CSAC Bulletin Article

CSAC Weighs in on Housing, Planning Bills
Six Bills in Two Minutes!

April 8, 2016

A few weeks ago we reported on a crush of housing bills introduced as California’s affordability issues reach what many are calling crisis levels. Many of these bills will face their first legislative test next week in the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee.

CSAC registered its support for two bills by Assembly Member and former CSAC president, Rich Gordon. AB 2475 and AB 2319 would create a forgivable loan program that would allow counties to leverage their own funds to support very low and extremely low income affordable housing development and add affordable housing to the list of infrastructure that the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank can support, respectively. CSAC also supported AB 2500 by Assembly Member Daly, a common-sense extension to the time local agencies are given to complete housing element updates. That bill will be heard in the Assembly Local Government Committee. Finally, CSAC supported AB 2502 by Assembly Member Mullin, which would specify that local agencies do indeed have the power to require inclusionary zoning in light of the recent outcome of the Palmer case.

CSAC expressed its opposition to a couple of bills by Assembly Member Bloom, which would mandate, rather than authorize, local governments to pass an ordinance allowing the creation of second units in residential zones (AB 2299) and recast the complex density bonus law to be heavily favorable to developers while including arbitrary timelines for review with “deemed approved” provisions if a local agency fails to meet the shot clock (AB 2501). We encourage counties to weigh in in opposition to these bills. Our letters are available by searching for the bill numbers on the CSAC website here.

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