BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: ab 2762
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: asm HCD
VERSION: 6/22/10
Analysis by: Mark Stivers FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 29, 2010
SUBJECT:
2010 housing omnibus bill
DESCRIPTION:
This bill makes non-controversial changes to sections of law
relating to housing
ANALYSIS:
According to the Legislative Analyst, the cost of producing a
bill in 2001-02 was $17,890. By combining multiple matters into
one bill, the Legislature can make minor changes to law in the
most cost-effective manner.
This bill includes the following provisions. The sponsor of
each provision is noted in brackets.
1.Technical clean-up relating to mobilehomes and manufactured
homes. [Sections 1 and 1.3] The Business and Professions
Code contains a number of references to "mobilehomes" but not
to the more recent "manufactured homes." The bill adds the
term "manufactured homes" where appropriate and corrects
cross-references to the Code of Federal Regulations. [Anya
Lawler, Assembly Committee on Housing and Community
Development]
2.Update of terminology in the Mobilehome Residency Law.
[Section 1.6] The Mobilehome Residency Law (MRL) contains the
term "warehouseman's lien," while the analogous sections of
law use the updated term "warehouse lien." The bill updates
the MRL to use the updated term. [Anya Lawler, Assembly
Committee on Housing and Community Development]
AB 2762 (ASM HCD) Page 2
3.Technical cleanup of housing element law. [Section 1.9] Under
current housing element law, in the event that a city or
county cannot identify adequate sites to accommodate its
housing need from its existing inventory, the city or county
must adopt a program to "make sites available during the
planning period." Due to a Legislative Counsel error in
drafting AB 2348, Chapter 724, Statutes of 2004, this
subdivision mistakenly refers to the planning period of the
general plan instead of the housing element. The bill strikes
the reference to the general plan and includes an explanation
for the change. [Mark Stivers, Senate Transportation and
Housing Committee]
4.Technical clean-up to the Housing Accountability Act.
[Section 2] The Housing Accountability Act provides that a
city or county may not disapprove a housing element without
making specified findings. The law includes within the
definition of "disapprove" the failure to comply with time
periods established in a specified subparagraph of the Permit
Streamlining Act. The specified subparagraph does not contain
any time periods. The bill corrects the reference to refer to
the subdivision that does contain the time periods. [Barbara
Kautz, Goldfarb & Lipman]
5.Technical clean-up of California Building Standards Law.
[Sections 2.1 - 2.8] The California Building Standards Law
establishes the Building Standards Commission (BSC) and the
process for adopting state building standards. There are a
number of outdated phrases and references in the law that need
to be changed to reflect current codes and common terminology;
the law includes a number of provisions that are obsolete; the
Department of Industrial Relations no longer adopts building
standards into Title 24; and the BSC is not authorized to
accept outside funding that may become available. The
proposed amendments make these changes. [Mark Stivers, Senate
Transportation and Housing Committee]
6.HCD regulations for factory-built housing. [Section 2.9] In
1979, the Legislature transferred authority for promulgating
code-related regulations for manufactured and factory-built
housing under the Factory-Built Housing Law from the
Commission on Housing and Community Development to the
Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and
abolished the commission. Some anachronistic references
remain that create problems for the public. In addition, the
AB 2762 (ASM HCD) Page 3
Administrative Procedures Act now distinguishes between
"informal" and "formal" hearings, and all other HCD
code-related hearings for manufactured and factory-built
housing are "informal." This bill updates references to HCD
and allows HCD to hold informal hearings under the California
Factory-Built Housing Law. [Mark Stivers, Senate
Transportation and Housing Committee]
7.Redevelopment law and domestic violence shelters. [Section 3]
Current law requires a redevelopment agency, for each
assisted housing development, to record a Notice of
Affordability Restrictions on Transfer of Property that
includes, among other things, the street address of the
property and, if applicable, the affordable unit numbers.
