Annual Review of New Laws Report
City Manager’s Office
SB 707 (Durazo) Open meetings: meeting and teleconference requirements.
Chaptered 10/3/2025
Summary: This Bill updates the Ralph M. Brown Act by requiring certain local legislative bodies (City Council in Sunnyvale) to provide two -way remote public access to meetings starting July 1, 2026. It modernizes teleconferencing rules, clarifying when officials may participate remo tely and how quorums are established.
This Bill also requires policies for handling disruptions and enhances accessibility measures, including translation in some cases.
Service/Operational Impact: Before the July 1, 2026 effective date, staff will bring a policy related to Internet service disruptions during City Council meetings and a public disruption policy to the City Council before July 1, 2026. The Bill mandates Sunnyvale’s current practice of conducting hybrid (in-person with remote public comment) City Council meetings. With limited exceptions, all City Council meetings must be conducted in a hybrid format. Board and Commission meetings are not mandated to be conducted in a hybrid format, however, these meetings will continue to be facilitated with remote public participation. Staff will continue to track Councilmember “Just Cause” remote participation occurrences which have been expanded to five occurrences annually.
Sunnyvale’s demographics do not currently meet the requirements mandating translation of Council meeting agendas. A website is being developed explaining how to use an automated tool to translate public meeting agendas along with staff reports. A bulletin board has been ordered to accommodate posting of community translated public meeting agendas.
Community Development
As in prior years, the California Legislature introduced a significant volume of housing legislation in 2025. Community Development staff have reviewed and tracked numerous bills; the following represent those expected to have the greatest impact on the City:
SB 79 (Wiener) Housing development: transit-oriented development. Chaptered 10/10/2025
Summary: This Bill supersedes local regulations on density, building height, and floor area to permit high-density housing development within a half-mile radius of qualifying transit stops with limited or no public engagement.
Service/Operational Impact: Effective July 1, 2026, the Bill mandates ministerial approval for qualifying housing development projects located within a half-mile radius of Caltrain and VTA light rail stations. The Bill also includes provisions allowing cities to adopt an ordinance or exempt specific sites from SB 79 by adopting an alternative Attachment 1
transit-oriented development (TOD) plan. This alternative plan must accommodate at least an equivalent level of overall development and is subject to review and approval by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). Staff is currently reviewing feasibility of an alternative transit-oriented (TOD) compliance plan.
AB 507 (Haney) Adaptive reuse: streamlining: incentives. Chaptered 10/10/2025 Summary: This Bill requires jurisdictions to allow adaptive reuse projects for residential or mixed uses by right in all zoning districts, excluding industrial zones where residential uses are prohibited, ministerially after July 1, 2026. Qualifying adaptive reuse projects are exempt from any impact fees that are not directly and reasonably related to the impact of the change of use from nonresidential to residential or mixed use.
Service/Operational Impact: The Bill authorizes the City to adopt an ordinance outlining the process and requirements for adaptive reuse projects, provided they meet all objective planning standards. It also allows local governments to establish an adaptive reuse investment incentive program. Staff is currently working on an adaptive reuse program for converting existing nonresidential buildings into housing as part of Strategic Workplan Project HO-12 and Housing Element Program H22. Staff will incorporate updates related to AB 507 as part of this program. The program is targeted for completion by December 2026.
AB 39 (Zbur) General plans: Local Electrification Planning Act Chaptered 10/6/2025
Summary: This Bill requires cities and counties to plan for electrification and zero- emission transportation. Between January 1, 2027 and January 1, 2030, each jurisdiction must either adopt a new electrification plan or incorporate one into its general plan update.
Service/Operational Impact: The Bill requires the City to prepare and adopt a specified plan or incorporate it into the next update of the general plan that includes identifying opportunities to expand electric vehicle charging and other zero-emission fueling infrastructure. The plan must also include policies and actions that prioritize equitable investments in zero-emission technologies, specifically benefiting disadvantaged communities, low-income households, and small businesses.
SB 415 (Reyes) Planning and zoning: logistics use developments: truck routes.
Chaptered 10/3/2025
Summary: This Bill defines logistics use developments and requires jurisdictions to adopt an ordinance by January 1, 2028, to safely accommodate increased truck traffic while avoiding residential areas and sensitive receptors. Logistics use development refers to a building primarily used as a warehouse for the movement or storage of cargo, goods, or products that are distributed to business or retail customers (or both) Attachment 1
but not predominantly serving retail customers through onsite purchases. These operations primarily involve the use of heavy-duty trucks for transporting goods.
