AB610 - Housing element: governmental constraints: disclosure statement.

Assembly Bill No. 610 CHAPTER 494 An act to amend Section 65583 of the Government Code, relating to land use. [ Approved by Governor October 10, 2025. Filed with Secretary of State October 10, 2025. ] LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AB 610, Alvarez. Housing element: governmental constraints: disclosure statement. The Planning and Zoning Law requires a city or county to adopt a general plan for land use development that includes, among other things, a housing element. Existing law, commonly referred to as the Housing Element Law, prescribes requirements for a city’s or county’s preparation of, and compliance with, its housing element, and requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to review and determine whether the housing element substantially complies with the Housing Element Law, as specified. Existing law requires the housing element to include an analysis of potential and actual governmental constraints upon the maintenance, improvement, or development of housing for all income levels, including, among others, locally adopted ordinances that directly impact the cost and supply of residential development. Existing law also requires the analysis to demonstrate local efforts to remove governmental constraints that hinder the locality from meeting its share of the regional housing need. For adoption of the 7th and all subsequent revisions of the housing element, this bill would require the housing element to include, in addition to the above-described analysis, a potential and actual governmental constraints disclosure statement that contains, among other things, an identification of each new or amended potential or actual governmental constraint, or revision increasing the stringency of a governmental constraint, that was adopted after the due date of the previous housing element and before submittal of the current draft housing element to the department. By imposing new requirements upon local governments submitting a housing element, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would make related findings and declarations. The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 65583 of the Government Code proposed by SB 340 and AB 650, to be operative only if this bill and either or both of those bills are enacted and this bill is enacted last. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: YES Bill Text The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (a) State housing element law requires each housing element to include an analysis of potential and actual constraints upon the development of housing for all income levels. The law defines “potential and actual governmental constraints” as including “land use controls, building codes and their enforcement, site improvements, fees and other exactions required of developers, local processing and permit procedures, and any locally adopted ordinances that directly impact the cost and supply of residential development.” The law also requires the housing element to include a program that sets forth a schedule of actions during the planning period that the local government is undertaking or intends to undertake to implement the policies of the housing element. One of the mandatory components of this program is the requirement to “address and, where appropriate and legally possible, remove governmental and nongovernmental constraints to the maintenance, improvement, and development of housing, including housing for all income levels.” (b) The Department of Housing and Community Development has published regulatory guidance through its publication of Building Blocks: A Comprehensive Housing-Element Guide. The department’s guidance identifies the statutory requirement to identify, analyze, and remove governmental constraints as a critical part of housing element law and interprets its requirements to include all of the following: (1) Identify all relevant land-use controls, discuss impacts on the cost and supply of housing, and evaluate the cumulative impacts of standards, including whether development standards impede the ability to achieve maximum allowable densities. (2) Identify and analyze process impacts, such as application procedures and requirements (e.g. design review, limits of number of permits or size of project, length of approval, discretionary approval, and how the ordinance operates with the rest of the entitlement process, carryovers, and financing of the project). (3) Identify and analyze permit processing and planning fees, and development and impact fees and exactions and how they have been established relative to the above statutory requirements, including any in-lieu fees. (4) Identify exactions such as land dedication requirements (e.g. streets, public utility and other rights-of-way, easements, parks, open space, etc.) and other exactions imposed on development. (5) Describe other sources of public finance used to balance development fees assessed for individual projects. Estimate and analyze total development fees imposed by the city or county by unit type, such as typical single-family and multifamily development and the total cost of fees. (6) Determine whether local regulatory standards pose an actual constraint. (7) Identify the specific standards and processes of these constraints and evaluate their impact on the supply and affordability of housing. (8) Analyze the cumulative effect of development standards on the development of housing or achieving densities after considering how all standards and ordinances relate to each other. (9) Demonstrate local efforts to remove constraints. (10) The housing element should not only demonstrate the jurisdiction can accommodate the regional housing needs allocation at minimum, but must also analyze the impact of growth management or controls process and procedure on the cost and affordability of housing. Even if the growth control ordinance allows the community to meet its entire regional housing needs allocation, the ordinance may still be a constraint that requires mitigation because of increased processing costs or timing delays. (c) The State of California devotes substantial resources to the housing element update process and has enacted numerous laws seeking to ensure that local governments adopt housing elements that are certified by the department as being in substantial compliance with housing law requirements, including provisions relating to the analysis and removal of governmental constraints. (d) Maintaining the spirit, integrity, and specifics of housing elements that have gone through the rigorous update process and been certified by the department as being in substantial compliance with housing element law is of significant statewide interest. (e) When local governments adopt new regulations on housing that are potential government constraints during the housing element review process without having disclosed and described the regulation to the department and the public, and without having explicitly considered the regulation in the constraints analysis, neither the department nor the local government or the public are able to ensure that the housing element update substantially