Senate Standing Committee on Housing

The Senate Housing Committee will come to order. Good afternoon. The Senate continues to welcome the public in person and via the teleconference service. For individuals wishing to provide public comment, today's participant number is 877-226-8216 and the access code is 6504123. We are holding our Committee hearings here in the O Street building. I ask all Members of the Committee to be present in Room 2100 so we can establish our quorum and begin our hearing.

We have 27 bills on today's agenda with nine bills on consent consisting of the following: Item Five: AGR 3, Item Six: AB 371, Item Nine: AB 515, Item 11: AB 519, Item 14: AB 1053, Item 16: AB 578, Item 22: AB 1114, Item 24: AB 1285, Item 25: AB 1307.

Before we hear presentation on the bills, let's establish a quorum which we'll not do for a while or we put that on call, but we do have one Member here in Room 2100 who will start us off today, which is Member Jones-Sawyer with Item One: AB 86. Welcome Assembly Member Jones-Sawyer.

Thank you.

Good to have you here today.

Good afternoon.

I would love to give you an opportunity to talk about wearing pink today.

Wearing...

Wearing pink.

Wearing pink, oh. Today we have a Member in the Assembly that has breast cancer and to show our support for her, I think just about all the Members of the Assembly are wearing pink today and so I think I went a little overboard but we're all wearing pink today to let her know that not only do we support her, but we're there with her as she fights that terrible disease right now and we're praying for her and hoping the best for her.

Well, thank you very much for sharing that with us and for showing your support.

Thank you for asking.

Absolutely. When you're ready, please begin.

Thank you, Chair and Members. I present AB 86 which strengthens California's response to homelessness by establishing a statewide homeless coordinator as the lead entity for ending homelessness in California. Today, over 170,000 individuals experience homelessness in California, a roughly six percent increase since 2020. The state has invested billions of dollars to assist local governments and support housing programs that shelter unhoused individuals yet we continue to have the nation's largest homeless population in part due to the state's disjointed approach to addressing homelessness.

In 2017, the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, formerly known as Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council, was established to coordinate funding and build partnerships with stakeholders to develop strategies to end homelessness. The Council is one of many agencies that receive information on homelessness in the state. However, with no real one person in charge to ensure true accountability, we continue to see a disconnect.

Given the magnitude of the crisis in California and the amount of funding invested, we truly need a system in place to tackle homelessness at both the state local levels to be consistent and effective. That is why I introduced AB 86. This bill will ensure intergovernmental coordination to end homelessness by requiring the Governor to appoint a statewide homeless coordinator.

The Coordinator will set state goals to end homelessness, overseas related programs, services, data, and policies between federal, state, and local agencies, as well as coordinate the timing of the release of state funds and funding applications for housing and housing-based services. AB 86 allows the Coordinator flexibility to identify a local leader and the appropriate jurisdiction to serve as a liaison to the state. Lastly, in collaboration with local leaders, the Coordinator will provide annual recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor.

Members, while there is significant overlap in a lot of existing resources, many times we see individuals going to different programs and losing valuable time when they could have received help. AB 86 is about putting people in charge that people can look for guidance, not about creating a new bureaucracy. A coordinator can better manage the system and bring all stakeholders together. Lastly, due to the quick turnaround between Committees, I was unable to take the amendment I agreed to in Senate Human Services.

At the suggestion of the Senator from Yucaipa, I will be amending this bill to provide additional oversight in the form of Senate Rules Approval of the Appointee. Should this bill move forward, I look forward to taking this amendment in appropriations. Homelessness is an issue that impacts every corner of the state. We must ensure a coordinated approach to addressing this crisis, and AB 86 will help us get there. Thank you, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much, Member Jones-Sawyer. We'll now continue with--I'm sorry, lead witnesses?

My witness couldn't make it today.

Oh. No worries, no worries. Let's see if we can have any other lead witness or any witnesses here in Room 2100 in support of AB 86. See none, we'll now move on to witnesses in opposition to AB 86. Seeing none. No lead witnesses. Anyone other than lead witnesses here in room 2100 in opposition? Seeing none, we'll now move on to witnesses via the teleconference service. Moderator, if you would please prompt the individuals waiting to testify in support or opposition, we will begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this bill, please press one then zero at this time. Press one then zero only one time, as pressing it a second time will remove you from the comments queue. We're now going to go to line 88. Line 88, your line is now open. Pardon me. Just a moment, again. Line 88, pardon me. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Dane Hutchings on behalf of the City of Redwood City in support. Also registering support for the California Association of Recreation & Parks District. Thank you.

And there is no one else who signaled that they wish to speak.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Having heard from all our witnesses both in support and opposition, we'll now bring it back to the dais.

Thank you. That's the only other one here. Well, I just want to say I appreciate this bill. I think it's great to be thinking about what are the structural changes we need to create better accountability and actual results when it comes to homelessness and I wanted to just highlight and just ask you a question about one of the things it said in the Committee consultant report was that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness has no clear authority to make changes to state policy or programs and I think that is truly one of the problems, and so the question is, who does have that authority and how do we make them?

