BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: SB 550
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: jackson
VERSION: 4/24/13
Analysis by: Alison Dinmore FISCAL: YES
Hearing date: April 30, 2013
SUBJECT:
Increasing accessibility standards for persons with mobility and
communications disabilities in state- and locally-assisted
housing developments
DESCRIPTION:
This bill increases the number of accessible units required in
state- and locally-assisted housing developments for persons
with mobility disabilities from 5% to 10% and communications
disabilities (i.e., hearing and vision) from 2% to 4%.
ANALYSIS:
California law establishes programs under the Department of
Housing and Community Development (HCD), including the
Multifamily Housing Program (MHP). This program provides
financial assistance for the development and construction, as
well as the rehabilitation or acquisition and rehabilitation, of
transitional or rental housing developments. HCD establishes a
competitive project selection process for these loans.
Developers of the projects are also subject to compliance with
the federal Fair Housing Act (1988), which applies design and
construction requirements to structures built after March 13,
1991. All housing providers in all buildings, however, must
also make reasonable modifications for those people with
disabilities.
Every three years the California Building Standards Commission
(BSC) adopts revised building codes through proposal, review,
and adoption processes. These processes ensure that interested
parties receive notice of the proposed regulations as well as an
opportunity to provide comments and concerns and participate in
the process. Once adopted, state statute requires the BSC to
publish and make the building standards available to the public
at least 180 days before their effective date. These procedures
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give the designers, contractors, local government planners,
building officials, and inspectors in construction time to
become familiar and ensure compliance with the code. These
codes are then published as the California Building Code (CBC)
in the California Code of Regulations. In intervening years,
the law also requires the BSC to consider building standards
proposed by state agencies at 18-month intervals (known as the
intervening code cycle) and to publish updates to the code as
necessary.
The Division of the State Architect (DSA) is one of several
state agencies that proposes changes to the CBC through the
BSC's rulemaking process. DSA also develops and publishes
interpretations of code and policies and procedures necessary
for stakeholder understanding and for coordination of
enforcement among the DSA regional offices. Accessibility
standards include building regulations for ensuring buildings,
structures, sidewalks, curbs, and related facilities are
accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities.
Since 1993, the CBC has required that new multifamily apartments
with three or more units and condominiums with four or more
units, constructed after March 1991, comply with HCD's
accessibility standards. These standards state that all
ground-floor units in buildings without elevators and all units
in buildings with elevators shall be adaptable and on an
accessible route.
Over the last two years, the BSC worked on updating the CBC, and
adopted the 2013 California Building Code in January, 2013. The
2013 CBC goes into effect January 1, 2014. Among other things,
California's new regulations place new accessibility
requirements on newly constructed "public housing" facilities.
These regulations require that a minimum of 5% of the total
units, or at least one unit in an assisted multifamily housing
project, provide mobility features. They also require that 2%,
or at least one of the units, provide communications features.
The 2013 CBC defines public housing as housing facilities that
are owned or operated or both, by or on behalf of a public
entity as well as privately owned housing made available for
public use as housing.
This bill increases the number of accessible units required in
state- and locally-assisted housing developments for those with
mobility disabilities from 5% to 10% and communications
SB 550 (JACKSON) Page 3
disabilities (i.e., hearing and vision) from 2% to 4% for all
building permit applications submitted after July 1, 2014. This
bill also requires 10% of the units to be on an accessible
route. This bill expands the definition of "public housing" in
the CBC to include housing receiving financial assistance from
state or local governments or public agencies. This bill
further defines financial assistance as the provision of any
land or any financial assistance, including bonds, loans or
grants or bond insurance or guarantees, rental assistance,
operational assistance, development assistance, downpayment
assistance, rehabilitation assistance, or housing tax credits,
including density bonuses.
COMMENTS:
1. Purpose of the bill . According to the author, people with
disabilities on average have lower-incomes than those who are
not disabled. The U.S. Department of Labor found that only
20.5% of adults with disabilities are in the workforce
compared with 69.1% of people without disabilities. This
means that people with disabilities, including veterans and
seniors, often require affordable housing. In addition,
people with disabilities require housing that meets their
specific disability-related needs. For example, those in
wheelchairs require building designs that allow them to move
freely through doorways and up and down stairs, as well as
features such as handle bars in bathrooms and lower counters
in kitchens. Those with vision and hearing impairments
similarly require special communications features.
Presently, among California households with incomes below
45.1% of the federal poverty level, 10% have one or more
members with some type of mobility device. Among elderly
populations in California (persons at least 65 years or
older), 30.1% have one or more members who use some type of
mobility device. Between 9 and 22 out of every 1,000 people
have a severe hearing impairment or are deaf, and 1.8% of
Californians have a visual disability. The author is seeking
to increase the stock of state- and locally-funded units that
are accessible for those with mobility and communications
disabilities in order to meet these demands. The author is
choosing to place these requirements in statute so that they
do not have to wait three years to go through the
administrative process. Additionally, the sponsor is seeking
to clarify the definition of public housing to ensure that it
encompasses all publicly supported housing.
