AB 313: Enhanced infrastructure financing districts.

Existing law authorizes the legislative body of a city or a county, defined to include a city and county, to establish an enhanced infrastructure financing district to finance public capital facilities or other specified projects of communitywide significance, including, but not limited to, the acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of housing for persons of low and moderate income for rent or purchase. Existing law requires proceedings for the establishment of a district to be instituted by the adoption of a resolution of intention to establish the proposed district, and imposes specified duties on the legislative body with respect to the preparation, proposal, and adoption of an infrastructure financing plan after that resolution of intent is adopted.

Existing law also requires the legislative body to establish a public financing authority, defined as the governing board of the enhanced infrastructure financing district, prior to the adoption of a resolution to form an enhanced infrastructure district and adopt an infrastructure financing plan.

This bill would require, after the adoption of a resolution of intention to establish the proposed district, the legislative body to send a copy of the resolution to the public financing authority. This bill would revise the duties of the public financing authority after the resolution of intention to establish the proposed district has been adopted, so that the public financing authority, instead of the legislative body, will perform the specified duties related to the preparation, proposal, and adoption of the infrastructure financing plan and the adoption of the formation of the district. The bill would also require the legislative body to establish the public financing authority at the same time that it adopts a resolution of intention.

This bill would provide that if a resolution is adopted to abandon proceedings to adopt the infrastructure financing plan, then the public financing authority ceases to exist and the legislative body is prohibited from enacting a resolution of intent to establish a district that includes the same geographic area within one year of the date of the resolution abandoning the proceedings.

This bill would authorize the enhanced infrastructure financing district to finance the acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of housing for persons of very low income for rent or purchase, as provided.

Existing law authorizes an enhanced infrastructure financing district to utilize any powers under the Polanco Redevelopment Act, which authorizes a redevelopment agency to take action to remedy or remove a release of hazardous substances on, under, or from property, subject to specified conditions. Existing law also authorizes a local agency to take any action similar to that authorized under the Polanco Redevelopment Act.

This bill would instead authorize an enhanced infrastructure financing district to utilize any powers under either law.

Existing law requires the infrastructure financing plan to provide for specific actions if any dwelling units are proposed to be removed or destroyed in the course of private development or public works construction within the area of the district, including, but not limited to, causing or requiring the construction or rehabilitation, for rent or sale to persons or families of low or moderate income, of an equal number of replacement dwelling units at affordable housing cost within the territory of the district and providing relocation assistance to persons displaced by any public or private development occurring within the territory of the district.

This bill would revise and recast those provisions, and would require the infrastructure financing plan to contain those provisions if any dwelling units are proposed to be removed or destroyed either in the course of public works construction or private development within the area of the district subject to a written agreement with the district or financed in whole or in part by the district.

Article XIIIB of the California Constitution (Article XIIIB) prohibits the annual appropriations subject to limitation of a local government, defined to include a special district, from exceeding its annual appropriations limit, but allows for that appropriations limit to be established or changed by the electors of that entity in conformity with existing constitutional and statutory laws. Article XIIIB defines appropriations subject to limitation as any authorization to expend during a fiscal year the proceeds of taxes levied by or for that entity. Existing law allows the public financing authority to submit a proposition to establish or change the appropriations limit of an enhanced infrastructure financing district to the qualified electors of a proposed or established district, which is effective if approved by the qualified electors.

Existing law also authorizes an enhanced infrastructure financing district to fund infrastructure projects through tax increment financing, pursuant to the infrastructure financing plan and the agreement of affected taxing entities. Existing law defines affected taxing entity as any governmental taxing agency which levied or had levied on its behalf a property tax on all or a portion of the property located in the proposed district in the fiscal year prior to the designation of the district, but not including any county office of education, school district, or community college district.

This bill would repeal those provisions allowing the public financing authority to submit a proposition to establish or change the appropriations limit of the district, and instead provide that the allocation and payment to an enhanced infrastructure district of tax increment for the purpose of paying specified amounts incurred by the district is not the receipt by a district of proceeds of taxes levied by or on behalf of the district within the meaning or for the purposes of Article XIIIB, and is not the receipt of proceeds of taxes by, or an appropriation subject to limitation of, any other public body within the meaning or for purposes of Article XIIIB.

This bill would also expand the definition of affected taxing entity to include a special district, as defined, if the special district is providing any portion of the funding included in the infrastructure financing plan.

This bill would incorporate additional changes in Sections 53398.52, 53398.62, and 53398.69 of the Government Code proposed by SB 63 that would become operative only if SB 63 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2016, and this bill is chaptered last.