlikely.

The fourth is a local Transit Oriented Development Alternative Plan, or TODAP. SB 79 specifically permits it. The City writes its own plan, steers new density toward commercial corridors, keeps it away from single-family neighborhoods — as long as the total housing capacity matches or beats what SB 79 would have produced. This seems to be the overwhelming preference of many residents we’ve spoken to and heard speak at the many ZIP meetings. Staff said it could be built into the City’s Zoning Improvement Program. It takes the most time. 

The Same 3-2 Split, Twice

Council has voted on SB 79 twice before. The same three councilmembers have been on the same side both times.

Back in April 2025, the full City Council voted unanimously to send letters of support for SB 79 to state legislators while the bill was still moving through Sacramento. Councilmember Lauren Meister and then-Vice Mayor John Heilman warned of displacement risks and urged a neutral position on the record. They voted yes anyway.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

After the K Line EIFD vote passed 5-0 in April 2026, Heilman moved to direct Staff to come back with a discussion of SB 79 and whether the City should delay it in certain neighborhoods. Erickson said no. “The majority of this council supported sending the support letter for SB 79,” Erickson said. “I think having a conversation is setting the public up for a different outcome than it’s already expected.” Byers said it belongs in the Zoning Improvement Program, not that item. Hang voted with them. The motion failed 3-2. Heilman and Meister were the two votes in favor. Residents accused the majority of “shutting them down.”

Jonathan Finestone, president of the West Hollywood West Residents Association, said Monday night is a last chance to change that. “We need just one more councilmember to stand with residents,” he wrote in a mailer to neighbors, urging them to fill out two speaker cards — one for general public comment, one for the SB 79 agenda item.

What Neighboring Cities Have Done

Beverly Hills already adopted an alternative plan. Single-family zones there get 50 percent of what SB 79 would otherwise allow, with the remaining capacity shifted to commercial properties near the Wilshire/La Cienega Metro stop. Culver City is writing its own alternative plan but won’t have it done before July 1 and put interim zoning amendments in place in the meantime. Santa Monica directed Staff to draft an ordinance excluding qualifying sites from SB 79 until 2030, while separately working on a longer-term alternative plan. Sacramento isn’t acting before the law takes effect. Oakland is working on an alternative plan.

The parcel-level SB 79 map for West Hollywood doesn’t exist yet. The Southern California Association of Governments is developing it. SCAG expects to hold a virtual briefing for impacted cities in late spring and bring the finished map to its Regional Council at a special meeting in June, one month before the law takes effect.

If Council directs Staff to pursue an urgency ordinance Monday, a return could come before July 1. A broader strategy, including a full TODAP, would require additional analysis and a return to Council in summer 2026 after SCAG’s map is released.

Residents are expected to pack the chambers Monday. Jonathan Finestone, president of the West Hollywood West Residents Association, sent an email urging neighbors to attend and speak twice. “The clock is ticking,” he wrote.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​