It sounds like your vision for this position is that this person would make recommendations to us and we would then make changes to policy and so I read in here that there's also identifying a leader in each city or county to serve as a liaison and so I wanted to know, is that part still in the bill and how do you see that relationship working, I mean, ultimately with the goal of us trying to reduce homelessness and see those results actually in real time?

And thank you for the question. The reason this came about, I now have Skid Row in my district with redistricting and what I notice is there's a lot of resources, there's a lot of funding, and there's a lot of programs. We even self-taxed ourselves in LA both on the county level and at the city level but the numbers haven't gone down, so there's something wrong and we've tried several times before to try to put someone in charge.

And from my old boss in the Mayor's Office, he used to say, 'you got to have somebody in charge.' You got to have somebody to blame or somebody to give credit to. You got to have somebody that you got to fire to replace or you got to have somebody give credit, give them more resources. They can do more.

Right now, if I asked you in your area who's in charge, not the council of this or this or that--in my area is LAHSA, Los Angeles Homeless Services Agency which has been around for decades, but homelessness hasn't gone down over decades and if I asked you who over at LAHSA is responsible, you couldn't tell me. That's why during COVID when we had someone in charge, whether you beat up on--you know, people beat up on poor Dr. Fauci, but guess where we are now from COVID from there to now? And then we had coordinators inside the county that were really public health from the Public Health Department.

I'm looking at it the same way: going through the public health departments in the county and hopefully appointing someone because I look at homelessness as a public health crisis that we can look at, and so from the Governor on down to somebody at the local level in working with the counties and the cities to be able to identify somebody that they can now point to and we can pull all the resources.

If you look at what Karen Bass has done so far, just taking a bull by the horn and actually doing something, you can see things starting to change immensely right now.

Yes. Well, good. Well, thank you. And I completely agree with you; you need someone in charge and I might suggest that we need someone in charge with the authority to both build the mental health beds and build the actual homeless serving housing because having someone in charge who doesn't have the land use authority, this is really the rub. So I think it's very complex, and I'm glad that you're working on it and taking the bull by the horns yourself. So I'm happy to move your bill.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you very much, Senator Blakespear. Thank you, Assemblyman. Would you like to close?

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. So, Madam Secretary, we're going to place a bill--we don't have a quorum yet, so we're just going to--yeah, we're going to put it on hold and once we establish our quorum, we'll continue to vote, but thank you very much for your presentation today. I appreciate your bill.

You're welcome. I have another bill.

Oh, one more bill. Oh, sorry.

I'm greedy today. I'm trying to do it all in one.

Oh, there you go. No. Perfect. And I do want to say thank you very much for acknowledging the amendment that we had discussed previously and moving forward on that because that was going to be my follow up question, so thank you for addressing it.

You're welcome. My next Bill is AB 1734, the surplus land act AB 1734 amends the Surplus Land Act to enable local governments to dispose of publicly owned properties to develop much-needed emergency and supportive housing. I would like to take a moment to thank Committee staff for working with my office on this Bill. I will be accepting the Committee's amendments to narrow traditional housing exemption and also reflect the agreement made in the previous Committee to remove pro-housing designation.

As we all know, California has the nation's largest unhoused population, yet only a fraction of the needed affordable housing is constructed. Like most of the state, the City of Los Angeles is experiencing a housing crisis. In 2019, LA. Had a higher percentage of cost-burden renter households than any other American city. Nearly 60%. Just last year, there were nearly 42,000 unhoused individuals in Los Angeles alone. Since assuming office, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has taken critical steps to address homelessness and expedite affordable housing production.

Under her leadership, the City of Los Angeles has declared a state of emergency on homelessness and moved to streamlining approvals for 100% affordable housing projects, as well as maximizing the use of city-owned property for temporary and permanent housing. Unfortunately, the surplus land act has proven to be a barrier to utilizing publicly owned property for homelessness relief. Despite current law providing some exemptions for affordable housing projects. Negotiating deals that meet SLA requirements often prolongs the process.

And in the City of Los Angeles, the projects rarely come to fruition. I was director of real estate for the city, so I know intimately how long it takes, why it's burdensome, and why it's look, if we can cut out the land costs and we can expedite the ability to go ahead and build with our own properties, think of what we can do. You just take out those two there, we could expedite getting home building housing in ways that we never did before.

As such, AB 1734 amends the SLA to allow pro housing jurisdictions that have declared a local emergency on homelessness are compliant with state housing law more quickly dispose of publicly owned property to develop emergency shelters and transitional supportive or affordable housing.

Under this Bill, local agencies who meet the criteria could dispose of surplus land for these purposes in less than six months, half the time it can take today, AB 1734 will empower good actors like the City of Los Angeles who seek to address the housing crisis with tools to excite affordable housing production. We have a representative from the Housing Department here to speak. I'll have him introduce himself and thank you. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, honorable Chair, Members. My name is Kevin Keller, and I am the Senior Advisor on Planning and Housing for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Very happy to be here. Thanks for having us. Who is proudly the sponsor of this legislation. Mayor Bass has made confronting the homelessness crisis with the urgency that it requires as her top priority. On day one, Mayor Bass declared a State of emergency as was shared on homelessness.

