Seven YIMBY Victories in 2025 You Should Know About
A sampling of YIMBY Action wins from across the country!
From Hawaiʻi to Washington, D.C., YIMBY Action chapters are making change in their back yards!
As a background, our chapter model is built to empower local volunteer “Leads” with a toolkit to build local political power. We leverage that network to create broad coalitions to enact policy change at the local, state and federal level to get more housing built.
Fundamentally, our chapters engage in three key activities:
Advocating for housing proposals
Citizen lobbying for legislation
Endorsing and mobilizing for elections
Each victory demonstrates to elected officials the growing influence of the YIMBY Parade. Each campaign can be leveraged to continuously building political power, via narrative power-building (press coverage), people power building (list growth), coalition building, and technical expertise.
Ok, yadayadayada, what cool shit happened this year?
We’ve tracked over 196 state and local policy victories that YIMBY Action chapters supported in 2025. And when you realize that our tracking isn’t perfect, and that YIMBY Action is far from the only YIMBY organization… that means that the pro-housing movement is accelerating at a truly astounding rate.
I cherry-picked some victories that illustrate some principles for activists that hopefully will inspire you in 2026!
Illinois: Parking Reform and More
This year, Illinois passed the People Over Parking Act, introduced by Rep. Kam Buckner, which prohibits municipalities from requiring car parking for residential and commercial uses in areas served by mass transit in cities like Chicago. As part of a statewide coalition, Abundant Housing Illinois helped lead the charge to get it passed, with its lobbying day advocacy making a decisive impact.
Also in Chicago, AHIL did a lot of work to have members show up at zoning committee meetings and talk to alderpersons in support of expanding ADUs across the city, earning local media coverage along the way.
Plus, Abundant Housing Illinois chapters do a great job wearing their swag for great photos. State lobby days are the perfect time for chapters to order more free swag from YIMBY Action central!
Colorado: Making Parking Reform A Reality
In August, YIMBYs in Denver celebrated the end of parking minimums in the city. It was the culmination of years of advocacy work, including at the state and local level.
A core part of how the Colorado chapters are making consistent impact at the state level comes from two major factors: 1) consistent growth and new chapters, and 2) high-quality events drawing attention.
They just started the year off right with another Legislative Kickoff, getting folks pumped about what’s to come.
Hawaiʻi: Saying ʻAe to Transit-Oriented Development
The YIMBY movement in Hawai’i continues to make steady progress, celebrating bills like H.B. 1409, which provides generous incentives to cities to allow apartments near transit stops and prioritizes affordable housing funding in transit-connected areas.
Hawai’i Chapter Leads have incredibly good vibes. They’ve joined strong coalitions who have gathered a lot of moral authority and high-impact messaging for solving their crushing housing shortage. Some of the most important national leaders are coming out of Hawai’i, so it’s a state to watch!
Asheville for All: Big Wins at the City Council
YIMBYs in Asheville lobbied the city council to make it easier for developers to build more multifamily housing, promote more walkable environments, encourage more bicycle parking, and reduce car parking. And in March the council voted yes!
The Asheville chapter has excelled at making dry materials accessible for their members. Explainers and victory posts can be hard to craft when you win highly technical victories, but they’ve done a fantastic job communicating about how the ball is moving forward on policy.
Seattle: A Clean Sweep
Winning elections is extremely fun. Most prominently, all of Seattle YIMBY’s endorsed candidates won in the November election. Katie Wilson prevailed in the Seattle mayoral election; Eddie Lin prevailed in City Council District 2; and Alexis Mercedes Rinck prevailed in District 8 (at-large). Earlier in the year, Seattle passed Proposition 1A, also endorsed by our members, which raises money for social housing through a local tax on payrolls of over $1 million. This follows a win in 2023 for an initiative that established the social housing developer (also endorsed by our members).
Demonstrating that the YIMBY voting bloc exists and is valuable is key to building influence that sticks over time. Building up that muscle by endorsing and mobilizing the base to volunteer for candidates makes a huge difference.
Tucson: Chapter Founder Elected To City Council
Here in Tucson we’ve achieved some really big wins. Our local founder, Miranda Schubert, was elected to city council in a big win. Congratulations!
They also achieved two citywide rezonings, one which allows for denser transit-oriented development on lots near major transportation routes and a missing middle reform that will allow up to four units on ALL residential lots in the city (minus a few horse ranches).
California: As Usual, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
In California, the big news this year was the passage of SB 79, a landmark bill written by San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener that will potentially bring multifamily units to neighborhoods across the state. Led by lobbying by California YIMBY, with YIMBY Action chapters mobilizing critical in-district support, it is the culmination of years of coalition work, and a major victory in a state plagued by the high cost of housing.
But it also comes with a lot of places for cities to enact malicious compliance and phased implementation. As with any state bill, local organizing will be critical to ensure that cities are held to the highest impact version of the legislation.
In my home town of San Francisco, the local government finally passed the Family Zoning Plan, literally the biggest upzoning in the history of the city, which will bring badly-needed housing to neighborhoods throughout the city.
And yet it still falls short of what was required by law, so we’re suing the city.
Across the state, close to zero cities are on track to meet their state housing goals. YIMBYs are continuing to fight for each step forward. Dive into the madness on the YIMBY Law & YIMBY Action Fair Housing Elements Tracker:
At every step, YIMBYs continue to show up for housing, demanding that their communities do better. Even in Marin County, CA, perhaps the most housing-hostile place in the country, victories are happening. Thanks to our project support system, YIMBY Action members in Marin helped 34 projects take steps forward. If built, these projects will provide 1,408 affordable units and 5,408 total new units. Every single one of these projects is using one or more state law to get through the process, demonstrating that state laws and local advocacy can get the goods if we keep fighting. Read more here.