AB 529: Adaptive reuse projects.

The Planning and Zoning Law requires each county and city to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the county or city, and specified land outside its boundaries, that includes, among other specified mandatory elements, a housing element. That law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to determine whether the housing element is in substantial compliance with specified provisions of that law.

Existing law, for award cycles commenced after July 1, 2021, awards a city, county, or city and county that has adopted a housing element determined by the department to be in substantial compliance with specified provisions of the Planning and Zoning Law and that has been designated by the department as prohousing based upon their adoption of prohousing local policies, as specified, additional points in the scoring of program applications for housing and infrastructure programs pursuant to regulations adopted by the department, as provided. Existing law defines prohousing local policies as policies that facilitate the planning, approval, or construction of housing, including, but not limited to, local financial incentives for housing, reduced parking requirements for sites that are zoned for residential development, and the adoption of zoning allowing for use by right for residential and mixed-use development.

This bill would add the facilitation of the conversion or redevelopment of commercial properties into housing, including the adoption of adaptive reuse, as defined, ordinances or other mechanisms that reduce barriers for these conversions, to the list of specified prohousing local policies.

Existing law, the California Building Standards Law, establishes the California Building Standards Commission within the Department of General Services. Existing law requires the commission to approve and adopt building standards and to codify those standards in the California Building Standards Code, which is required to be published once every 3 years.

This bill would require the Department of Housing and Community Development to convene a working group no later than December 31, 2024, to identify challenges to, and opportunities that help support, the creation and promotion of adaptive reuse residential projects, as specified, including identifying and recommending amendments to state building standards. The bill would require the Department of Housing and Community Development to report its findings to the Legislature no later than December 31, 2025. The bill would require, if the report identifies and recommends amendments to building standards, that the Department of Housing and Community Development and the other state agencies in the working group research, develop, and consider proposing adaptive reuse building standards for adoption by the California Building Standards Commission, as specified.

This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 65589.9 of the Government Code proposed by SB 341 to be operative only if this bill and SB 341 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.