Burlingame's Broadway Station Is Going Away. That Decision Also Shapes Where Taller Buildings Can Go.

"You can't have both. If you have a train station, you have to have [transit-oriented development]," Councilmember Donna Colson said as Burlingame weighed whether to keep a Caltrain stop in its plans for the Broadway grade separation. The San Mateo Daily Journal reported her comment along with Community Development Director Neda Zayer's summary of what residents had told the city: "They don't want parking changes, they don't want development to occur, they don't want wider sidewalks."

That conversation set the rules buyers in Burlingame face today. California's SB 79 took effect July 1, 2026. It decides where the state requires cities to allow taller, denser housing, and the deciding factor is how often trains stop at a nearby station. Home prices and lot sizes don't enter into it. Broadway's station has never had enough service to count, and Caltrain's plan removes it. So the Broadway district keeps its current low-rise zoning. The density goes around the downtown station and the North Rollins Road area instead. In those two places, the rules that apply this fall are the state's, not the city's.

A weekend-only stop that never counted

On Caltrain's station page, Broadway at 1190 California Drive is listed with one line: "Station is only served on weekends." SB 79 sorts stations into tiers by service. The top tier requires at least 72 trains a day, counting both directions together. The next tier requires at least 48 commuter trains a day, counted the same way. A stop with only weekend service doesn't reach either threshold.

At the March 16, 2026 City Council meeting, Zayer said exactly that. SB 79 covers parcels within a quarter mile of the Burlingame Caltrain station and the Millbrae BART/Caltrain station area. "The Broadway Caltrain station is excluded, as it has weekend-only service," according to the council minutes.

That exclusion depends on today's schedule, and the grade separation project makes it permanent. In March 2025, the council agreed to move forward with a design that has no Broadway station. Dropping the station also removed the temporary tracks that would have carried trains around the work zone. The city had other options. Staff presented a side-platform station at $679 million and a version with a delayed platform at $638 million. Colson said either one would have brought the Broadway district into transit-oriented zoning.

Caltrain's October 2026 board packet describes the scope this way: value engineering in 2025 led Caltrain to eliminate the Broadway Station and the shoofly tracks and switch to a narrower elevated guideway with smaller bridge widths. So the decision about the station was also a decision about zoning. Removing it lowered the project's cost and kept a state upzoning trigger away from Broadway.

Where the density goes instead

Burlingame did not reject SB 79. It tried to redirect it. On June 15, 2026, the council adopted Ordinance No. 2050, a local "alternative plan" that creates two overlays. Together they show how the city intended to divide its three train-adjacent areas:

The city's plan concentrated capacity in specific places. The Daily Journal reported that the area within about 200 feet of the downtown station would theoretically allow up to 5,825 units under the city's plan, compared with 1,314 under SB 79's standard rules. That ring mostly covers Burlingame High School, Washington Park and the Caltrain tracks. In the North Rollins area within a quarter mile of the Millbrae station, the city's plan doubled theoretical capacity to 4,217 units, which matches its existing plans for that neighborhood. Mayor Michael Brownrigg told the paper the city had no current plans to build on the high school or the park. They were included because they fall inside the radius the law requires.

The same report noted one change no local plan could avoid. SB 79 opens parts of Burlingame Avenue to residential development, where the zoning had previously allowed only commercial uses.

The plan Sacramento sent back

On September 3, 2026, the California Department of Housing and Community Development sent the city a findings letter concluding that Burlingame's alternative plan "is not in substantial compliance with SB 79." It also said SB 79's statutory standards "apply in the City unless and until the City adopts a TODAP that has been approved by HCD."

HCD objected to the same parcels that drew criticism in June. The city left land zoned Parks and Recreation and Public/Institutional out of its capacity calculation, even though its own plan allows housing there. HCD wrote that the plan "merely shifts capacity onto sites in the P/I and PR zones" without counting the capacity created by rezoning them. Before the June 1 meeting, the Daily Journal reported, Californians for Housing Ownership and the California Housing Defense Fund had sent the council a letter objecting to counting the high school, park and tracks toward capacity.

