October 11, 2019

Yesterday, Governor Newsom signed a package of 18 housing-related bills, including several that were closely-tracked by CSAC:

SB 113 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review) is a budget trailer bill that, among other provions, allows for the transfer of $331 million in state funding to the National Mortgage Special Deposit Fund. The purpose of the fund is to provide sustainable, ongoing legal assistance to California renters and homeowners in housing-related matters through local nonprofit organizations. The funds will support nonprofit programs to avoid preventable foreclosures by providing borrower relief. It will also assist housing counselors and other legal aid agencies representing California renters in housing-related matters.

SB 13 (Wieckowski) – CSAC requested the Governor’s veto on SB 13, which imposes additional restrictions and conditions on local governments’ ability to charge development impact fees. It also creates an amnesty program for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) built before January 1, 2020, which would grant non-code compliant ADU owners the opportunity to request a delayed enforcement for up to five years. CSAC is concerned about making local government responsible for determining which conditions listed in state law are most important for health and safety—a difficult task that potentially affects tenants’ rights.

SB 329 (Mitchell) – CSAC requested the Governor’s signature on SB 329, which would amend California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act to protect housing voucher holders from housing discrimination based on their source of income. CSAC supported this measure after the CSAC Executive Committee voted to approve this position.

SB 330 (Skinner) – CSAC moved from an oppose unless amended position to a neutral position on SB 330, which makes changes to local approval processes and imposes restrictions on certain types of development standards. Amendments requested by CSAC removed provisions waiving impact fees under certain circumstances, retained a deal that CSAC and others negotiated with developers on the Housing Accountability Act in 2018, and changed the definition of “affected county” so that certain limitations on local government planning would apply only to a limited number of highly-urbanized census designated places rather than throughout the entire unincorporated area.

AB 1483 (Grayson) – Requires local jurisdictions to publicize information about zoning ordinances, development standards, fees, exactions, and affordability requirements, and requires the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to develop and update a 10-year housing data strategy. CSAC took a neutral position on this bill when amendments removed language that expanded the housing element annual progress report prior to development of the HCD data strategy, among other changes.

AB 1486 (Ting) – Expands Surplus Land Act requirements for local agencies, requires local governments to include information relating to surplus lands in their housing elements and annual progress reports, and requires the state Department of Housing and Community Development to establish a database of surplus lands. CSAC removed opposition to this bill following extensive amendments sought by counties and other local agencies.

Note that the author has committed to fixing an error in the bill whereby the following sentence was inadvertently deleted from Section 54221(b)(2): “Nothing in this article shall be interpreted to require a local agency to dispose of land that is determined to be surplus.”