In the weeks that followed, Mayor Bass has issued Executive directives to our development departments to streamline approvals for 100% affordable housing to launch Inside Safe, which is a new citywide proactive housing-led strategy to bring people inside from tents and encampments. And as highlighted here, Executive Directive Number Three to maximize the use of city-owned property for temporary and permanent housing. That final Executive directive is the impetus for this Bill.

And as we've shared, the surplus land act, although intended for this use, does add quite a bit of time for cities that are trying to use their properties for the intended use. In recent years, the City of Los Angeles had made strides in getting more affordable housing and supportive housing built on our property. 13 projects with more than 600 units are open and operating on city owned land, and another 13 with more than 1000 units are under construction today.

Further, we have an additional 14 projects representing another thousand units in our negotiating stages. As we've shared. These take years to move through our process. We are urgently hoping they can move as quickly as possible. With today's amendments, AB 1734 allows cities and counties that have compliant housing elements and have declared a local emergency to dispose of land for affordable housing and other types of emergency or supportive housing without going through the Surplus Land Act.

This legislation will give our local government the tools to align our local housing goals with the state priority on this crisis. We very much appreciate the Committee's staff efforts to work with the mayor's office and also want to thank Assemblymember Jones-Sawyer for authoring this important legislation and strongly support an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Keller. We'll now move on to witnesses in support here in room 2100.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members, Sasha Horwitz, Los Angeles Unified School District in support.

Bryan Sapp on behalf of United Way, greater LA, greater LA, in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Member Colin Holly on behalf of ARCs or City of Long Beach in support. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now move on to witnesses in opposition. Do we have any lead witnesses in opposition here in 2100? Seeing none. We'll now move on to witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference service and moderator, would you please prompt the individuals waiting to testify in support or opposition to AB 1734? We'll begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero. At this time, press one, then zero. It appears that we have no one who signaled that they wish to speak.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Now we will now bring the discussion back to our Members. Hello. So many people.

Well, thank you again also for this Bill and your background. Having done this for the City of Los Angeles really positions you well to be able to come up with really important solutions. It's really too bad that the surplus land act is a deterrent to us actually creating housing and particularly homeless serving housing because we know it's such an urgent problem. And I think that's why the surplus land act was passed in the first place.

So I think that's unfortunate, but I very much support this exemption. I just wanted to say for the record that one of the notes that is made here in the Committee consultant report is that it says this Bill exempts certain housing and homelessness projects from the SLA, including transitional housing, which is generally a housing type that is no longer funded by federal and state programs.

The Committee may wish to consider narrowing the focus of the exemption for transitional housing to projects serving transition-aged youth or instead include an exemption for low-barrier navigation centers or both. And I'll just say, from my perspective as one Committee Member, I'm not interested in narrowing the exemption. So the fact that this transitional housing is no longer eligible for federal and state programs doesn't mean that the City of LA or another city might not want to do it anyway.

So cities can use different funding streams and their own bond, their own revenue streams to provide the housing that they need. So I just wanted to say for the record that I don't support narrowing the exemption, but if the author wanted to expand the exemption for low-barrier navigation centers, I would be open to that expansion if you wanted to do that. So I just wanted to make sure and express that. Do you have any responses to some.

Of the narrowing came from Committee and so we can go back to Committee as it goes. Where does it go? Next approach. And if there's any tweaking we can do, obviously we can talk to the Chair of approach to make the appropriate things, but a lot of the suggestions came from Senate committees and housing committees, different ones. So let me go back and talk to them about that.

Right. Yeah. And there's no need to do anything. If you don't need to. I just wanted to make sure that.

I expressed that I respect what you're saying, so I will double check.

Okay, great. I'm finished. Okay. Member Jones, sorry, just a quick question. Is this Bill, right now, as it stands, limited to the 28 pro-housing jurisdiction?

I believe it is. zero, we did take it out. That's one of the ones I agreed to take out. Okay. The last minute.

Actually, that's a good thing, right? Because now we're expanding it to other jurisdictions. That's actually a good thing.

Yes. I think that's one of the Members in the previous Committee wanted okay. And we're going to do that for the Member. I can't remember where she's from, but we're going to do that for the Senator who asked for it.

All right, perfect. Well, thank you very much. Would you like to close, Member Jones-Sawyer?

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. We will continue to keep that on roll call once we establish forum. Thank you very much for being here today.

All right, thank you. Thank you.

I see we have Assemblymember Ting here. Welcome. And you will be presenting would you care to start with item number seven, AB 480? Yes. Perfect.

Thank you. So AB 480 also does with the Surplus Lands Act the Bill clarifies and strengthens the Surplus Lands Act. It closes enforcement loopholes for lands that are leased and lands that are sold for less than market value. It also creates a ministerial process for local governments to dispose of certain types of exempt surplus land to streamline declarations of these types of lands.

It also creates a new exemption for mixed-use development projects that total more than 10 acres and are made up of two or more adjacent and nonadjacent parcels. The exemption requires mixed-use development projects to build 300 residential units or the equivalent of 10 residential units per acre, whichever is greater. The exemption also includes a cap at 10,000 acres. As you all know, the reason we took these is also just further clarifying the different types of lands that are being declared surplus.