For anyone looking near either station, the June table above describes what the city wanted, and the state's default standards are what currently apply. At the March meeting, Zayer said the default within 200 feet of a station is 95 feet, 160 units per acre and a floor area ratio of 4.5. HCD gave the city until Monday, November 2, 2026 to respond. The city can amend the plan, or it can re-adopt it unchanged with written findings explaining why it believes the plan complies. If it does neither, HCD may notify the California Attorney General's office.

Next door, San Mateo has received an SB 79 application for 20 rental studios at 606 S. Delaware St.

Broadway trades zoning change for a construction calendar

Staying outside SB 79 doesn't mean Broadway stays the same. The grade separation will raise the railroad over Broadway and rework the nearby intersections with California Drive, Carolan Avenue and Rollins Road. It keeps walking and biking access along Broadway and adds pedestrian underpasses at Cadillac Way and Sanchez Avenue. The at-grade, pedestrian-only crossing at Morrell will be replaced by two undercrossings north of Morrell.

The California Public Utilities Commission ranks Broadway as the highest-priority grade separation project in the state. The Burlingame B reported that a northbound train hit a car at Broadway and Carolan Avenue at about 5:20 p.m. on September 2, 2026, which delayed trains and sent drivers on detours.

The schedule is long and some of it is still open:

1. June 2026: Caltrain completed the project's 65% design.
2. September 3, 2026: The Caltrain board approved agreements with the San Mateo County Transportation Authority and the City of Burlingame to take the design to 100%, adding $24 million to the budget.
3. October 1, 2026: The board considered contract amendments for Flatiron-Herzog Joint Venture and designer Mark Thomas to finish the design.
4. November 2028 at the earliest: Construction could begin, depending on funding, with the total cost currently estimated at $662 million.
5. 2032 or 2033: Caltrain's July 2026 schedule runs through 2032, while an earlier 2026 capital report forecast completion on September 5, 2033. Treat the end date as unsettled.

Caltrain's July 2026 update to the council budgets $26 million for property acquisition work, including appraisals and purchases. The Daily Journal has reported on two rail-corridor parcels moving to Caltrain. One is occupied by a Chevron gas station and car wash, and the other is vacant.

Not everyone on Broadway supported dropping the station. Broadway Business Improvement District president John Kevranian pushed to bring back weekday service before construction starts and gathered more than 340 signatures on a petition, the Daily Journal reported.

How this changes a Burlingame comparison

If you're comparing parts of Burlingame, the zoning picture now has three distinct pieces. Near Broadway, the rules that matter are the existing ones, and the near-term change comes from years of rail construction. Near the downtown station, the state's default standards apply today, and the long-standing commercial-only stretch of Burlingame Avenue can now include housing. North Rollins Road is where the city has said it most wants growth, and it's also where both the city's plan and the state's rules allow the most.

Each of these depends on dates you can check yourself: the city's response to HCD by November 2, Caltrain's 95% design cost estimate, and whether construction funding comes through in time for a 2028 start.

Frequently Asked Questions

Could Broadway ever fall under SB 79? The law's tiers depend on train frequency, and the weekend-only stop doesn't meet them. The project's current scope also leaves no Broadway station once construction is finished, so there would be nothing left to qualify.

Does SB 79 approve any specific building? No. As the Daily Journal described the city's plan, it sets theoretical zoning capacity and does not create or approve any development.

Is the Broadway station closed now? Caltrain still lists it as serving weekends only. None of the sources we reviewed gives a date when those weekend stops will end.

This post is general information about how SB 79 and the Broadway project work. It isn't legal or financial advice, so please confirm how these rules affect a specific property with a land use attorney or the City of Burlingame Planning Division.

If you own near Broadway, downtown or North Rollins and want to know how these zoning and construction timelines could affect your home's value, Wang Tang Group can walk you through it in English, Mandarin or Cantonese. Request a free home valuation and we'll go over your block's situation with you.