complies with the governmental constraints requirements or whether the certification of the housing element is warranted. SEC. 2. Section 65583 of the Government Code is amended to read: 65583. The housing element shall consist of an identification and analysis of existing and projected housing needs and a statement of goals, policies, quantified objectives, financial resources, and scheduled programs for the preservation, improvement, and development of housing. The housing element shall identify adequate sites for housing, including rental housing, factory-built housing, mobilehomes, and emergency shelters, and shall make adequate provision for the existing and projected needs of all economic segments of the community. The housing element shall contain all of the following: (a) An assessment of housing needs and an inventory of resources and constraints that are relevant to the meeting of these needs. The assessment and inventory shall include all of the following: (1) An analysis of population and employment trends and documentation of projections and a quantification of the locality’s existing and projected housing needs for all income levels. These existing and projected needs shall include the locality’s share of the regional housing need in accordance with Section 65584. (2) An analysis and documentation of household characteristics, including level of payment compared to ability to pay, housing characteristics, including overcrowding, and housing stock condition. (3) An inventory of land suitable and available for residential development, including vacant sites and sites having realistic and demonstrated potential for redevelopment during the planning period to meet the locality’s housing need for a designated income level, and an analysis of the relationship of zoning and public facilities and services to these sites, and an analysis of the relationship of the sites identified in the land inventory to the jurisdiction’s duty to affirmatively further fair housing. (4) (A) The identification of one or more zoning designations that allow residential uses, including mixed uses, where emergency shelters are allowed as a permitted use without a conditional use or other discretionary permit and that are suitable for residential uses. The identified zoning designations shall include sufficient sites meeting the requirements of subparagraph (H) with sufficient capacity, as described in subparagraph (I), to accommodate the need for emergency shelter identified in paragraph (7), except that each local government shall identify a zoning designation or designations that can accommodate at least one year-round emergency shelter. If the local government cannot identify a zoning designation or designations with sufficient capacity, the local government shall include a program to amend its zoning ordinance to meet the requirements of this paragraph within one year of the adoption of the housing element. The local government may identify additional zoning designations where emergency shelters are permitted with a conditional use permit. The local government shall also demonstrate that existing or proposed permit processing, development, and management standards that apply to emergency shelters are objective and encourage and facilitate the development of, or conversion to, emergency shelters. (B) Emergency shelters shall only be subject to the following written, objective standards: (i) The maximum number of beds or persons permitted to be served nightly by the facility. (ii) Sufficient parking to accommodate all staff working in the emergency shelter, provided that the standards do not require more parking for emergency shelters than other residential or commercial uses within the same zone. (iii) The size and location of exterior and interior onsite waiting and client intake areas. (iv) The provision of onsite management. (v) The proximity to other emergency shelters, provided that emergency shelters are not required to be more than 300 feet apart. (vi) The length of stay. (vii) Lighting. (viii) Security during hours that the emergency shelter is in operation. (C) For purposes of this paragraph, “emergency shelter” shall include other interim interventions, including, but not limited to, a navigation center, bridge housing, and respite or recuperative care. (D) The permit processing, development, and management standards applied under this paragraph shall not be deemed to be discretionary acts within the meaning of the California Environmental Quality Act (Division 13 (commencing with Section 21000) of the Public Resources Code). (E) If a local government has adopted written, objective standards pursuant to subparagraph (B), the local government shall include an analysis of the standards in the analysis of constraints pursuant to paragraph (5). (F) A local government that can demonstrate, to the satisfaction of the department, the existence of one or more emergency shelters either within its jurisdiction or pursuant to a multijurisdictional agreement that can accommodate that jurisdiction’s need and the needs of the other jurisdictions that are a part of the agreement for emergency shelter identified in paragraph (7) may comply with the zoning requirements of subparagraph (A) by identifying a zoning designation where new emergency shelters are allowed with a conditional use permit. (G) A local government with an existing ordinance or ordinances that comply with this paragraph shall not be required to take additional action to identify zoning designations for emergency shelters. The housing element must only describe how existing ordinances, policies, and standards are consistent with the requirements of this paragraph. (H) The zoning designation or designations where emergency shelters are allowed, as described in subparagraph (A), shall include sites that meet at least one of the following standards: (i) Vacant sites zoned for residential use. (ii) Vacant sites zoned for nonresidential use that allow residential development, if the local government can demonstrate how the sites with this zoning designation that are being used to satisfy the requirements of paragraph (1) are located near amenities and services that serve people experiencing homelessness, which may include health care, transportation, retail, employment, and social services, or that the local government will provide free transportation to services or offer services onsite. (iii) Nonvacant sites zoned for residential use or for nonresidential use that allow residential development that are suitable for use as a shelter in the current planning period, or which can be redeveloped for use as a shelter in the current planning period. A nonvacant site with an existing use shall be presumed to impede emergency shelter development absent an analysis based on substantial evidence that the use is likely to be discontinued during the planning period. The analysis shall consider current market demand for the current uses, market conditions, and incentives or standards to encourage shelter development. (I) The zoning designation or designations shall have sufficient sites meeting the requirements of subparagraph (H) to acc [Text truncated for display. Full text available on Congress.gov.]