Chiu said that although BART has worked for years to encourage transit-oriented development -- often abbreviated as TOD -- some local jurisdictions are very slow to grant construction approvals.

"We're trying to jump-start these conversation in every locality that has a BART station," Chiu said. "... I think building vibrant, affordable, walkable communities on undeveloped land next to BART is the best way to deliver housing without disrupting existing communities."

BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said in an email that the BART board has taken no position on the bill and will discuss it later this week. San Francisco BART board member Nick Josefowitz is one of the measure's proponents.

AB 2923 would apply to BART-owned parcels of at least one-quarter acre and within a half-mile of a BART station entrance. If BART fails to enact new standards for transit-oriented development by April 2019, the bill would use the zoning guidelines the agency put in place last year.

Those guidelines categorize BART stations as one of three place types: regional center stations, like those in downtown Oakland and San Francisco; urban neighborhood/city center stations, such as Glen Park, North Berkeley and Fruitvale; and neighborhood or town center stations, such as those along the Pittsburg-Bay Point line in Contra Costa County.

BART's current guidelines call for developments of at least 12 stories for regional centers; at least seven stories around stations like North Berkeley (pictured above), and at least five stories around the suburban Contra Costa County stations. For future developments, the guidelines call for a minimum of 75 units of housing per acre.

BART is already dealing with high demand for parking spots, with long waiting lists for reserved parking at every station. But the agency's TOD guidelines, in line with the view of many urban planners, contemplate a future in which private automobile use is reduced drastically as more housing and offices are built near transit hubs, more people walk or bike to work, and technological breakthroughs such as autonomous vehicles come online.

AB 2923 is the latest in a series of high-profile legislative efforts to intensify development near transit corridors as a response to the region's affordable housing crunch. Among them: SB 35, a measure by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, signed into law last fall that offers a dramatically streamlined permit-approval process for affordable housing; and SB 827, a proposal introduced in January by Wiener that would require local governments to permit much denser housing within a half-mile of transit hubs like BART stations and within a quarter-mile of busy commuter-bus stops.



KQED's Guy Marzorati contributed to this report.