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HOUSING BILLS - Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of new housing bills on Thursday, including several of significance to local governments. These include:
- AB 3093 (Ward) — Makes changes to the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) process, including requiring local governments to account for people with extremely low incomes and those experiencing homelessness in their housing elements.
- AB 1893 (Wicks) — Modifies/clarifies the Builder's Remedy law under the Housing Accountability Act. New Builder's Remedy projects must comply with certain site restrictions, density limits, and other standards. However, builder’s remedy projects will also have a lower percentage of affordable housing required.
- AB 2488 (Ting) — Allows San Francisco to establish a downtown revitalization and economic recovery financing district.
- AB 2667 (Santiago) — Requires local governments to use a new standardized reporting format for the 7th and each subsequent revision of the housing element.
- SB 450 (Atkins) — Makes changes to California’s upzoning law, SB 9. Local governments will be required to approve or deny an application for a new SB 9 unit or lot split within 60 days and provide homeowners with a reason and remedy if their application is denied. It also mandates consistency in local objective zoning, subdivision, and design standards to ease the burden on applicants.
- SB 1037 (Wiener) — Strengthens the Attorney General’s ability to seek civil penalties against cities that violate state housing laws.
- SB 1395 (Becker) — Makes it easier for local governments to use tiny homes as shelter for the unhoused.
For a full list of the enacted housing legislation, click here.
On Thursday, the Governor also announced new guidelines for the HomeKey+ program, which will provide up to $2.2 billion in funding for permanent supportive housing.
At the signing, Newsom took another pot shot at cities and counties for their role in the housing and homelessness crisis.
“There’s never been more support to address all of those concerns than in the last four or five years,” Newsom said. “So what gives? Time to do your job. Time to address the crisis of encampments on the streets in this state. And yes, I’m not going to back off from that. And you will see that reflected in my January budget. I’m going to fund success and I’m not going to fund the rhetoric of failure anymore.”
(This article was first featured in California County News.)
