SB 79 now allows mid-rise housing within a half-mile of Caltrain and BART stations, on top of single-family zoning. Whether it reaches your parcel comes down to feet, tiers, and a city-size rule most coverage never mentions.
✓ Free check, no sign-up ✓ Full verdict $49, about two minutes
What this means: Menlo Park cannot impose a height limit below 75 ft, a density cap below 120 homes per acre, or a residential FAR below 3.5 on a qualifying SB 79 project here, regardless of the R-1 zoning on the books.
SOURCE: GOV. CODE §65912.157 · MTC TOD MAP · SAN MATEO COUNTY PARCEL RECORDS
For your address, in about two minutes. No "it depends," no PDF of fluff. Every number traces back to the statute or a county record.
NOT UPZONED verdicts explain exactly which test failed, in plain English. Every verdict is emailed to you automatically.
"For a transit-oriented housing development project within one-quarter mile of a Tier 1 transit-oriented development stop... a local government shall not impose any height limit less than 75 feet... any maximum density of less than 120 dwelling units per acre... any maximum residential floor area ratio of less than 3.5, as specified in subdivision (d)..."
Yes. Your lot is in the inner ring. Up to 75 feet and 13 homes, by right. The city cannot say no to the envelope, only shape the details.
MTC publishes an official SB 79 map, and it is good at what it is for: planning. It will not tell you whether a specific parcel clears the statute. These four tests decide that, and they are what you are buying.
The statute measures "from the nearest edge of the parcel to a pedestrian access point." A lot that looks outside the ring from its rooftop pin can be inside it at the property line. We compute distance from your parcel's mapped boundary, not a map pin.
Inside a quarter mile of a Tier 1 stop: 75 ft and 120 homes/acre. In the outer ring: 65 ft and 100. Within 200 ft of the stop, an intensifier adds 20 ft and 40 homes/acre. Which ring you are in changes the answer by millions of dollars of buildable envelope.
Real example from our engine: a Burlingame parcel 0.4 miles from the station sits squarely inside the half-mile circle on the map. Verdict: NOT UPZONED, because Burlingame's population is 31,386 and the outer-ring standards need 35,000. The map will never tell you this.
Unincorporated land waits until the 2030s. Sites with 3+ existing homes, or a rent-control history, are out. Projects carry minimum density and affordability tests. Your report walks each one with your parcel's numbers, and flags the gray areas instead of guessing.
The free check tells you if a paid verdict exists for your lot. If your answer is already free (outside every ring, unincorporated), we say so and charge nothing.
Your parcel from the County Assessor, matched by situs address so we never read the neighbor's lot. Distance measured from your parcel's edge to all 67 stations.
UPZONED or NOT, the governing stop, ring and tier, your lot's envelope numbers, the eligibility checklist, and every gray area flagged honestly.
Every incorporated city, using the County Assessor's live parcel records. Station cities include:
The free check measures your address against all 67 Caltrain and BART stations, San Francisco to Gilroy. Santa Clara County parcel verdicts are next; VTA light rail, Muni Metro, and Tempo (Tier 2) after that. Leave your email at checkout and we will run your address the day your county opens.
No. It means state law now sets height, density, and FAR floors on your parcel that your city cannot undercut for a qualifying project. A real project still needs design, financing, ministerial review, and must meet the eligibility tests in your report. What changed on July 1 is the ceiling of what is legally possible on your land, and that is what moves land value.
No. It is a sourced statutory analysis of one parcel: the statute, the ABAG/MTC summary and map, county parcel records, and station locations, applied to your lot with the gray areas flagged instead of smoothed over. If your verdict says UPZONED and you plan to act on it, your next call is a land-use attorney, and this report is the brief you hand them.
We tell you. Any parcel within a few dozen feet of the quarter-mile or half-mile line gets a borderline flag and a recommendation to make a survey-grade measurement the first diligence step. A verdict that pretends 1,315 feet and 1,325 feet are the same is not worth $49.
Usually one of two reasons: the outer ring (quarter to half mile) only applies inside cities of 35,000+ residents, or your land is unincorporated county, where SB 79 does not reach until the 7th RHNA cycle. Both are invisible on the circle maps. If your answer is one of these, the free check tells you before you pay.
Not yet. Our table is the Tier 1 systems, Caltrain and BART, all 67 stations. Near a Tier 2 stop your lot may still qualify under lower standards (55 to 65 ft), and the free check says so rather than giving you a false no. Tier 2 is next on the roadmap.
We match by the county's situs address record, not a map pin, precisely to avoid this. When a match is low-confidence, your report says so on its face, and a re-run by APN is free: reply to your report email.
Was your lot one of them? The check is free.