Incremental housing development — dividing a single-family home into a duplex or adding an accessory dwelling unit — can help solve California’s affordability crisis unit by unit. But how long would it take?

What we need is regulatory relief, and a California Democrat is leading that charge this session. Assemblymember Buff Wicks from the East Bay introduced AB 609 in February. It would exempt most urban housing development from the California Environmental Quality Act.

AB 609 would take some layers out of the development onion, exempting individual projects from CEQA if they are in an infill location or not located on environmentally sensitive sites. Since such projects already must comply with local general plans, zoning and other standards, CEQA requirements are redundant and not designed to facilitate projects that are good for the environment, according to a fact sheet.

As CalMatters points out, the bill will face strong opposition from defenders who argue CEQA helps block development that hurts vulnerable communities.

“The people of California have been crystal clear,” Wicks said at a press event last week in Sacrament. “They want results and they’re going to hold us accountable to those results with their votes, or their feet moving to other states where it’s easier to build housing. … The days of protecting the status quo are over.”

AB 609 is part of nearly two dozen bills designed to jumpstart housing development.

But such CEQA reform would strike at the heart of the bill, which has been leveraged by the trades unions to secure project labor agreements.

Everyone knows CEQA’s time has come in its current form. Putting AB 609 on Gov. Newsom’s desk would go a long way to show the world California is serious about building its target of 300,000 homes per year.

The next step is going further to exempt other types of development, including industrial and commercial, that can show real environmental benefits.