BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1545
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Date of Hearing: August 23, 2000
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Carole Migden, Chairwoman
SB 1545 (Costa) - As Amended: August 18, 2000
Policy Committee: Housing and
Community Development Vote: 9-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill imposes permitting requirements on local governments
regarding proposals to rehabilitate employee housing for
agricultural workers or to improve water or wastewater systems
serving that housing, and amends the Employee Housing Act
regarding civil actions. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the local building or health department to approve or
deny a permit application within 60 calendar days, after which
the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is
authorized to review and approve the permit.
2)Authorizes the building or health department to deny the
permit on procedural grounds, by providing a listing of
procedural defects, within 30 calendar days after submittal.
3)Reduces from 34 to 10 days the period that a local enforcement
agency has to file a civil action against an owner of employee
housing before the complaintant may themselves file a civil
action for violation of the Employee Housing Act.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Negligible fiscal impact on local governments. (The
timeframes established in this measure may force some
jurisdictions to place priority on reviewing the specified
permit applications and employee housing complaints, but
should not require additional personnel to perform the
required duties.)
2)Minor absorbable cost for HCD to review those plans for
SB 1545
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rehabilitation projects that are not acted on by local
agencies within 60 calendar days.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the sponsor, the California Housing Law
Project (CHLP), this bill is intended to make modest changes
to the Employee Housing Act to help address the problem of
substandard living conditions in labor camps. Since the Labor
Camp Act of 1913, California has enforced minimum housing
standards to protect the health and safety of agricultural
workers. It is estimated that there are about 800 camps in
the state, housing approximately 20,000 workers. The bill
provides that permits to construct and upgrade farmworker
housing must be acted upon by local governments within 60
days, after which the state Department of Housing and
Community Development would undertake the permit review and
approval process. The CHLP says that this provision addresses
the issue of localities refusing to act on permits needed to
bring substandard employee housing up to code.
The CHLP states that such housing typically is rented to
farmworkers illegally for years and the city or county ignores
its substandard condition. When the operator agrees to obtain
a license and bring the housing up to code, the city or county
refuses to act on the permit. The sponsor believes that in
these cases, the city or county does not want to formally
approve the use of the property as farmworker housing.
1)Opposition . The League of Cities and the state Association of
Counties stated opposition to the previous version of this
bill, in part regarding the tight timeframe for reviewing
permit applications and provisions which deemed such
applications as approved if local entities did not complete
their review within the specified timeframes. The author has
recently amended the bill, as reflected in this analysis, in
an attempt to address these concerns.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)319-2081