We had a number of jurisdictions, after I did my previous Bill a number of years ago, asked for cleanup language. And so we've been working with a number of different stakeholders to ensure that the Surplus Lands Act continues to be a tool to build more affordable housing, but at the same time doesn't stymie local governments who want to build housing but also are looking to do economic development. We took amendments in Senate governance fi that addressed many of the opposition concerns. So I will stop there. I know we have two witnesses.

Hi there. Good afternoon, Members. My name is JT Harechmak and I'm speaking on behalf of Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California NPH, a proud co-sponsor of this Bill. As we said, AB 480 updates the Surplus Land Act and NPH has been closely involved with the history of the Surplus Land Act in the past because of how important this tool is to our members in addressing California's housing crisis.

Since January 2021, HCD has tracked our surplus land transactions and found that in the over 200 SLA dispositions, the jurisdiction pursued the option of housing just 11% of the time, and 89% of the time they have pursued other opportunities with their land. But that 11% has yielded over 8000 housing units and nearly 6000 of those were affordable. Thousands more are in the pipeline.

The SLA is effective at giving affordable housing developers a good chance to build housing on public land and ensure that that public land continues to serve a public good. AB 480 makes some important changes here, as the author has already mentioned, and we are encouraged by them. We are excited about them because we feel that they will somewhat stem the tide of the slew of SLA bills that you all have heard this year.

We think that the large site exemption will provide a path forward for jurisdictions to address what they would like to do with their large sites. We think that the administrative declarations will be helpful in making it easier to comply for local jurisdictions. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. Brian Augusta. On behalf of the Public Interest Law Project, one of the co-sponsors of the measure.

The author and the prior speaker have laid out well what the Bill does with urgent I vote to help ensure that this Bill continues that this law continues to help us produce the affordable units that the prior speaker just described, while also streamlining the process to ensure that we're targeting the kinds of development that we want to capture with the SLA and getting the kind of production that this Bill will help us get. So for all those reasons, we would urge an aye vote. Thank you.

We'll now continue with our witnesses in support here in room 2100.

Mark Stivers of the California Housing Partnership. In support

Bryan Sapp on behalf of the United Way Greater L.A., in support.

Wonderful. Seeing no other witnesses here in room 2100 in support. We will now continue to with any witnesses in opposition to AB 480.

Thank you. Madam Chair and Members Aaron Avery with the California Special Districts Association, respectfully with an opposed and less amended position. Although we continue to review the amendments taken last week coming out of the Senate Governance and Finance Committee, we want to acknowledge that many of our concerns, our most significant concerns, have been addressed in the 73 amendments to the Bill.

Those include a rollback of proposed changes to the definition of surplus land, deletion of proposed Section 54221.5, including a noticing provision, and the addition of some guardrails around increased penalties under Section 54230.5, plus other changes. Our remaining concerns, not addressed by the 73 amendments is really limited to one, and that's the inclusion of Section 54230.5 penalties in the new exempt surplus land category that the author referenced.

Those penalties apply to dispositions of surplus land, not exempt surplus land, which is expressly not subject to the SLA. So I think we've found a resolution on a number of issues with this Bill, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to address this last concern going forward. I want to thank the author again for working with us. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll now continue with witnesses in opposition here in room 2100 to AB 480.

Good afternoon. Kara Ross, on behalf of the City of San Marcos, with respectful opposition.

See no other witnesses in opposition. We'll now move on to witnesses both in support and opposition waiting to testify via the teleconference service. And, Mr. Moderator, if you would please prompt the individuals waiting to testify in support or opposition will begin.

For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero. Press one, then zero. We're now going to go to line 95. Pardon me just a moment. Line 95. If you can, press one, then zero. Again, we're going to go to Line 88.

Good afternoon, Chair, Members, Dane Hutchings, in opposition on behalf of the cities of Corona and Santa Rosa.

Thank you, line 95.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members, Jim Lights. On behalf of our two airport associations, California Airports Council and the Association of California Airports, in strong support. Thank you.

Line 96.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee Members Dante Golden here. On behalf of the San Diego Housing Federation, we represent those support this bill Finance Affordable Housing in San Diego. We are proud co-sponsor of this Bill. Thank you.

Line 92. Line 92. Your line is now open. Pardon me. I apologize.

Oh, no. Sorry. Good afternoon. Nicole Wordelman, on behalf of the City of Ontario, in respectful opposition.

Madam Chair, there is no one else who signaled that they wish to speak.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. And we want to thank all of our support and opposition witnesses. We'll now bring the discussion back to our Members.

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Wonderful. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much. We'll put that on call. And we will now proceed with Bill or item number eight, AB 1413.

Thank you, Madam Chair. AB 1413 was a Bill that we received a lot of help with with this Committee. We really very much appreciate it. The Bill strengthens accountability provisions with the HAP program, the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program. It's a program that I helped start a number of years ago. What we need is greater accountability measures. In particular, a focus on two measures. One, a focus on how many folks are we getting off our streets?

And then two, how many folks are we actually getting into permanent housing? The Bill has gone through, received unanimous support, no opposition. Respectfully ask for an aye vote on AB 1413.

Thank you very much, Member Ting. We'll now continue with any do you have any witnesses in support? No. Okay. We'll now move on to any witnesses in support here in room 2100? See none. We'll now move on to any lead witnesses in opposition? See none. Any General opposition witnesses here in room 2100? See none. We'll now move on to witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference service. Moderator, if you would please prompt the individuals waiting to testify in support and opposition, we will begin.

