August 29, 2019

Last week, Governor Newsom signed the first tribal-state gaming compact (Compact) negotiated under his Administration. AB 753 (E. Garcia) would ratify the gaming compact between the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians and the State of California. The Compact includes a two-tiered provision for environmental mitigation, which is included in some of the recent compacts and depends on the number of slot machines the Tribe operates.

August 15, 2019                                                  

August 1, 2019

July 25, 2019

Prior to adjourning session for summer recess, the Legislature approved AB 101 (Committee on Budget) — the housing and homelessness budget trailer bill, which reflects the final agreement between the Governor and Legislature on housing and homelessness budget items for fiscal year 2019-20.

CSAC’s top budget priority, a direct allocation of funding for counties to tackle the homelessness crisis, is included in the bill. The measure also includes $650 million to address the homelessness crisis, $500 million for infrastructure grants to support housing production, $500 million to support low-income housing tax credits, $500 million for mixed-income housing development, and $250 million to support local and regional housing plans.

July 11, 2019

Caltrans will be hosting an informational webinar to provide an overview of guidance that an inter-agency working group is developing to implement recent updates to CEQA Statute and Guidelines related to SB 743, signed in 2013.

These guidance documents will address transportation impacts for projects on the State Highway System, Caltrans review of local land development, and traffic analysis methodologies. 

June 28, 2019

June 6, 2019

May 30, 2019

May 9, 2019

The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is soliciting comments on draft guidelines for the Permanent Local Housing Allocation (PLHA) program. The Building Homes and Jobs Trust Fund and the PLHA program were created to implement SB 2 (Atkins), which was signed into law as part of a 15-bill housing package in 2017.

April 25, 2019

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has released a Notice of Funding Opportunity for $900 million for the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grants Program. 

April 18, 2019

Following an executive order by Governor Newsom, the Department of General Services (DGS) released an initial inventory of state property potentially available for housing development last week. The inventory identifies 44,370 state-owned parcels—1,330 of which seem to be feasible to accommodate housing development.

April 4, 2019

March 21, 2019

February 28, 2019

The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) released draft guidelines for the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG). The CDBG program provides funding opportunities to local governments that do not participate in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) CDBG entitlement program.

February 7, 2019

Feedback Needed on Housing Proposals

California legislators have demonstrated their continued efforts to alleviate the housing crisis by proposing bills intended to increase the affordable housing supply across the state. CSAC is already engaging the Administration and Legislators on these proposals and is interested in comments and concerns from counties.

State-Imposed Zoning Standards

Nov. 8, 2018

With Governor Brown signing over 1,000 bills into law this year, CSAC is publishing a series of articles to spotlight new laws that impact counties from each policy area. In this week’s final installment, the report from the Housing, Land Use and Transportation policy area provides information on new laws affecting housing, public works, building standards, and more.

The new laws listed below become effective January 1, 2019, unless otherwise noted.

Housing and Land Use

Oct. 18, 2018

The Department of Housing and Community Development released draft guidelines for SB 2 planning grants for cities and counties. The grants are funded with half of the revenue generated in the first calendar year of SB 2 (Atkins, 2017) document recording tax. The other half of year-one funding will be allocated to homelessness programs.

July 26, 2018

CSAC continues to engage on several bills related to housing and land use planning. Updates on some of the key legislation still moving forward this year are included below.

Regional Housing Needs Legislation

June 14, 2018

The Department of Housing and Community Development announced the availability of approximately $6 million in federal ESG funds for Administrative Entities (AEs) in the Continuum of Care (CoC) Allocation, and approximately $5 million in federal ESG funds for homeless service providers applying in the Balance of State (BoS) Allocation.