The Daily Signal - California’s SB-79 Is Quietly Redefining Neighborhoods Without Voter Consent |Elaine Culotti

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Local officials in California may be co-opting Wolfgang Puck’s and Frank Gehry’s forthcoming upscale retail center along the Pacific Palisades coastline to install unpopular, high-density housing in the coming future using a little-known, Gavin Newsom-backed bill: SB 79.   “About a year ago,” California passed its Senate Bill No. 79 under the premise of encouraging housing near existing transit hubs, which, in principle, sounded like a good idea with best of intentions.   SB-79 can’t be “implemented unless it's at a train station, bus station, [or] airport transit district,” so most people “didn’t say no to it” because transit districts should only have limited, localized impacts, California Correspondent Elaine Culotti explains.   “This happens in California a lot where things are kind of slipped under the radar because they feel like they're not going to affect you. Well, guess what? They figured out a way to put transit districts in areas that don't have transit districts, after the fact.” For more video commentaries like this one, subscribe to The Daily Signal’s YouTube channel 🎥 ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 ⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About a year ago, SB 7-9 was passed in California, and I think it was largely passed because people thought it's a good idea to provide housing around transit districts. And you can't have SB 7-9 implemented unless it's at a train station, bus station, airport, transit district. So a lot of people didn't say no to it. This happens in California a lot where things are kind of slipped under the radar because they feel like they're not going to affect you. Well, guess what? They figured out a way to put transit districts in areas that don't have transit districts after the fact, which is once again in California, ripping the rug, slide of hand, doing things backwards.

I'm Elaine Collotti for the Daily Signal. Today, my podcast is about SB 79 and the crazy legislation surrounding transit districts in California. About a year ago, SB 79 was passed in California, and I think it was largely passed because people thought it's a good idea to provide housing around transit districts. And you can't have SB 7-9 implemented unless it's at a train station, bus station, airport, transit district. So a lot of people didn't say no to it. This happens in California a lot where things are kind of slipped under

the radar because they feel like they're not going to affect you. Well, guess what? They figured out a way to put transit districts in areas that don't have transit districts after the fact, which is once again in California, ripping the rug, slide of hand, doing things backwards. So I'm going to use the best example that I can to explain how terrible this is and how it's got to stop. Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Boulevard have an old restaurant on there known as Gladstone's. It was really popular in the 80s and the 90s. It was owned by a guy by the name of Bob Sequoia and it was packed and it has a huge part of it. lot, like four and a half acres. And it is the crystal ball of the Pacific Palisades coastline.

It is literally sunset and PCH. It is the Gold Coast. It's one of the most epic landmark, beautiful places. It's so epic that Wolfgang Puck and Frank Geary, two amazing Californians that, well, Wolfgang Puck's German, but he's a famous chef and he owns CPK, California Pizza kitchen and Frank Gehry who's spent most of his life in California is one of the most famous architects in the world including Guggenheim and many things got together and came up with an idea that they would build this beautiful retail center with restaurants and all kinds of parks and lovely shopping centers and everything on this four and a half acre of 4.75 acre parcel they worked really hard to get this thing passed.

They did plans, obviously. They had to float it to all of the local people in the palisades. They had to have multiple meetings. They had to go through the planning departments. They had to sit in front of city council. And ultimately, they got it approved. People really loved it and wanted it to happen. Of course, as we all know, tragically, the fires happened.

Once that happened, that area was so conveniently located to the fires that it was turned over for use for the Army Corps of Engineers, ECC. police department, anybody that was helping with the fires for six months, from the fires till around late July. Around late July, when all of the entities that were doing cleanup exited, it was time for Wolfgang Puck and Frank Uri's event to continue. So they were called into a meeting, which was called a Coastal Commission meeting. It happened, I think, in Redondo Beach around October the 8th. In this meeting, Coastal Commission changed the game and forever in the Palisades. forever by implementing a transit district into their plans at PCH and sunset. They even removed

several hundred parking spaces, I've been told. And this meeting, while it was public, was poorly advertised and would have been considered by dark of night by most, especially if they used the mailing list, which they would use that was previously put together, which would have included all of the burned out homes in the Pacific Palisades that are gone. Needless to say a transit district was approved to go at PCH and sunset. What does this mean? Well, I'll tell you what it means. It means taking away the sovereignty of R1, one residence per lot, single family residential zoning being changed without approval from the people that own those burned out lots. It will affect both of the mobile home parks.

It will affect all of the half-mile radius of PCH and sunset. It will allow developers to come in and build up to seven stories within that half-mile radius on top of single-family residentially zoned housing without any requirements for new parking and utilities and sewage and any of it. Just simply change the zoning. So now that we know what SB 79 is capable of, and now we know what a transit district can do with SB 79, let us talk about what I think might be a huge problem for SB 79.

And that is this. One of the most important things to respect in America, and this includes California, is ownership of private property, private property rights and personal private property owned singularly by a person. Your private property belongs to you. It is my belief that there will be a slew of lawsuits because I am going to spend a lot of time on this combating SB 7 for targeting personal property of individuals by changing the title zoning. So part of personal property is the title. When you buy a piece of real estate, you read the title very carefully. In fact, in California, you actually have to hire a title

company to close escrow. And that title search will check the title and make sure that there are not encumbrances on that title or that title is correct for the amount of square footage, what the size that the property is, how many bedrooms it might have, and so on. Is this not important? I think not. I think the title of a property is the pedigree of that property. And there is such a thing as slander of title. And I would guess that with a little bit of work, it is true that when you change the zoning and the person who owns the property does not want that zoning changed, you're slandering that title. And I'm going to spend a lot of time on this in California because we have got to stop stripping people in California of their personal property rights and their personal freedoms

and their personal space. And one of the things that we can do to stop that is we can look at laws and look at bills that we think are egregious and overreaching and take them down. My goal would be to absolutely torpedo SB79, period, if it affects single-family residentially zoned R-1 in the state of California. And thank you for listening to Elaine Kalati for the Daily Signal.