For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero. Press one, then zero. At this time, it appears that we have no one who signaled that they wish to speak.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. We'll now bring the discussion back to our Members. Do we have any Senator Blakespear?

Yes. Thank you. Coming from local government and being the mayor of a city, I had a lot of interaction with HCD and do find that they know what they're doing and that they're effective at accomplishing the goals that they have been assigned to do. I had less interaction with Cal ICH, but I think it makes a lot of sense to streamline and also to reduce redundancies, and to center all these things in one agency. And to me, it does make sense that it would be HCD. But I wanted to just ask you about why you think or what you think that will specifically do to make it easier for us to create homeless serving housing.

Yeah. One of the challenges with the HAP grant programs that took quite a bit of time to get the money out the door, even after appropriation. The last round took 20 months. And that's 20 months with a very simple formula, meaning that the money all went by formula. There weren't grants, there weren't. Applications. The jurisdictions need to submit some paperwork, but in general, it was going up by formula.

So it just took way too long to get the money out the door, especially for something that's an emergency. We hope that moving more of the grant-making operation under HCD, since they have more experience with it, will make it a faster process. The Coordinating Council will retain exactly what that is. They'll continue to coordinate because right now we have homelessness services not just in HCD but in HSA all throughout the Administration. And so they can coordinate all the variety of homelessness programs in other agencies. But HCD for this particular program we think can get the money out faster and also really be the home for the metrics and the accountability.

Great. I'll move the Bill when it comes to that point.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Senator Blakespear. Senator Ting. Thank you for this Bill. We heard this Bill prior to glad to continue to support the Bill and would you like to close?

I just ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much for being here today. And we'll put that on hold and we will wait for an author. The Committee on Housing will take a recess until our next author arrives.

Welcome to the Committee on Housing. We have our authors that have arrived. welcome. We will begin with item number 12. AB 911. Assemblymember Schiavo, welcome. I love the color schemes today.

All all the pink in honor of Lori Wilson. So thank you so much. Madam Chair and Members. AB 911 is a cleanup measure to AB 721 Bloom in 2021, and provides confidence in affordable housing developers who want to purchase real estate for 100% affordable housing. Some properties may have restrictive density requirements and require only owners of the properties remove them.

Unfortunately for housing developers whom are in the process of purchasing real estate, they're unable to remove those covenants until after they have purchased the property and are legal owners of the real estate in question. AB 911 streamlines the covenant removal process by allowing affordable housing developers to remove the restrictive density requirements prior to purchasing the property, allowing for faster delivery of affordable homes and financing of additional homes throughout California.

This legislation not only helps my district, but everyone's district in California have an efficient process in having more affordable housing in their districts. I think. Joining me today yes, I have Michael Lane, State Policy Director for SPUR to. Also, speak in support.

Thank you very much and welcome.

Great. Thank you. Madam Chair and Members Michael Lane with SPUR a public policy think tank in the San Francisco Bay Area. AB 911 builds on AB 721 bloom from 2021 and will allow an affordable housing developer with a live project and an option to purchase a piece of land to receive a determination from County Council that a private restricted covenant barring or limiting housing development may be modified as part of a due diligence process prior to making the purchase.

The Bill does not change local zoning requirements or other state housing laws, and provides for cost recovery by the local agency through charging of a fee. We respectfully request an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll now continue with any witnesses in support of AB 911 here in room 2100.

Hello. Jennifer Armenta. With the California Housing Consortium in support.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses in support of AB 911, we'll now move on to lead witnesses in opposition. Seeing none, we'll now hear from any other witnesses in opposition here at room 2100. Seeing none, we will now move on to witnesses waiting to testify via the Teleconference service. Mr. Moderator, if you would please prompt the individuals waiting to testify in support or opposition, we will begin.

Thank you. Madam Chair, for those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero. Press one, then zero. At this time, there is no one who signaled that they wish to speak.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. We'll now bring the discussion back to our dais.

Thank you. I just wanted to say I support this Bill and I think it's really important that we remove the uncertainty around the creation of more housing in this state and this does that. And so I just want to thank you for bringing it forward.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions or comments from our Members? Seeing none, we'll place the Bill on call. Oh, yes please. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. And we will continue once we establish a quorum. We'll now move. Okay. We will now move on with item number 17. AB 653 with Assemblymember Reyes. Okay, so out of courtesy, Assemblymember Reyes has actually given the opportunity for Assemblymember Quirk-Silva to present item number 26 AB 1308. Welcome.

Thank you Members. We'll just be speed racers here, how about that? Thank you, Assemblymember Reyes. Good afternoon Madam Chair and Members. Assembly Bill prohibits new minimum parking requirements for remodeling updating or adding to a single family residence as long as it stays within the floor area ratio restriction. So I kind of want to underscore that because I think there's been some thought that this would be all construction.

Current regulations force homeowners to add two covered parking spaces for any remodel or add-on, even if they do not own additional cars, which can cost up to $25,000 and also use valuable land space. This creates an inequity for homeowners seeking to make additions that do not increase parking demand. As you know there have been many new adu laws and those laws do not actually require these additional parking spaces. AB 1308 is not about building new housing without parking.

