Del Mar receives legislative update with new laws set to take effect

With the end of the California State Legislature’s 2025 session and the ongoing government shutdown, the Del Mar City Council received a legislative update from its lobbyist.

Elisa Arcidiacono, a city lobbyist from Townsend Public Affairs, said potential issues at the federal level that could impact Del Mar in the next year include loss of federal funding, divergent agendas on issues such as climate change

At the state level, there were about 2,400 bills introduced, including 600 that made it through the state Senate and 936 from the Assembly. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed nearly 800 of them into law and vetoed 123.

SB 16

One of the bills that Del Mar lobbied against was aimed at ending street homelessness. Senate Bill 16, authored by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, would have required cities that receive Homelessness, Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program funding to start setting goals for reaching “functional zero” on unsheltered homelessness by 2032 .

SB 16 passed the Senate, but did not get signed into law this year.

“There was a lot of effort into really better understanding the intent from Sen. Blakespear’s office and really trying to get them to understand the heavy lift that would be for some smaller jurisdictions,” Arcidiacono said. “So we have actively been working with the league of cities on amendments that would explicitly state that this is excluding set recipients of that funding, and instead of requiring them to change how they report out on their housing element, it would instead encourage the counties to include some of these smaller cities in conversations for spending of HHAP dollars.”

SB 79

Like many local governments, Del Mar also lobbied against SB 79 by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, which allows increased residential density near transit. The bill will not have an immediate impact in Del Mar due to a tier system that defines the criteria for where it can be implemented.

“There is certainly the possibility that if the city build out some of its transit, if we increase transit, if we increase ridership, if we increase the timeframes for bus routes in and out, we may trigger tiers in the future that would make this bill apply to us, but as it stands currently it does not.”

AB 130

Del Mar also opposed new regulations that were originally introduced in the Assembly as AB 306, a moratorium on new or modified state and local building standards on residential units through June 2031. It was adopted as part of budget bill AB 130. There are exceptions for reasons including health and safety.

“Certainly this came on the heels of a response to the L.A. wildfires,” Arcidiacono said, “and the intent was to streamline building, but of course this could potentially hamstring some of the ideals that the city has in place, some standards that we are trying to reach down the line.”