San Francisco Chronicle: California’s big housing bill fell short. A push for backyard cottages is moving ahead

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.