BILL ANALYSIS
AB 558
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Date of Hearing: April 1, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Anna Marie Caballero, Chair
AB 558 (Portantino) - As Introduced: February 25, 2009
SUBJECT : Land use planning: housing element: foster youth
placement.
SUMMARY : Allows a city to reduce its regional housing need
allocation (RHNA) by up to 10% if it adopts a program to
actively promote and assist in the placement of foster youth in
existing family-based households. Specifically, this bill :
1)Allows a city to reduce its RHNA by up to 10% if it adopts a
program that meets all of the following requirements:
a) It actively promotes placement of foster youth in
existing family-based households through advertisement and
city-based incentives;
b) It provides a process for coordinating city and county
assistance to help interested persons by providing
information and documents necessary to meet the
responsibility of caring for foster youth;
c) It serves as a resource to assist interested persons in
gaining access to existing services that support the
placement of foster youth in existing family-based
households;
d) It provides a plan to measure the success of the
program, in coordination with the county's current system
of data outcomes; and,
e) It is approved by the council of governments (COG) that
assigns the city's RHNA share, or by the Department of
Housing and Community Development (HCD) if there is no COG.
2)Prohibits the COG or HCD from approving the program for a
subsequent housing element planning period if the program was
not responsible for meeting 2.5% or more of the city's RHNA
share in the previous planning period.
3)Limits participation to five cities per COG and five cities
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from areas not covered by COGs.
4)Requires each city that adopts a program to submit to the COG
or HCD, as appropriate, two progress reports per planning
period on dates established by the COG or HCD.
5)Requires that these reports, include, but not be limited to,
the number of foster placements with a duration of one year or
more that occurred within the reporting period as verified by
the county program that manages foster placements.
6)Sunsets the bill's provisions on January 1, 2016, unless a
later enacted statute deletes or extends the date.
7)Makes a number of findings and declarations regarding the
problems faced by foster youth and the need to give cities
another tool to meet their RHNA requirement by involving them
in the task of identifying family-based environments for
foster youth.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires every city and county to prepare and adopt a general
plan containing seven mandatory elements, including a housing
element.
2)Requires the housing element to identify and analyze existing
and projected housing needs, identify adequate sites with
appropriate zoning to meet the housing needs of all income
segments of the community, and ensure that regulatory systems
provide opportunities for, and do not unduly constrain,
housing development.
3)Requires each COG, in conjunction with HCD, and prior to each
housing element revision, to prepare a regional housing needs
assessment and allocate to each jurisdiction in the region its
fair share of the housing need for all income categories.
4)Requires HCD to determine the local share of the region's
housing need in an area where a COG does not exist.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
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1)AB 558 is substantially similar to a bill heard in committee
in 2008 - AB 2322 (Portantino). That bill passed out of the
Local Government Committee, but was ultimately held in the
Assembly Housing & Community Development Committee.
2)This bill would allow cities to reduce their RHNA share by up
to 10% if they adopt a program to promote the placement of
foster youth in family-based households. The program would
have to be approved by the COG, or HCD in areas with no COG.
Only five cities per COG and five cities in non-COG areas
could adopt such a program. The bill sets forth very general
guidelines for what a program would entail, including actively
promoting placement of foster youth in existing family-based
households through advertisement and city-based incentives. A
city would not be able to continue to reduce its RHNA share in
the next housing element planning period if the program was
not responsible for meeting at least 2.5% of the city's share
of the regional housing need in the previous planning period.
3)The regional housing needs assessment is a fundamental
component of the housing element update process undertaken by
a city or county. A RHNA is a short-term projection of
additional housing units needed to accommodate existing
households and projected household growth of all income levels
by the end of the housing element planning period. RHNAs
establish minimum housing development capacity that cities and
counties are to make available via their land use powers to
accommodate growth within a short-term planning period.
4)Cities and counties are required to demonstrate that sites are
adequate to accommodate housing for each income group based on
zoning (after taking into consideration various individual
site factors). With respect to the zoning, density is used as
a proxy for affordability. Jurisdictions may establish the
adequacy of a site for very low- or low-income housing by
demonstrating that the site realistically allows the densities
established in statute (commonly referred to as the "Mullin
densities") or by providing an analysis of how a lower density
can accommodate the need for affordable housing. To the
extent that a community does not have adequate sites within
its existing inventory of residentially zoned land, then the
community must adopt a program to rezone land at appropriate
densities to accommodate the community's housing need for all
income groups during the planning period. With respect to
sites rezoned to accommodate its need for very low- and
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low-income housing, the new zoning must allow multifamily
residential use by right (i.e. without discretionary review of
individual projects other than design review).
5)Advocates for affordable housing have long maintained that the
RHNA process is necessary to make sure that cities and
counties adequately plan for housing for all income levels,
with a particular emphasis on planning for very low- and
low-income housing, which is often both the most needed type
of housing and the hardest to provide. Local governments, for
their part, have complained about inconsistencies and
inequities in the allocation of RHNA numbers and certification
of housing elements by HCD. In 2003 a housing element working
group comprised of stakeholders from all sides of the issue
agreed on two pieces of legislation, AB 2158 (Lowenthal),
Chapter 696, Statutes of 2003, and AB 2348 (Mullin), Chapter
724, Statutes of 2003. These bills eased some of the tension
between the parties, but the issue of RHNA remains sensitive,
and any effort to revise it must tread very carefully.
6)According to the author, the purpose of AB 558 is to inspire
city involvement in the placement of foster youth in
family-based households. The author notes that the RHNA
process requires cities to zone for future housing needs in
four categories - very low, low, moderate, and above moderate
- but does not require planning for housing needs of foster
youth ages 0 - 18 who will need placement in existing homes.
7)Previous legislative attempts seeking relief from the RHNA
process have not met with success. The bills that have come
through this Committee in prior years have taken the approach
that a good practice, with respect to the provision of
housing, should result in a credit toward meeting the city or
county's RHNA number. AB 558, however, takes two critically
important but unrelated issues - lack of foster parents and
lack of affordable housing production - and merges them in a
way that presents a conflict. The major distinction is that
AB 558 seeks to find existing homes for foster youth, while
the intent of the RHNA process is to plan for future
(additional) housing needs as California's population grows.
8)Counties manage social services, like foster care, for
residents within their jurisdiction. This bill would only
allow for a reduction in RHNA for a city, even though cities
do not presently have the responsibility for providing such
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services. The author notes that this is deliberate, and that
the purpose of the bill is to engage cities in the process of
placing foster youth. The Committee may want to consider
whether the appropriate responsibility for placement of foster
youth vests with the county, the city, or both, since this
bill would allow for cities to undertake a new responsibility
that has traditionally been provided by the county.
9)This bill is double-referred to the Committee on Housing and
Community Development.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Aspiranet
Opposition
CRLA Foundation (unless amended)
Western Center on Law & Poverty (unless amended)
Analysis Prepared by : Debbie Michel / L. GOV. / (916)
319-3958