City Council
[email protected]
March 24, 2026
The Honorable Jesse Arreguín
1021 O Street, Room 6710
Sacramento, CA 95814-4900
RE: AB 748 (Harabedian) Single-family and multifamily housing units: preapproved plans.
Notice of Opposition (As Amended January 22, 2026)
Dear Senator Arreguín,
The City of San Marcos respectfully expresses its opposition to AB 748 (Harabedian), which would require each local agency, as defined, to develop a program for the preapproval of single-family and multifamily residential housing plans, whereby the local agency accepts single-family and multifamily plan submissions for preapproval and approves or denies the preapproval applications, as specified. The bill would also require the local agency to post preapproved single-family or multifamily residential housing plans and the contact information of the applicant on the local agency’s internet website.
The requirements of this bill would place onerous requirements on the city by forcing the acceptance of one- size-fits-all preapproved plans for single and multi-family dwellings. While the city appreciates Assemblymember Harabedian’s desire to streamline permitting and building approvals, the preapproved plan process is not the way to do it.
Additionally, the implementation timeline for this bill is infeasible. For jurisdictions, such as the city of San Marcos that are under 100,000 residents, but fall in a “large jurisdiction” county, San Diego, with over 4,000,000 residents, the city would be required to establish this new program, along with the new policies and requirements in under a year. This presents significant fiscal, and staffing challenges that would difficult for many cities to overcome.
The City of San Marcos supports housing development, and the desire to make the approval process more straightforward, and understandable for applicants. The City of San Marcos believes the bill would lead to very high costs to the city, without significant added benefits.
For these reasons, the City of San Marcos must oppose AB 748 (Harabedian).
Sincerely,
Rebecca D. Jones
Mayor
cc: League of California Cities