It simply says that if a homeowner adds a room to their single family home, the city cannot compel them to build a new garage. And as we know, sometimes it's just a little refresh that our people are wanting to do. We all love to watch HDTV with all of those fixer uppers and most of the time they're not adding additional square footage of the house. It's just changing things within the house.

In order to add an under 300 square foot bathroom to a home, there are some cities who are now requiring more parking. This is burdensome overreaching and this Bill would fix that. AB 1308 simply gives homeowners the flexibility to decide their parking needs and affordability instead of requiring them to comply with a one-size-fits-all all. With that, I ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, we do have a witness. I'm sorry. With me here to testify in support and answer any questions is Graciela Castillo Krings representing California YIMBY.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Graciela Castillo-Krings here on behalf of California YIMBY. California YIMBY is a statewide organization of over 80,000 neighbors dedicated to making our state a more affordable place to live. As we all know in this Committee, we are facing a shortage of housing. A recent 2021 report by the Turner Center highlighted that 94% of jurisdictions require, at a minimum, two parking space for every three bedroom home, with 8% requiring more than three parking spaces.

In fact, some of the cities, such as Cupertino, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, actually require four parking spaces. The reality is that translates to more land, more expense, and that is one of the issues that creates the affordability issue we're having. So we're really excited to support this piece of legislation and appreciate the author for ensuring that she's working on trying to reduce the barriers for affordable housing. Thank you.

Michael Lane with SPUR in strong support.

Brian Staff on behalf of Habitat for Humanity California and CASA in support. Thank you.

Do we have any other witnesses in support of AB 138 here in room 2100, seeing none. We'll now move on to any witnesses in opposition here in room 2100, seeing none. Any other witnesses in opposition to 2100? I'm sorry? To AB 138 seeing none. We'll now move on to witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference service. Mr. Moderator, if you would please prompt the individuals waiting to testify in support or opposition, we will begin.

Please press one, then zero. If you wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, press one, then zero. We have at least one person who signaled that they wish to speak. Just a moment, please.

There is no one else. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. I want to thank all our witness, those who were able to testify today, and both in support and opposition. We will now bring the discussion back to our Members. Do we have any questions or comments? Senator Blakespear.

You will now go to line 94. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Madam Chair and Members. This is Sheila De Blanc speaking for Civic Well, formerly the local government commission. We are in support. Thank you.

Thank you, I support this Bill, and I wanted to thank the author for bringing it. I think one of the things that it recognizes is that as we are needing to provide more opportunities for people to live inside, having homes expand, adding a bedroom remodeling so that more people can live in the home is a really important way for us to provide housing opportunities in already existing homes. So the various ways that cities can prohibit having more people live in their cities, I think, is problematic.

And so this really gets at that. And I appreciate you ferreting out this very specific way that we can help our existing homes provide more homes for more people. So I want to thank the author. Thank you very much. And any other comments or questions for AB 1308, seeing none Member Quirk-Silva, would you like to close?

I just respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much. So we'll keep it on call. Thank you.

We will now proceed with Assemblymember Reyes with item number 17. AB 653.

Thank you. Madam Chair and Members and Senators. AB 653 would promote housing stability and prevent Californians from falling into homelessness by maximizing the use of Federal Housing Choice vouchers. Federal Housing Choice vouchers, like Section Eight, are a proven way to increase housing stability and to prevent homelessness for families who qualify for them. In California, approximately 16,800 federal housing vouchers go unused annually.

Voucher recipients face significant barriers to using their vouchers because they have trouble competing in the state's competitive rental housing market. Many people wait years on a voucher waitlist only to find they cannot secure an apartment within the allotted search time. While failure to utilize vouchers occurs as a result of various reasons, the state can do more to leverage federal dollars and close the gap in unused vouchers across California.

AB 653 would create a program to provide housing search assistance, landlord incentives, and deposit resources to help tenants with vouchers find and secure rental units. The Bill would also require all housing authorities to report their monthly success rates to the California Department of Housing and Community Development on a quarterly basis. Housing authorities with low success rates would be required to apply evidence-based tools to increase voucher utilization and to work with the Department to further analyze and improve their voucher policies.

Here to testify and support are Margo Velez, Senior Leader with the Residents United Network, and Deborah Thrope, Deputy Director of the National Housing Law Project. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Senators. My name is Margo Velez, and I'm coming from San Diego. I'm a Senior Leader of Resident United Network since 2009. In 2009, when I secured an apartment, I applied also for Section Eight. I had to wait 14 years just to receive a voucher.

I thought when I got the call, thank goodness, this is going to help me, I went and mind you, this is during COVID so it's harder even then. It made my obstacles worse because I caught COVID. I had 90 days to secure a place or I would lose my voucher. So during COVID, I had 104 fever. I was very ill. I was looking around. I got hit with prejudice. We're not accepting section eight. We're not accepting anything. I searched diligently because time was ticking.

I got my voucher the second week of January, and as soon as my packet was turned over to me, the clock started ticking. It didn't wait for me when I was ill and had to go to the hospital. It didn't wait for me to not have transportation and go look around and get hit with prejudice and have doors closed in my face and just no acceptance of the voucher due to the stigmatism that comes with it. I did not let grass grow under my feet.

