California Housing Laws

The AAOA website is a leading online resource to help you understand California`s rental laws. Although we are a landlord association, tenants should always read the information provided as it still applies to the rights of California tenants. As a homeowner, broker, or property management company, it`s important to familiarize yourself with the landlord`s tenant rights, which are governed by federal and state laws, as well as local cities. For example, tenants` rights in Los Angeles are different from those in San Francisco. In another revision related to the SDBL, AB 1584 (an omnibus housing bill discussed below in the «Commitments, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&R)» section) amends the HAA to clarify that all incentives, concessions, waivers and reductions in SDBL`s development standards – and not just the density premium itself – are not included in assessing a project`s compliance with objective standards under the Haa. be taken into account. The purpose of this amendment is to expand the scope of SDBL projects eligible for AHA protection. As in most years, legislators have implemented only modest reforms to the CWQA by reintroducing simplified ECQA process tools now available for certain qualified housing and mixed-use projects, and by adding an exemption from the ECQA for homelessness and COVID. State Attorney General Rob Bonta said that when he was a legislator, he assumed that the housing laws he and his colleagues had passed would actually be implemented.

But often they weren`t. AB 787 expands the existing law, which allows jurisdictions to claim up to 25% of their RHNA from the conversion of existing housing units for very low- and low-income households, also allowing cities and counties to meet up to 25% of the local middle-income agency`s regional housing needs through RHNA by converting the units into an existing apartment building, which are limited to middle-income households. To be eligible, conversion 1) must be made from 1. January 2022, 2) Units may not be affordable for very low-, low- or middle-income households, 3) must be subject to a 55-year registered agreement, and 4) the initial rent after conversion of the unit must be at least 10% lower than the average monthly rent charged in the 12 months prior to conversion. But new housing laws don`t always work exactly as lawmakers hope. The past six years have gone this way in Sacramento, with each session ending with a wave of new laws designed to increase housing. The housing crisis in California is terrible — we have some of the highest rents in the country and more than 100,000 people living on our streets — and heads of state are increasingly trying to solve the problem through legislation. AB 215 requires local authorities to make proposed renovations to the residential element available to the public for comment for 30 days. The Agency must consider and incorporate public comments before submitting them to the PSD for consideration.

This bill also expands the Attorney General`s power to take independent action and gives HCD the ability to hire or appoint additional lawyers if the Attorney General fails to take action against a local body that has violated certain housing laws, including the HCA, the AFFH Guidelines (AB 686), SB 35 Rationalization, Rationalization of Permanent Supportive Housing (AB 2162) and Rationalization of the Low Barrier Navigation Centre (AB 101). As such, this legislation strengthens the enforcement tools that can be used against non-compliant jurisdictions. AB 1584, an omnibus housing law, establishes a restriction on contractual controls of development that ab 721 reflects by declaring UNenforceable CC&R contained in an act, contract, security instrument or other instrument that prohibits, effectively prohibits or restricts the construction or use of an ADU on a property intended for single-family homes. As the California legislature wrapped up last month, the legislature passed two major bills aimed at converting shopping malls, office buildings, and parking lots into apartments. Proponents of affordable housing have praised measures that could lead to millions of additional housing units in the Golden State. Recognizing that «homeownership offers low-income families the opportunity to create intergenerational wealth,» AB 1095 revises the laws governing the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program (SFHC) and the Strategic Growth Council (SGB) to clarify that both programs aim to promote rental housing for affordable housing and owner-occupied affordable housing. The legislation also requires the GSC to adopt guidelines or selection criteria for the AHSC program that include both affordable housing rent and owner-occupied affordable housing. One of the most important recent housing laws is SB 330, also known as the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (HCA), which 1) restricts a place`s ability to extend the housing permit process, 2) gives housing applicants the opportunity to invoke subsequent amendments to local ordinances, 3) restricts the ability of cities to introduce or enforce housing caps and development moratoriums, and 4) developers, demolish existing apartments, forced to provide alternative housing and relocation benefits. Many of these provisions were originally scheduled to expire in 2025.

(See Holland & Knight`s previous warning «California Legislature Adopts Housing Crisis Act of 2019 and Rent Control Bill, Among Others,» September. 12, 2019.) SB 8 extends until 2034 the HCA provision prohibiting cities from holding more than five hearings on an application, as well as the HCA provisions that provide acquisition fees for housing projects that submit an eligible «preliminary application». Applicants who submit qualified preliminary applications for residential complexes before January 1, 2030 can now invoke acquisition rights until January 1, 2034. SB 8 extends until 2030 the provisions restricting the power of municipalities to impose deferral requests as part of the «completeness check» of the application, as well as the provisions requiring municipalities to make all decisions as to whether a site is historic at the time the application is approved for the housing project. SB 8 also adopts a series of reforms to provide that the provisions of the HCA apply to both discretionary and ministerial permits and the construction of a single housing unit, and makes a number of revisions to the already complex requirements for housing replacement and relocation. An underestimated provision of the Housing Elements Act is the requirement that, if a city cannot identify enough locations suitable for its regional housing needs, the housing element must commit to rezoning real estate within three years to allow for the development of 20% of BMR projects «by law». AB 1398 requires a place that does not adopt a housing element that the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) has brought into compliance with state law within 120 days of the expiration of the legal period to complete such required rezoning no later than one year after the deadline for acceptance of the residential element – and prohibits: that the residential element is deemed to be in significant agreement until this zoning change is completed. Previously, an agency had three years to rezone the area.

This requirement for accelerated rezoning, combined with other recent laws that require authorities to make more realistic assumptions about housing production and to achieve ever-increasing housing targets, provides an important opportunity for legal treatment in jurisdictions that do not meet housing targets. The reasons are practical, but also political. Voters are more frustrated than ever with the housing crisis in the state. Bonta and Newsom were both re-elected in the fall. AB 491 requires that, for each residential structure with five or more units comprising both affordable housing and market-standard housing, BMR units provide the same access to common entrances, areas and amenities as non-BMR units, and the building «shall not isolate affordable housing units within that structure to a specific floor or area on a particular floor.» Similar provisions have already been included in locally adopted requirements for inclusive housing. While this is clearly a new requirement, AB 491 indicates that it is a statement of existing law (apparently an indication that the authors believe that isolating BMR units may violate current fair housing or anti-discrimination requirements), meaning that state and local construction officials can apply it retroactively.