Service/Operational Impact: Staff plan to address these requirements through a new ordinance that will designate specific travel routes for the transport of goods, materials, or freight intended for storage, transfer, or redistribution. The ordinance will prioritize the use of interstate and divided highways as preferred truck routes to minimize impacts on residential areas and sensitive receptors.
AB 130 (Committee on Budget) Housing. Chaptered 6/30/2025 SB 131 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review) Public Resources.
Chaptered 6/30/2025
Summary: This Bill accelerates housing development by streamlining California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for qualifying infill housing and certain nonresidential uses, expediting permitting and approvals, and updating the Permit Streamlining Act (PSA). The key provisions of the Housing Accountability Act (HSA) and SB 330 have been made permanent, while a moratorium on new residential building code standards is in place through 2031. This Bill increases oversight, with stronger enforcement mechanisms and penalties to ensure compliance as well as more options for applicants to mitigate Vehicles Miles Travelled (VMT) impacts.
Service/Operational Impact: For development projects that qualify under the CEQA Infill Residential Projects Statutory Exemption, the City would be required to engage in a formal consultation process with Native American tribes and conduct a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) and any appropriate follow-up actions if needed.
Staff plans to incorporate the updated timelines outlined in the PSA, including deadlines for determining application completeness and making final decisions, into the forthcoming Housing Development Permit ordinance.
From October 1, 2025, to June 1, 2031, local and state jurisdictions are prohibited from adopting or amending residential building code standards unless the changes are directly related to public health or safety concerns, climate action (reach codes), and home-hardening against fire destruction.
Pending Legislation
SB 722 (Wahab) Transit-oriented housing development: excluded parcels and sites.
Summary: This Bill would ensure residents of mobile home, recreational vehicle (RV), and special occupancy parks are as equally protected as subsidized affordable housing by adding the respective governing codes to the list of sites exempted from SB 79 (2025), consistent with other land use bills passed by the Legislature.
Service/Operational Impact: Sunnyvale has a substantial inventory of mobile homes, which account for 6.3 percent of the City’s housing stock. In 2020, there were 13 mobile Attachment 1
home parks in Sunnyvale with a total of 3,862 mobile homes. Mobile homes, though, are not deed-restricted affordable housing. Rather, they are a form of naturally occurring affordable housing, which means they are not protected by SB 79 (2025).
Environmental Services
AB 996 (Pellerin) Public Resources: sea level rise plans. Chaptered 10/3/2025 Summary: This Bill establishes the California Coastal Planning Fund in the State Treasury to help coastal and bay local governments to adequately plan for sea level rise. This Bill makes money in the Fund available to the Coastal Commission for local and state costs related to the development and review of local coastal programs and sea level rise plans. This Bill establishes an early consultation with the Coastal Commission for coastal cities to receive written recommendations of what would preclude approval of a sea level rise plan. This Bill clarifies that existing sea level rise information or plans may satisfy the requirements of creating sea level rise plans by 2034.
Service/Operational Impact: The Bill allows the City to utilize any current or past plans, analysis, or other information to be utilized as the City develops its Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan. The City is part of the County’s Regional Shoreline Adaptation Planning grant and will be meeting the SB 272 requirements through that grant.
AB 30 (Alvarez) State Air Resources Board: gasoline specifications: ethanol blends. Chaptered 10/2/2025
Summary: This Bill creates a temporary exception by allowing gasoline blended with
10.5% to 15% ethanol to be sold and used in California. These blends could be sold until the Environmental Policy Council completes its review and CARB either adopts formal fuel standards for them or determines that such standards cannot meet required criteria and posts that finding online.
Service/Operational Impact: The Bill provides for potential fuel price reductions could result in cost savings to the City. The ethanol blend is anticipated to be cheaper than other products.
Pending Legislation
SB 501 (Allen) Responsible Battery Recycling Act of 2022: covered batteries.
Summary: This Bill would create an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program for Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) and require the producer of products that become HHW to provide a convenient collection and management system for covered products. SB 501 ensures that producers of toxic and hard-to-manage consumer products—such as pesticides, pool chemicals, gas cylinders, and vaping devices—are held financially and operationally responsible for the products they put on the market.