I used the Internet. I walked door to door. I walked, and I used the public transportation, and yet to no avail. When February came, I thought I had time. March came. I didn't have time. So I had to call for an extension. They said, okay, Margot, you have another 30 days to find something and secure a place. Mind you, this is during COVID Nothing was available. So can you just imagine without a pandemic what would happen? It was worse. I waited.

And then two weeks before my voucher expired, I turned in my paperwork. I did everything that was required of me, and I was just working like a busy bee, getting my paperwork done and all the necessary things that I needed in the allotted time. And my voucher and paperwork sat on a desk unattended. Didn't even look at it. So the landlord called me, Margot, have you heard anything? And I said, no, I haven't. So I called, and I called, and I called.

Finally, I went down there, and they said they couldn't see me without appointment. And I said, well, where's my paperwork? I submitted my paperwork. Where's my paperwork? They said what? Paperwork. Okay. So I said, Well, I turned in some paperwork, and I had a receipt. So then they called me back the next day and said, oh, we found your paperwork, and nobody had worked on it.

And then they told me, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to start again, and that's just the way that goes. And I found out that a voucher can pass through so many other people like it did me. If I don't use the voucher, then it goes to the next family. I don't know how many hands that that voucher was turned over to until it gets used. So we need to improve this. And please vote for AB 653 I don't want anybody else to suffer like I do. I'm paying 80% of my income for rent, 80%. If I burn dinner. I cannot order a pizza to supplement my family's food. So I'm just asking for support. Please. Thank you for your time respectfully.

Thank you, Ms. Velez, for testifying. We have another lead witness.

Yes. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee Members. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in this important Bill. My name is Deborah Thrope. I'm the Deputy Director of the National Housing Law Project and a proud sponsor of AB 653. AB 653 aims to maximize housing choice voucher utilization statewide. The Housing Choice Voucher Program, commonly referred to as Section Eight, is the largest federally assisted housing program in California that helps over 710,000 people in 304,000 households live in safe and decent homes. Vouchers are a critical tool to reduce racial segregation because they open up neighborhoods otherwise unavailable to low-income families.

Vouchers deconcentrate poverty and help jurisdictions meet their fair housing goals. And vouchers are a key strategy to reducing homelessness statewide. However, only one in five families who qualify will receive a federal voucher or any housing subsidy. Even then, once a family receives a voucher, they must find a landlord willing to accept it within the search time allowed by the local housing authority. And as Margo's story illustrates, this is no small task.

Factors like low vacancy rates and high rent can make it literally impossible for some families to use their vouchers. And in fact, an estimated four out of 10 families who receive a voucher in California have to give it back, like Margot, because they are unable to use it. And these families often return to substandard housing conditions in homelessness. AB 653 is part of a comprehensive solution to increase voucher lease-up rates and maximize federal dollars statewide, California leaves about $80 million on the table annually.

That could help house 16,000 or more families. The Bill would create a competitive grant program to provide funding to eliminate the barriers to using a voucher. AB 653 would apply evidencebased policies to local voucher programs to better serve participants, including raising the maximum subsidy amount available through small area fair market rents.

Housing authorities would also be required to work with our state housing agency, HCD, to employ other efficient strategies to improve lease up rates, such as reducing the amount of time for pre movement inspections and applying for federal Mobility Grants. This Bill is about maximizing federal and state resources to increase access to affordable housing for California's families. I look forward to your questions and requests an aye vote thank you.

Thank you very much for your testimony today. We'll now continue with witnesses in support here in room 2100 for AB 653.

Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership in support.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members, Andres Ramirez on behalf of All Home in strong support.

Danielle Bradley on behalf of the California State Association of Counties in support.

Chris Martin on behalf of Western Center on Law and Poverty and Housing California, in support.

Sharon Report with Corporation for Support of Housing in support

Brian Augusta with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation in support

Jasmine Flosas with Residents United Network and Housing California in support.

Okay, seeing no other witnesses in support of AB 653 will now continue with any lead witnesses in opposition here in room 2100 for AB 653. Seeing none, we'll now move on to any there's many sorry. Oh, sorry.

Preston Prince, CEO of the Santa Clara County Housing Authority, Member of the California Association of Housing Authorities. I'm in opposition.

Are you a lead witness, or are you just a witness in opposition? Do we have any witnesses in lead up lead witnesses in opposition of AB 653?

Yes. Hi. My name is LaShelle Dozier. I'm the Legislative Chair for the California Association of Housing Authorities. We represent over 100 housing authorities throughout the State of California. I believe you have received our letter where we outlined the reasons why we are in opposition. While we think it's really important we really applaud the author in terms of the work of providing a grant type of program to help housing authorities, we found that to be very, very helpful. HUD actually has actually put forward the same type of funding, and we've seen great success.

The issues that we take with this is that it requires all housing authorities, whether they participate in the grant program or not. We also oppose this because there are already a lot of reporting requirements that we are responsible to HUD, and we have that information, and we've talked, obviously, about how to get that information from HUD. And then the last thing is that we do see this as an unfunded mandate. We are stretched very thin with our resources at this particular time.

