Land Use

AB 2181 (Bloom) – Request for Comments 
As introduced on February 20, 2014

AB 2181, by Assembly Member Richard Bloom, would authorize each city, city and county, or county to require that owners assess the earthquake hazard of soft story and older concrete buildings, and would include concrete residential buildings that were constructed prior to the adoption of local building codes that ensure ductility, as specified, as potentially hazardous if an earthquake occurs. It would also allow local governments to employ seismic evaluation of older concrete residential buildings to address individual seismically hazardous buildings without regard to how the buildings came to the attention of local officials. The bill would require the seismic retrofit of a concrete residential building identified as potentially hazardous to comply with the recommendations of a qualified expert, with nationally recognized research recommendations, or with a nationally recognized model codes.

CSAC would appreciate comments from counties on the local implications of this proposed legislation. AB 2181 is set for hearing in the Assembly Local Government Committee on April 9.

Housing

AB 1537 (Levine) – Support
As introduced on January 22, 2014

AB 1537, by Assembly Member Marc Levine, would amend housing element law to allow a subset of counties to move from an “urban” default density of 30 dwelling units per acre under current law, to a “suburban” default density of 20 dwelling units per acre. Default densities are an alternative methodology a jurisdiction can use to demonstrate that it has zoned an adequate amount of land to accommodate its share of lower-income housing development under the Regional Housing Needs Allocation process. This bill would only affect the counties of El Dorado, Placer, Marin, and Yolo.

Specifically, AB 1537 would designate a county with less than 400,000 residents, but which is located in a Metropolitan Statistical Area with population greater than 2,000,000, as suburban for purposes of determining the densities appropriate to accommodate housing for lower income households. The bill would also designate cities within the affected counties that have a population of less than 100,000 as suburban.

AB 1537 is set for hearing in the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee on April 9.

AB 2405 (Ammiano) – Request for Comments
As introduced on February 21, 2014

AB 2405, by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, would amend the Ellis Act, which generally prohibits local governments from adopting ordinances or regulations to require the owner of a residential property to continue to rent or lease the property. The bill would require Ellis Act evictions to proceed through a civil action other than a civil action for unlawful detainer, which would apparently slow down the process. Moreover, the bill would hide no-fault evictions from tenant’s credit or tenant history checks. 

Importantly to counties, the bill would allow a county or city and county to put a moratorium on the Ellis Act by resolution, or through a majority vote of the electorate, if the county or city and county fails to identify or make available adequate sites to accommodate its portion of the regional housing needs allocation for low and moderate income households. 

CSAC is interested in feedback from counties on this bill. The bill has been double-referred to the Assembly Committee on Local Government and the Judiciary Committee and is set for hearing in Local Government on April 23.

SB 1260 (DeSaulnier) – Request for Comments
As introduced on February 21, 2014

SB 1260, by Senator Mark DeSaulnier, would require that no less than twenty-five percent of the tax increment revenue from an Infrastructure Financing District be allocated for affordable housing purposes. Moreover, the bill would require that twenty percent of the housing built during the effective period of the district be affordable to low and moderate income households, among other provisions.

CSAC is interested in counties’ perspectives on this proposed legislation. SB 1260 has been set for hearing in the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee on April 8.

Transportation 

AB 2355 (Levine) – Request for Comments
As Introduced on February 21, 2014

AB 2355, by Assembly Member Marc Levine, would require local agencies to adopt standards at least as accepting of the use of recycled road materials as Caltran’s standards, including recycled paving materials, and recycled base, subbase, and pervious backfill materials. If counties chose not to adopt such standards, the bill requires them to discuss the reasons for not doing so at a public hearing. CSAC previously circulated an earlier draft that would have imposed additional reporting requirements on counties as well as created a more ambiguous standard for the percentage of recycled material to be accepted.

CSAC is interested in comments from counties regarding their current standards for accepting recycled materials in road projects, as well as any difficulties anticipated from implementation of this legislation. 

AB 2355 is set for hearing in the Assembly Local Government Committee on April 9.

SB 1183 (DeSaulnier) – Request for Comments
As amended on March 24, 2014

SB 1183, by Senator Mark DeSaulnier, would authorize a city, county, or regional park district to impose, as a special tax, a point of sale tax on new bicycles, with the rate of the tax to be determined by the local agency. The bill would exclude from the tax bicycles with wheels of 20 inches or less in diameter. The bill would require the State Board of Equalization to collect the bicycle tax in a manner similar to the collection of local transactions and use taxes, and to transmit the net revenues from the tax to the local agency. The bill would require the local agency to use bicycle tax revenues for improvements to paved and natural surface trails, including existing and new trails, and for associated maintenance purposes.

CSAC is interested in comments from counties on this legislation. SB 1183 has been set for hearing before the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on April 9.