KEY
AB: State Assembly Bill
SB: State Senate Bill
ACA: Assembly Constitutional Amendment
(Author of the bill is listed in parentheses.)
AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE
AB 1386 (Gabriel)
- Makes it easier to fill units set aside for homeless veterans
- For units funded through the Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention (VHHP) program, if an income-qualified veteran (earning 30% of Area-Median Income) is not found to occupy a unit within a certain amount of time, allows veterans with incomes up to 60% of AMI to occupy a unit.
- Affected code sections: Amends Veterans Code Sections 987.003 and 987.005 and adds Veterans Code Section 987.300
ACA 1 (Aguiar-Curry)
- Makes it easier to pass bonds to pay for affordable housing
- Places a constitutional amendment on the November 2024 ballot to lower the voter threshold from 2/3 to 55% for cities, counties, and special districts to incur bonded indebtedness or impose certain special taxes to fund affordable housing, including permanent supportive housing, and public infrastructure.
SB 469 (Allen)
- Exempts more funding sources from the racist requirements of Article 34 of the State Constitution
- Exempts all HCD funding programs and LIHTC from triggering Article 34 of the state Constitution, which requires majority local voter approval for the development, construction, or acquisition of a publicly funded "low-rent housing project."
- Affected code sections: Amends Health and Safety Code Section 37001
SB 555 (Wahab)
- Defines "social housing" and requires State to study development of social housing
- Defines social housing as housing owned and managed by a public entity, a cooperative, or a mission-driven nonprofit entity for the benefit of households unable to afford market rent where the units and land are protected from being transferred to private or profit-motivated ownership.
- The bill also requires HCD to prepare a study by the end of 2026 of opportunities for and barriers to the development of social housing to meet the below market-rate housing needs identified for the 6th regional housing needs assessment (RHNA) cycle.
- Affected code sections: Adds Health and Safety Code Sections 50610-50613
CODES & STANDARDS
AB 548 (Boerner)
- Where one unit in multifamily housing is substandard, code enforcement must inspect more than the one substandard unit.
- Requires local code enforcement agencies, by January 1, 2025, to develop policies and procedures meeting specified requirements to inspect additional units in a multifamily building if they determine that a unit is substandard or a lead hazard and the defect or violation could reasonably be found in other units of the building.
- Affected code sections: Adds Health and Safety Code Section 17970.7
FAIR HOUSING
AB 1418 (McKinnor)
- Prohibits local governments from discriminatory housing policies
- Prohibits jurisdictions from having any of the following policies: some text
- Penalty against a resident, tenant, or landlord solely for contact with a law enforcement or association with someone who has contact with law enforcement or a criminal conviction. Requires or encourages a landlord to evict or penalize a tenant because of the tenant's alleged unlawful conduct or arrest.
- Encouraging a landlord to perform a criminal background check on a tenant or prospective tenant.
- Defining as a nuisance any contact with a law enforcement agency or emergency assistance. Establishing a tenant registry for the purposes of discouraging a landlord from renting to a tenant.
- Affected code sections: Adds Government Code Section 53165.1
SB 267 (Eggman)
- Prohibits landlords from requiring a credit check to prove ability to pay rent
- For any prospective tenant with a governmental rent subsidy, the landlord must allow the prospective tenant the option of providing evidence of reasonable ability to pay the rent as an alternative to a credit check.
- Affected code sections: Amends Government Code Section 12955
HOMELESSNESS
AB 1285 (Wicks)
- Requires local governments to collaborate to around housing people in encampments
- Requires Continuums of Care that share geographic boundaries with cities and counties that receive State Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) Program or Encampment Resolution Grant Program funding to provide evidence of collaboration with that jurisdiction around prioritizing people living in homeless encampments for referral to permanent housing.
- Affected code sections: Amends Health and Safety Code Section 50233
AB 1377 (Friedman)
- Requires use of transit district property to address homelessness
- Requires that Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) Program applicants provide a narrative summary of specific and quantifiable steps that the applicant has taken to improve the delivery of housing and services to people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness on properties owned by transit districts.
- Affected code sections: Amends Health and Safety Code Section 50218.5
HOUSING DEVELOPMENT APPROVALS
SB 4 (Wiener)
- Regardless of the underlying zoning, allows affordable housing on land on by faith-based and higher-ed institutions
- Makes affordable housing projects in which at least 80% of the units will be affordable to lower-income households and no more than 20% will be affordable to moderate-income households a use by right on land owned by faith institutions and private colleges and universities, regardless of the underlying zoning. To qualify, the site must be all of the following: some text
- Owned by a faith institution or private university as of January 1, 2024.
