BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2584| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- THIRD READING Bill No: AB 2584 Author: Daly (D), et al. Amended: 6/27/16 in Senate Vote: 21 SENATE TRANS. & HOUSING COMMITTEE: 10-1, 6/21/16 AYES: Beall, Cannella, Allen, Gaines, Galgiani, Leyva, McGuire, Mendoza, Roth, Wieckowski NOES: Bates ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 64-9, 5/9/16 - See last page for vote SUBJECT: Land use: housing development SOURCE: California Apartment Association DIGEST: This bill authorizes a "housing organization," as defined, to enforce the Housing Accountability Act. ANALYSIS: Existing law, under the Housing Accountability Act (HAA): 1)Requires cities and counties, under existing planning and zoning law, to prepare and adopt a general plan, including a housing element, to guide the future growth of a community. The housing element shall consist of an identification and analysis of existing and projected housing needs and a statement of goals, policies objectives, financial resources and scheduled programs for the preservation, improvement, and development of housing. AB 2584 Page 2 2)Requires the local jurisdiction, to the extent that it does not have adequate sites within its existing inventory of residentially zoned land, to adopt a program to rezone land at appropriate densities to accommodate the community's housing need for all income groups. 3)Requires a city or county, in order to disapprove an affordable housing project, to make one of the following findings, based upon substantial evidence in the record: a) The city or county has adopted an updated housing element in substantial compliance with the law, and the community met its share of the regional housing need for that income category. b) The project will have a specific, adverse impact on the public health or safety and there is no way to mitigate or avoid the impact. c) The denial is required to comply with state or federal law. d) The project is located on agricultural or resource preservation land that does not have adequate water or waste water facilities. e) The jurisdiction has identified sufficient and adequate sites to accommodate its share of the regional housing need and the project is inconsistent with both the general plan land use designation and the zoning ordinance. This bill authorizes a "housing organization" to enforce the HAA. This bill defines "housing organization" to mean a trade or industry group whose local members are primarily engaged in the construction or management of affordable housing units or a nonprofit organization whose mission includes providing or advocating for increased access to affordable housing for low-income households and have filed written or oral comments with the local agency prior to action on the project. A housing organization may only file an action pursuant to this section to challenge the disapproval of a housing development by a local agency. AB 2584 Page 3 Comments 1)Purpose. According to the author, developers may be reluctant to challenge local noncompliance of the HAA because they often build multiple projects within the same city or county over a number of years. For this reason, developers may find it is in their long-term best interest to maintain a good relationship with the city or county by not challenging it on any particular project. As a project's developer may be reluctant to assert its eligibility for approval, it could be beneficial to ensure that other interested parties - such as potential residents of the development, affected residents of the locality or region, or organizations that advocate for more home building - are able to bring these challenges. This bill authorizes a housing organization to bring an action to enforce the HAA. 2)HAA. The purpose of the HAA is to limit the ability of local agencies to reject or make infeasible housing developments without a thorough analysis of the economic, social, and environmental effects of the action. Under current law, if a project was disapproved in violation of the HAA, only the project developer or an eligible tenant of the proposed development may bring suit against the jurisdiction to enforce the provisions of the HAA. This bill expands the enforcement of the provisions of the HAA to also allow housing organizations to bring a legal action when a local government fails to comply with the HAA. FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.:NoLocal: No SUPPORT: (Verified6/27/16) California Apartment Association (source) AARP Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation Santa Barbara Rental Property Association Western Center on Law and Poverty AB 2584 Page 4 OPPOSITION: (Verified6/30/16) None received ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 64-9, 5/9/16 AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Arambula, Atkins, Baker, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Cristina Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Roger Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Patterson, Quirk, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon NOES: Travis Allen, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Levine, Mathis, Obernolte, Olsen, Waldron NO VOTE RECORDED: Bigelow, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Eduardo Garcia, Jones, Melendez, Ridley-Thomas Prepared by:Alison Dinmore / T. & H. / (916) 651-4121 6/30/16 15:18:03 **** END ****