AB1407 - Planning and Zoning Law: housing elements: rezoning.

Amended IN Assembly March 28, 2025 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION Assembly Bill No. 1407 Introduced by Assembly Member Wallis February 21, 2025 An act to amend Section 65584 65583 of the Government Code, relating to housing. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AB 1407, as amended, Wallis. Planning and Zoning Law: housing elements. elements: rezoning. Existing law requires a city or county to prepare and adopt a general plan for its jurisdiction that contains certain mandatory elements, including a housing element. Existing law requires the housing element to identify adequate sites for housing. Existing law requires the housing element to contain an assessment of housing needs and an inventory of resources and constraints relevant to the meeting of these needs. Existing law requires rezoning, as specified, when an inventory of sites does not identify adequate sites to accommodate the need for groups of specified household income levels. If the local government fails to adopt a housing element that the Department of Housing and Community Development has found to be in substantial compliance with specified law within 120 days of the statutory deadline for adoption of the housing element, existing law requires the local government to complete this rezoning no later than one year from the statutory deadline for adoption of the housing element. This bill would extend the above-described one-year deadline to one year and 6 months. The Planning and Zoning Law requires that the housing element of a city’s or county’s general plan 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 law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to determine the existing and projected need for housing for each region, as specified. This bill would make nonsubstantive changes to those provisions. Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: NO Local Program: NO Bill Text The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. 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 accommodate the need for shelters identified pursuant to paragraph (7). The number of people experiencing homelessness that can be accommodated on any site shall be demonstrated by dividing the square footage of the site by a minimum of 200 square feet per person, unless the locality can demonstrate that one or more shelters were developed on sites that have fewer square feet per person during the prior planning period or the locality provides similar evidence to the department demonstrating that the site can accommodate more people experiencing homelessness. Any standard applied pursuant to this subparagraph is intended only for calculating site capacity pursuant to this section, and shall not be construed as establishing a development standard applicable to the siting, development, or approval of a shelter. (J) Notwithstanding subparagraph (H), a local government may accommodate the need for emergency shelters identified pursuant to paragraph (7) on sites owned by the local government if it demonstrates with substantial evidence that the sites will be made available for emergency shelter during the planning period, they are suitable for residential use, and the sites 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. (5) An analysis of potential and actual governmental constraints upon the maintenance, improvement, or development of housing for all income levels, including the types of housing identified in paragraph (1) of subdivision (c), and for persons with disabilities as identified in the analysis pursuant to paragraph (7), including land use controls, building codes and their enforcement, site improvements, fees, and other exactions required of developers, local processing and permit procedures, historic preservation practices and policies and an assessment of how existing and proposed historic designations affect the locality’s ability to meet its share of the housing need pursuant to paragraph (1), and any locally adopted ordinances that directly impact the cost and supply of residential development. The analysis shall also demonstrate local efforts to remove governmental constraints that hinder the locality from meeting its share of the regional housing need in accordance with Section 65584 and from meeting the need for housing for persons with disabilities, supportive housing, transitional housing, and emergency shelters identified pursuant to paragraph (7). (6) An analysis of potential and actual nongovernmental constraints upon the maintenance, improvement, or development of housing for all income levels, including the availability of financing, the price of land, the cost of construction, the requests to develop housing at densities below those anticipated in the analysis required by subdivision (c) of Section 65583.2, and the length of time between receiving approval for a housing development and submittal of an application for building permits for that housing development that hinder the construction of a locality’s share of the regional housing need in accordance with Section 65584. The analysis shall also demonstrate local efforts to remove nongovernmental constraints that create a gap between the locality’s planning for the development of housing for all income levels and the construction of that housing. (7) (A) An analysis of any special housing needs, such as those of the elderly; persons with disabilities, including a developmental disability, as defined in Section 4512 of the Welfare and Institutions Code; extremely low income households; large families; farmworkers; families with female heads of households; and families and persons in need of emergency shelter. The need for emergency shelter shall be assessed based on the capacity necessary to accommodate the most recent homeless point-in-time count conducted before the start of the planning period, the need for emergency shelter based on number of beds available on a year-round and seasonal basis, the number of shelter beds that go unused on an average monthly basis within a one-year period, and the percentage of those in emergency shelters that move to permanent housing solutions. The need for emergency shelter may be reduced by the number of supportive housing units that are identified in an adopted 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness and that are either vacant or for which funding has been identified to allow construction during the planning period. An analysis of special housing needs by a city or county may include an analysis of the need for frequent user coordinated care housing services. (B) For the seventh and subsequent revisions of the housing element, the analysis required in subparagraph (A) shall also include an analysis of the housing needs of acutely and extremely low income households. (8) An analysis of opportunities for energy conservation with respect to residential development. Cities and counties are encouraged to include weatherization and energy efficiency improvements as part of publicly subsidized housing rehabilitation projects. This may include energy efficiency measures that encompass the building envelope, its heating and cooling systems, and its electrical system. (9) An analysis of existing assisted housing developments that are eligible to change from low-income housing uses during the next 10 years due to termination of subsidy contracts, mortgage prepayment, or expiration of restrictions on use. “Assisted housing developments,” for the purpose of this section, shall mean multifamily rental hou [Text truncated for display. Full text available on Congress.gov.]