- In an urbanized area.
- Not an "environmentally sensitive" site, except that the site can be within the coastal zone.
- Not a site that would require the demolition of rental housing or a site where rental housing has been demolished in the last 10 years.
- Affected code sections: Adds Government Code Section 65913.16
SB 91 (Umberg)
- Makes permanent the CEQA exemption of motel conversions
- Removes the sunset on the existing law that exempts motel conversions to supportive or transitional housing from the California Environmental Quality Act, which has frequently been used to prevent motels from being converted into interim or permanent supportive housing.
- Affected code sections: Amends Public Resources Code Sections 21080.50 and 21168.6.9
LAND USE & ZONING
SB 240 (Ochoa-Bogh)
- Prioritizes housing for formerly incarcerated people for use of state surplus property.
- Adds housing projects intended for formerly incarcerated individuals as a priority in the disposal of state surplus property. The bill also makes affordable housing projects on surplus state property a use by right.
- Affected code sections: Amends Government Code Section 11011.1
LANDLORD/TENANT
AB 12 (Haney)
- Limits security deposits to one month's rent
- For new tenancies beginning July 1, 2024, limits security deposits in rental housing to no more than one month's rent. For non-corporate landlords who own no more than two residential properties with a total of no more than four rental units, the landlord may charge up to two months' rent for anyone who is not an active service member.
- Affected code sections: Amends Civil Code Section 1950.5
AB 1317 (Wendy Carrillo)
- Prevents landlords from evicting tenants for failing to pay for parking
- Requires owners of rental housing developments with 16 or more units constructed after January 1, 2025, in Los Angeles (and some other large counties) to charge for parking separate from the rent.
- The bill allows tenants in properties the first right of refusal for parking spaces built for their property. Any failure to pay for the parking could not be a basis for eviction.
- Affected code sections: Adds Civil Code Section 1947.1
SB 567 (Durazo)
- Closes loopholes in 2019 Act which limited rent increases and grounds for eviction
- Makes changes to the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, effective April 1, 2024, to close loopholes and strengthen enforcement.
- The bill adds the following requirements for a landlord to terminate a tenant for owner move-in: some text
- The termination notice must identify the name and relationship to the owner of each person moving into the unit. It also must include notice that the tenant may request proof that the intended occupants qualify as an owner or relative for purposes of owner move-in.
- The owner or relative must move into the unit within 90 days after termination and live there for at least 12 months, otherwise the tenant has a right to return at the prior rent.
- The owner cannot do owner move-in if the intended occupant already occupies a unit on the property or if there is a vacant unit available.
- The bill also makes changes terminations of a tenancy on the basis of substantial remodel: some text
- For substantial remodel work that requires permits, requires the owner to obtain the necessary permits and attach them to the termination notice.
- If the owner does not carry out the repairs, any displaced tenant may return at the prior rent and under the prior lease terms.
- Current law defines substantial remodel to be those repairs that can't be performed with the tenant in place and require the tenant to vacate for at least 30 days.
- With respect to enforcement, the bill: some text
- Tenants can receive up to three times actual damages, plus punitive damages, for any attempt to raise the rent in violation of the TPA or evict a tenant in material violation of the TPA.
- Authorizes a court to award attorneys' fees and costs to a prevailing tenant.
- Clarifies that state and local governments can bring an action for injunctive relief to enforce.
- Affected code sections: Amends Civil Code Sections 1946.2 and 1947.12
AB 1620 (Zbur)
- Amends the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act to permit cities and counties to require under a local rent stabilization policy that a landlord allow a tenant seeking an accommodation for a mobility-related disability to transfer to an accessible unit and maintain the same rental rate and lease terms as their current unit under specified conditions. A tenant may not make this request if they are subject to an eviction for nonpayment of rent.
- Affected code sections: Amends Civil Code Section 1954.53
SB 712 (Portantino)
- Requires landlords to allow tenants to own a micro-mobility device and store and charge it in their rental unit, subject to certain conditions, unless the landlord provides free, secure storage with charging capabilities elsewhere on the property.
- The bill defines "personal micro-mobility device" as a device powered by the physical exertion of the rider or an electric motor and designed to transport one individual or one adult accompanied by up to three minors.
- Affected code sections: Adds Civil Code Section 1940.41
