Virginia adapts California’s pioneering church-land housing model

Virginia has become the latest state to clear the way for churches and other faith groups to build affordable housing on their land, borrowing a page from a California precedent-setting attainable housing win-win innovation.

Virginia-based faith groups have a four-year window beginning Jan. 1, 2027, to start affordable housing projects after the state legislature approved amendments proposed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a set of measures she recently signed into law.

The new state law arrives as church-land housing evolves from a blueprint to test-case to repeatable template. California was the first state to establish a statewide “Yes in God’s Backyard” framework, granting by-right approval and environmental exemptions to 100% affordable housing projects on land owned by religious institutions and nonprofit colleges.

Since the law took effect in 2024, churches in cities such as Inglewood, Culver City, Fresno and Santa Cruz have moved ahead with projects that would hardly have been politically possible a decade ago.

California’s Senate Bill 4 sparked a national attention and widening embrace in other states. By late 2025 and into 2026, at least seven states had enacted similar laws. This year, Florida mandated by-right approval, a year after giving municipalities the option.

Others have considered similar changes but fallen short. Colorado lawmakers passed numerous housing reform bills over several years. However, Colorado legislators could not get a faith-based housing by-right measure across the finish line last year.

Massachusetts folded a YIGBY bill into a broader housing package this year. It is still working through the legislature. Connecticut lawmakers have a standalone bill moving through the legislature.

California faith-based projects proceed

In Culver City, a United Methodist congregation is contributing two-thirds of its campus for a 95-unit affordable development now under construction. A church in Inglewood is turning a former school building into 60 apartments for seniors and low-income renters.

In Fresno, a congregation in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods recently broke ground on a 21-unit senior complex, billed as the first project in Fresno County to use California’s church-land law.

During the March groundbreaking, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer described the 21 units as places where seniors could gather with family, including grandchildren, while living steps from their church.

“That is something we think is very special,” Dyer said.

About 270 miles south of Fresno sits Laguna Beach, an affluent coastal city. Neighborhood Congregational Church spent years working with the city and neighbors on affordable housing plans. After SB 4 took effect in 2024, the church proposed 72 units. Proposed cuts to federal rental assistance programs and neighborhood pushback resulted in two reductions. Current plans call for 28 units.

“However, our commitment to provide affordable housing and a welcoming space for spiritual growth remains unchanged,” the church said on its website.

The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates California’s framework could unlock roughly 171,000 acres of developable land.”

What it means for churches

Many congregations see housing as a direct extension of their religious mission, especially in neighborhoods where rising costs are pushing out longtime residents. Others want to stabilize finances and maintain aging buildings as attendance at church services declines, by ground-leasing parking lots or underused parcels to nonprofit developers.

California’s law is tightly drawn. Projects must be 100% affordable, meet state design standards and pay prevailing wages on larger developments. The land must have been in qualifying ownership before Jan. 1, 2024.

With Virginia now on board, these policy experiments are no longer confined to the West Coast. The question for other legislatures is whether they follow California’s affordability-only model, Virginia’s more tailored approach or Florida’s mandatory framework.

The outcome could determine how quickly thousands of acres of church property translate into actual homes.