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Service/Operational Impact: The Bill would require a statewide plan for safe collection, transport, and end-of-life management of hazardous wastes. It would alleviate the burden on local governments and ratepayers, while increasing safety, equity, and environmental protection across the state. Additionally, local governments would be reimbursed if the plan used public collection programs.
AB 762 (Irwin) Disposable, battery-embedded vapor inhalation device:
prohibition.
Summary: This Bill would ban the sale of single-use vaporizer (vapes) products. Vapes contain embedded lithium-ion batteries, which cause fire hazards in waste and recycling facilities due to their lack of standardized, safe means of recycling or disposal.
Reusables are permitted.
Service/Operational Impact: The Bill would reduce fire risks in garbage trucks, at trash transfer stations and in recycling facilities. It would eliminate the environmental pollution caused when vape hazardous waste byproducts runoff into waterways.
Finance
SB 346 (Durazo): Local agencies: transient occupancy taxes: short-term rental facilitator. Chaptered 10/13/2025
Summary: This Bill requires short-term rental facilitators, at the request of a city, to provide the address of a short-term rental listing to a city, would provide cities audit authority for transient occupancy taxes (TOT) collected and remitted by short-term rental facilitators, and would require the publishing of the local license number and TOT Certification on the short-term rental listing.
Service/Operational Impact: The updates included in SB 346 do not change the City’s current oversight of short-term rentals. The City’s existing short-term rental requirements already align with the provisions in SB 346, and administrative fines for noncompliance have been in place since 2022. Registered hosts currently provide a physical rental address; however, staff will evaluate whether the new law may require online short-term rental facilitators to include address and rental-specific information with their transient occupancy tax (TOT) remittances.
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Human Resources
AB 339 (Ortega) Local public employee organizations: notice requirements.
Chaptered 10/13/2025
Summary: This Bill requires public agencies and certain boards or commissions to give a recognized employee organization at least 45 days’ written notice before issuing a request for proposals or quotes, or before renewing or extending a contract, when the work falls within the job classifications represented by that organization, subject to specified exceptions. The notice must include certain information, such as the expected length of the contract. If an emergency or other urgent situation prevents advance notice, the agency must provide as much notice as reasonably possible.
Service/Operational Impact: Starting January 1, 2026, the Bill expands notice requirements to labor groups, requiring the City to build additional lead time into procurement planning and contract renewals. For any contracted work involving represented classifications, Human Resources and Finance staff must establish procedures to provide timely and detailed labor groups notifications, which may extend overall procurement timelines. The Bill also necessitates the need to review and update internal policies and procurement workflows, particularly in areas where work has historically been performed by bargaining-unit employees. In response, Human Resources and Finance staff are strengthening coordination to ensure compliance and minimize delays.
Library and Recreation Services
SB 456 (Ashby) Contractors: exemptions: muralists. Chaptered 10/13/2025 Summary: This Bill exempts muralists from having to obtain a contractors license through the California State Licensing Board before being commissioned for public and private art projects.
Service/Operational Impact: The Bill allows artists to contribute murals to City buildings without the financial and administrative burden of obtaining a state contractor’s license.
This expands the City’s ability to work directly with qualified mural artists who meet mural-specific requirements, which licensed contractors may not always satisfy, thereby increasing flexibility and available options. There is no direct fiscal impact to the City; any potential cost would only arise if contractor licensing requirements were imposed and passed on to the City.
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Public Safety
AB 992 (Irwin) Peace officers. Chaptered 10/1/2025
Summary: This Bill modifies existing requirements related to a modern policing degree program for California community colleges. Current law requires the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges to develop the program and submit an implementation plan to the Legislature and requires the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to approve and adopt the education criteria based on that plan. This Bill would remove the requirement for POST to approve and adopt the education criteria.
Service/Operational Impact: Effective January 1, 2031, all peace officers must obtain an associates, bachelor’s or modern policing degree within 36 months of obtaining a POST peace officer certificate. Public Safety and Human Resources staff must ensure every candidate that is hired for a new Public Safety Officer role meets these educational requirements. AB 992 does not apply to any person who, as of December 31, 2030, is currently enrolled in a basic academy or is employed as a peace officer by a public entity in California.
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