A slideshow featuring some of the 40 tiny homes seen at the opening of San Jose’s first Mabury Bridge Housing Community — an interim housing program that provides tiny homes for homeless individuals as they seek permanent housing.

The California Senate voted to reject Senate Bill 50 last week, ending (at least temporarily) a high-profile debate about housing development and density. That heated conversation has taken center stage at the state capitol since Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) unveiled SB 827, a more dramatic predecessor to the more recent bill, two years ago.

Thursday’s defeat of SB50, the state Senate bill that would have required cities to allow dense residential development near transit, shows how housing policy can be a flash point in California politics. But state legislative efforts to spur new housing at a much different scale — one unit at a time, in the backyards of existing homes — have generated a multiyear string of bills that could end up making a sizable impact with relatively little fuss.

State Sen. Scott Wiener’s sweeping transit-oriented housing bill got a key legislative boost Friday, increasing its chances of passage on the Senate floor by the end of the month.