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2. Building codes should not be placed in statute . The
current set of changes to the CBC, adopted in January 2013,
takes effect on January 1, 2014. This two-year administrative
process was the largest overhaul of state accessibility
regulations in the past twenty years. These kinds of changes
are made through the same administrative process to provide
the notice that interested parties require to ensure
compliance. These parties look to the CBC, not the Health and
Safety Code, for accessibility standards. Rather than putting
these changes into statute, the committee may wish to consider
directing HCD and DSA to develop building standards for
adoption by the BSC during the next intervening code cycle.
3. Reserving accessible units for persons with disabilities .
In many large urban areas, applicants for affordable housing
units are on a waiting list for many years. When these
waiting lists open up periodically (e.g., every few years),
they fill-up after being open for a short time, often only a
few hours.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations
state that federally- funded Public Housing Authorities can
set "local preferences" to move a household with greater
housing needs up on the waiting list as long as these
preferences are approved by HUD. This can include people with
disabilities. Additionally, HUD regulations state that when a
federally-funded unit becomes vacant, the owner or manager,
before offering such unit to a non-disabled applicant, shall
offer that unit first to a current occupant of the same
project who has a disability that requires the accessibility
features of the unit; and second, to an eligible qualified
applicant on the waiting list having a disability requiring
the accessibility features of the vacant unit. Additionally,
when offering a unit to an applicant not having a disability,
the owner may require the applicant to agree to move to a
non-accessible unit when available.
With respect to state- or local-government assisted housing,
often those who are disabled do not have priority for units
that meet higher disability accessibility standards. The
committee may wish to consider amending the bill to direct HCD
to implement similar requirements for state- and
locally-funded housing projects that give priority for
accessible units to persons with disabilities.
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4. Scope of applicability unclear . The CBC definition of
public housing applies to developments with three or more
units. This bill is applicable to "public housing facilities
with residential dwelling units" and is unclear how many units
trigger these requirements. Additionally, the definition of
"financial assistance" is ambiguous and overly broad. The
definition applies to the provision of "any land," which could
be construed as land purchased for fair market value. The
sponsors state that the standards should not apply to mortgage
assistance, however, the definition includes "downpayment
assistance." The definition further lists ambiguous terms
such as rehabilitation assistance and development assistance.
Lastly, the bill applies to developments for which a developer
receives a density bonus. These include private developments
with no public funding for which the developer has agreed to
include affordable units in exchange for incentives. The
committee may wish to consider limiting the bill to
multifamily housing and redefining "financial assistance" as
the provision of land at less than fair market value or direct
financial assistance including loans, grants, guarantees,
project-based rental assistance, or state or federal
low-income housing tax credits.
5. Costs . Supporters have suggested that due to the newly
increased standards in the CBC, the costs of increasing the
accessibility standards will be minimal. They have not
provided cost estimates to confirm this, however. As a
result, it is unclear how costly the increased standards will
be, particularly the requirement for 10% of units to be on an
accessible route. Those in opposition state that the
effective date will affect projects that have already been
approved and do not provide a sufficient number of accessible
units. These projects will require costly redesigns or will
not proceed.
6. Opposition . Those opposed to the bill argue that building
codes should not be placed into statute and, echoing the
consideration in comment 2 above, suggest that the bill direct
HCD and DSA to develop building standards for adoption by the
BSC in the next regularly scheduled triennial code adoption
cycle taking place after January 1, 2014. The opponents also
raise the following concerns:
Effective date of July 1, 2014 is unreasonable.
Additionally, those opposed state that the bill's effective
date (for building permits submitted on or after July 1,
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2014) does not provide sufficient time or notice for
compliance. For example, projects that have already been
designed and approved but do not pull a permit until July
2014 would be subject to the new requirements retroactively
and would become infeasible.
Definition of financial assistance" is overly broad.
Those in opposition state that the inclusion of "any land"
or "any manner of financial assistance" by a local or state
entity would trigger compliance with the accessibility
requirements on many building rehabilitation projects. The
opponents suggest a clarification that financial assistance
means a grant by a public agency of at least 50% of the
cost of public housing that is solely used for the
construction of residential dwelling units. They also
support a notice requirement to the builders about the
standards in this bill.
Application to existing housing? The bill raises the
question of whether the increased standards would apply to
existing housing or if the bill applies only to new
construction.
Which construction specifications are required? The
bill does not provide clarity as to what specific
construction specifications are required to comply with the
10% and the 4% application requirements. Opponents state
that building officials and designers must have precise
clarity as to "when" and "where" these standards will
apply.
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Wednesday,
April 24, 2013.)
SUPPORT: Disability Rights California (sponsor)
The Arc and United Cerebral Palsy in California
Association of California Caregiver Resource
Centers
Coalition of California Welfare Rights
Organizations, Inc.
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
Disability Rights Legal Center
National Association of Social Workers
National Multiple Sclerosis Society - California
Action Network
Multipurpose Senior Services Program Site
Association, Inc.
State Independent Living Council
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OPPOSED: Apartment Association, California Southern Cities
California Apartment Association
California Building Industry Association
California Business Properties Association
East Bay Rental Housing Association
Nor Cal Rental Property Association