Last week, CA Gov. Gavin Newsom took major steps in addressing the state’s housing crisis and ensuring its economic growth. With a myriad of new laws signed into effect, trying to identify the ones most likely to affect your local jurisdiction can be a daunting task. Having recognized this, RSG read through the newly enacted laws for you and has listed below key ones you need to know about.
HOUSING
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AB 68, Land use: accessory dwelling units (Ting) – Removes barriers for ADU production by preventing local ordinances from imposing requirements on lot size, dimensions, and parking amongst other factors. Additionally, it reduces permit processing time down to 60 days.
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AB 139, Emergency & Transitional Housing Act of 2019 (Quirk-Silva) – Requires local governments ensure an adequate number of sites are zoned to address the “very-low” income housing units required under the local government’s RHNA and the homeless count prior to the housing element planning period. Additionally, it defines capacity guidelines for emergency shelters and, requires the need for shelters be based on the availability of beds, utilization, and transition out of emergency shelters.
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AB 1486, Surplus land (Ting) – Expands on existing Surplus Land Act requirements for local agencies along with requiring local agencies to include specific information regarding surplus lands in housing element and APRs and the creation of a database of surplus lands by the HCD.
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AB 1763, Planning and zoning: density bonuses: affordable housing (Chiu) – Modifies existing Density Bonus Law (DBL) to require developers, whose development units are 100% allocated to lower income households, be awarded height increases along with additional density, concessions and incentives by the city or county.
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SB 6, Residential development: available land (Beall & McGuire) – Creates a list of local lands throughout the state that have been identified by local governments as suitable for residential development.
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SB 330, Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (Skinner) – Streamlines permit and approval processes for housing and zoning changes along with banning housing moratoriums and project fees for low-income housing.
HOUSING & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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SB 196, Property taxes: community land trust (Beall) – Creates a property tax exemption for undeveloped property owned by a community land trust (CLT) that will eventually be developed as housing for specific income limit households.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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AB 116, Local government (Ting) – Revises the requirement that Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts (EIFDs) receive voter approval prior to issuing bonds by removing election and 55% voter approval requirements. It also specifies that the public financing authority (PFA) consider implementation of the EIFD plan at three public hearings held at least 30 days apart.
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AB 485, Local government: economic development subsidies (Medina) – Requires local government provide transparency in the granting and duration of subsidies of $100,000 or more for warehouse distribution centers. Local agencies in conjunction with these companies would be required to inform the public of key deal aspects like job quality, anticipated retention, accountability for falling short of promised retention and details of the subsidy deal before approval.
Got questions? If so, RSG is here to help! To learn more about these new laws and how their implementation can benefit your community, contact RSG Principals Jim Simon at [email protected] or Tara Matthews at [email protected].