BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: SB 745
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: T&H CMTE.
VERSION: 4/15/13
Analysis by: Alison Dinmore FISCAL: NO
Hearing date: April 23, 2013
SUBJECT:
Housing omnibus bill
DESCRIPTION:
This bill makes technical and non-controversial changes to
sections of law relating to housing.
ANALYSIS:
Proposals included in this housing omnibus bill must abide by
the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee policy on
omnibus committee bills. The proponent of an item submits
proposed language and provides background materials to the
committee for the item to be described to legislative staff and
stakeholders. Committee staff provides a summary of the items
and the actual legislative language to all majority and minority
consultants in both the Senate and Assembly, as well as all
known or presumed interested parties. If an item encounters any
opposition and the proponent cannot work out a solution with the
opposition, the item is omitted from or amended out of the bill.
Proposals in the bills must reflect a consensus and be without
opposition from legislative members, agencies, and other
stakeholders.
This bill makes non-controversial changes to sections of law
relating to housing. Specifically, the bill includes the
following provisions. The proposer of each provision is noted
in brackets.
1.AB 805 and AB 806 chaptering and clean-up changes. [Sections
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13] Assembly Bills
805 and 806 (Torres), Chapters 180 and 181 of 2012,
reorganized and recodified the Davis-Stirling Common Interest
Development Act. The bills repealed the former statute and
replaced it with a new statute that will become operative on
January 1, 2014. This bill addresses chaptering issues,
corrects an erroneous cross-reference, and restores two
SB 745 (TRANSPORTATION AND HOUSING CMTE.) Page 2
sections that were inadvertently omitted from the recodified
Davis-Stirling Act. [Steve Cohen, California Law Revisions
Commission]
2.Updating a building code reference. [Section 4] California
now adopts all building code standards in a consistent format:
state entities use national model codes as a baseline, then
propose amendments and adopt a California Building Code, which
includes various subparts, such as the California Electrical
Code. State law relating to telephone wiring, however,
continues to refer to a specific national model code, which
creates a conflict with the California Building Code. This
results in property owners and electricians not knowing which
code applies. This bill updates the reference to the
California Electrical Code. [Mark Stivers, Senate
Transportation and Housing Committee]
3.Updating a CID disclosure list. [Section 11] Current law
requires a common interest development, upon request, to
furnish an owner who wishes to sell his or her unit with
various documents that the seller must provide to the buyer.
The statute includes a form listing all the various documents
that the CID must provide. This bill corrects an omission by
adding to the form the currently required notice of rental
restrictions. [Kerry Mazzoni, Executive Council of
Homeowners]
4.Repeal of an obsolete section. [Section 14] Legislation
adopted in 1995 established a pilot program that allowed
communities in San Diego County to self-certify their housing
elements if they had met or exceeded locally generated
affordable housing goals from the previous housing element
cycle. This pilot program ended in 2010 and the authorizing
statute sunset in 2011. Related legislation in 2002
stipulated that communities that had self-certified their
housing element under the pilot program were fully eligible to
participate in any program funded through the Housing and
Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2002 (Proposition 46) that
requires a housing element approved by the Department of
Housing and Community Development (HCD). This provision was
put into a different section of law that had no sunset date.
The pilot program to which it refers no longer exists, and HCD
has awarded all Proposition 46 funds. This section is now
obsolete. This bill repeals this obsolete section. [Mark
Stivers, Senate Transportation and Housing Committee]
SB 745 (TRANSPORTATION AND HOUSING CMTE.) Page 3
5.SB 1394 clean-up language. [Section 15] SB 1394, Chapter
420, Statutes of 2012, includes provisions that require a
smoke alarm, by January 1, 2014, to display the date of
manufacture on the device, provide a place on the device where
the date of installation can be written, incorporate a hush
feature, incorporate an end-of-life feature that provides
notice that the device needs to be replaced, and, if battery
operated, contain a non-replaceable, non-removable battery
that is capable of powering the smoke alarm for a minimum of
10 years. The State Fire Marshal's office has identified that
the necessary testing protocols for the requirement for an
end-of-life feature is not developed and that it would take at
least three years to go through the approval process. The
State Fire Marshal has recommended that SB 1394 be modified to
remove the end-of-life feature requirement on all smoke alarms
and extend the compliance date to July 1, 2015, for smoke
alarm manufacturers to have their products tested to comply
with the law. This bill implements those recommendations.
[Jennifer Snyder, Capitol Advocacy]
COMMENTS:
Purpose of the bill. The purpose of omnibus bills is to include
technical and non-controversial changes to various
committee-related statutes into one bill. This allows the
legislature to make multiple, minor changes to statutes in one
bill in a cost-effective manner. The Senate Committee on
Transportation and Housing insists that its housing omnibus bill
be a consensus measure. If there is no consensus on a
particular item, it cannot be included. There is no known
opposition to any item in this bill.
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the committee before noon on
Wednesday,
April 17, 2013.)
SUPPORT: None received.
OPPOSED: None received.