Join us for a Lunch and Learn on April 22nd at Noon to hear about Circulate’s new report, Win-Win Bonus: How California’s Bonus Law quietly transformed housing approvals.
The report takes a close look at how recent updates to California’s Density Bonus Law have reshaped housing production by aligning incentives for builders to include affordable homes. In 2020, AB 2345 expanded the bonus to allow projects with affordable units to grow up to 50% beyond zoning limits. AB 1287 (2023) added a second, stackable bonus—meaning some projects can now reach up to twice their base zoning capacity.
These changes have had a significant impact. Since 2020, Bonus Law has been used to approve more than 140,000 homes, including over 69,000 deed-restricted affordable units. In 2024, it accounted for 47% of all homes approved in multifamily projects and 78% of homes in 100% affordable developments—producing ten times more homes than all other tracked streamlining laws combined.
What makes this work is straightforward: when projects pencil, builders opt in. By pairing affordability requirements with meaningful incentives, the law turns what could be a constraint into a viable path for production at scale.