This bill exempts properties that confidentially house victims
of domestic violence from the requirement that a property's
address be listed. [Brent Hawkins, McDonough Holland & Allen]
8.Redevelopment agency posting requirements. [Sections 3.5 and
5.5] AB 987 (Jones), Chapter 690, Statutes of 2007, required
redevelopment agencies to post on their websites a database of
housing units required or assisted by the agency. The agency
must report the income restrictions, the addresses of the
units, size and number of bedrooms, and the expiration of the
restrictions. The database must be updated annually. The
proposed amendment would resolve the following problems that
have arisen with the current law: (1) some agencies do not
identify when the database was last updated, making it
difficult to ascertain if and when the required annual update
occurred; (2) further restrictions on occupancy beyond income
(e.g., units reserved for seniors) are not required to be
identified, leading some potential residents to believe that
the housing may be available in the future when in fact it is
restricted to criteria they do not meet; and (3) there is no
requirement for an agency to post implementation plans, which
contain very useful information, on the internet. The bill
requires that redevelopment agencies post the following on
their websites: the date that the posted database of
affordable units was last updated; whether occupancy of each
unit is restricted to a special population (e.g., seniors);
and the agency's latest implementation plan. [Christine
Minnehan, Western Center on Law and Poverty]
9.Redevelopment law and affordable housing. [Sections 4 and 5]
Current law generally prohibits a redevelopment agency from
constructing residential, commercial, and industrial
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buildings, except to provide replacement housing. This bill
allows redevelopment agencies to construct structures in order
to provide housing for low or moderate income households and
corrects erroneous cross references. [Brent Hawkins,
McDonough Holland & Allen]
10. Repeal outdated programs from Proposition 46. [Sections 6
and 6.5] Proposition 46, the 2002 housing bond, funded two
new programs related to farmworker housing. The first allowed
Farmworker Housing Grant Program funds to be used for migrant
farmworker housing until September 1, 2006. The second
allowed HCD to award funds until January 1, 2004 to a
non-profit intermediary to fund projects integrating
farmworker housing and health care. Awards were made under
these programs, the funding is now all exhausted, and the
dates have long passed. The bill repeals these outdated
provisions. [Mark Stivers, Senate Transportation and Housing
Committee]
11. Eliminate duplicate numbering. [Section 7] HCD's sections
of the Health and Safety Code contain two chapters with the
number 8.5. The bill renumbers one of these chapters to be
Chapter 8.3. [Mark Stivers, Senate Transportation and Housing
Committee]
12. Extending the use of guidelines for the Affordable Housing
Revolving Development and Acquisition Program. [Section 8]
Proposition 1C and the follow-up SB 586 (Dutton), Chapter 652,
Statutes of 2007, allocated $50 million for the Affordable
Housing Revolving Development and Acquisition Program, to be
comprised of both a loan fund and a practitioner fund. SB 586
allowed HCD to operate this program under guidelines for 24
months, and thereafter requires HCD to adopt formal
regulations. Given that these programs are intended to make
5-year loans, it makes more sense to allow the guidelines to
be in force for the duration of the initial loans and only
require regulations for future requests for qualifications
(RFQs) issued after the initial loans are repaid. The bill
requires HCD to adopt regulations for the program prior to
issuing any RFQs funded with loan repayments or any other
sources. [Mark Stivers, Senate Transportation and Housing
Committee]
13. Repeal outdated EHAP section. [Section 9] This section
allocates specific amounts of money to specific counties under
the Emergency Housing Assistance Program for the 1997-98 and
AB 2762 (ASM HCD) Page 5
1998-99 fiscal years. Given that it has been ten years since
these funds were allocated, there is no longer a need for this
section. The bill repeals this outdated section. [Mark
Stivers, Senate Transportation and Housing Committee]
14. BSA Audit of TOD And IIG Programs. [Section 10] The
Bureau of State Audits recently finalized an audit of HCD
programs funded by Proposition 1C. This audit did not look at
some of the biggest and newest programs, namely the Infill
Infrastructure Grant Program and the Transit Oriented
Development Program, because the Prop 1C language did not
require BSA to conduct periodic audits of the programs funded
through the Regional Planning, Housing, and Infill Incentive
Account. The bill requires BSA to conduct periodic audits of
all Proposition 1C programs and authorizes the use of bond
funds for this purpose. [Mark Stivers, Senate Transportation
and Housing Committee]
15. CalHFA reporting requirement. [Section 10.5] On February
19, 2010, President Obama announced $1.5 billion in funding
for innovative measures to help families in the states hardest
hit by foreclosures. As one of only five states targeted,
California was awarded close to $700 million under the federal
Housing Finance Agencies Innovation Fund for the Hardest-Hit
Housing Markets program. The California Housing Finance
Agency (CalHFA) has submitted a proposal to the U.S Treasury
for the state's program and is awaiting approval. The bill
requires CalHFA to provide a report to the Legislature by
December 31, 2011 and 2012, regarding the status of the
program. [Anya Lawler, Assembly Housing Committee]
COMMENTS:
Purpose of the bill . The Assembly Housing and Community
Development Committee is authoring this bill as a means of
combining multiple, non-controversial changes to statutes into
one bill, so that the Legislature can make minor amendments in a
cost-effective manner. There is no known opposition to any item
in the bill, and if concerns arise that cannot be resolved, the
provision of concern will be deleted from the bill.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 72-0
Appr: 16-0
Local Gov: 8-0
H&CD: 8-0
AB 2762 (ASM HCD) Page 6
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
June 23, 2010)
SUPPORT: None received.
OPPOSED: None received.