We're working overtime to make sure that people get into housing. And so having additional reporting responsibilities takes us away from the important work of making sure that we do everything we can to support our residents getting into housing and using these vouchers. That's pretty much it. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Patricia Wells. I am representing the Housing Authority of the City of Oakland, California, as its Executive Director and CEO. I'm also representing the 19,000 Members of the National Association of Housing Redevelopment Officials as their national President, of which over 100 are here in California. We are in opposition, as my colleague said, for the stated reasons. And we want to make clear that, again, we applaud the author but we have absolutely great evidence, best in real time information on how we have done tremendous work during COVID to make these programs work. And we'd be delighted to continue that dialogue. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll now continue with any witnesses in opposition.

Good afternoon. My name is Tonia Lediju and I am the CEO for the City and County of San Francisco Housing Authority. And again, we commend the author for the work. And we understand the concerns, and I agree with my colleagues. And I'd like to say that in the City of County I'm sorry, we had our two lead witnesses. So now just your name, your position, and the entity that you represent. So I represent the City and County of San Francisco Housing Authority. Tonia Lediju and I'm in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Lynette Jordan. I'm the Director for the Housing Authority for the City of Alameda, and in opposition, along with our Executive Director, Vanessa Cooper, thank you,

Bryan Sapp, on behalf of the San Diego Housing Commission in opposition. We echo those sentiments earlier, and we look forward to working with the author in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, now.

Preston Prince, CEO, Santa Clara County Housing Authority, in opposition.

Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses in opposition to AB 653 here in room 2100, seeing none. We'll now move on to witnesses both in support and opposition via the Teleconference service. Mr. Moderator, if you would please prompt the individuals waiting to testify, and we will begin.

Thank you. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero. Press one, then zero. We'll now go to line 106 or 106. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon, Chairman. Members. My name is Jasmine Munoz. On behalf of United Ways of California, we are a proud co-sponsor of this Bill, and I'm calling in strong support of AB 653. Thank you.

We'll now go to line 110. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon. My name is John Brady I'm a member of the Residents United Network and the Executive Director of Lived Experience Advisors in San Diego, and I'm calling in support of AB 653. Please support and vote to pass this Bill.

We'll now go to line 100. Your line is now open.

Hi, I'm Tom Graham with the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Cruz, and we are in strong opposition to AB 653, and we have deep concerns that the Bill will have unanticipated consequences that are countered to the bill's goals. Thank you.

We'll now go to line 105. Your line is now open.

Hello. This is Robert Reyes Villa Gomez, Statewide Organizer of Residence United Network in Housing, California in strong support of AB 653 thank you very much. Please pass this Bill, line 108.

Alex Basovsky, National Alliance and Homelessness in support line 107.

Hello. My name is Maria Hernandez. I'm a member of resident United Network. I'm on the Steering Committee, and I'm supporting AB 653. And I urge the Committee to support and vote to pass this Bill.

Thank you, line 76. Good afternoon. My name is Roberto Chavez. I am the President of the California Association of Housing Authorities and the HUD Programs Manager for the City of Inglewood. I am in opposition the Bill.

Thank you, line 97. I guess this is Michelle Murphy from Orange County United Way. I'm in strong support of the Bill. This Bill was modeled after a very successful program operating here in Orange County.

Thank you, line 109. Hello. This is Piquette Style from the San Diego Housing Commission. For the reasons identified earlier by California Association of Housing Authority and Narrow, I'm calling in opposition of AB 653. Thank you,

line 103. Hi. My name is Joyce Roberts. I'm a member of the Resident United Network, and I'm in strong support of AB 653. Thank you, line 91. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, my name is Reba Stevens, resident of Los Angeles County, a person with lived experience of being unhoused, and I am in strong support of AB 653.

And, Madam Chair, there is no one else who signaled that they wish to speak.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. We'll now bring the discussion back to our Members.

Yes, I wanted to just give the opportunity to address the concerns of the opposition because there are a lot of them, and I think that they're making points that are very important to their success. And so I just really wanted to hear from you about this.

Thank you so much. We recently did hear from the public housing authorities from a number of our local communities. As you may know, we have over 150 housing authorities in the State of California.

When we heard the opposition, we wanted to know what the issue really was. It has to do with the reporting. Many feel that the reporting is going to be duplicative, that they're already providing this reporting to HUD. So we're trying to find we've offered some amendments. We haven't heard back on using the very same reporting that they're providing to HUD. The issue is that we have 16,800 vouchers that go unused. We've got to find a better way.

And some of our housing authorities are doing magnificent work, and they have a great success rate. But for those who are struggling, we need to find better practices so that we use all of these vouchers. The vouchers that go unused are then that's used as part of the valuations done by HUD the following year. zero, you didn't need those 20,000 or those 16,000. We can use those to leverage further funding from the Feds.

And I think that in the end, it's a win win for all of us. But the work that our housing authorities are doing is magnificent. We just have to find those who are really doing the great work and learn from them so that we can provide the information for those who are struggling, because we do have some who are struggling.

When you have like our witness, when she talks about the fact that she had a specified period that she had to find her housing and was unable to do it, she got an extension. She still was unable to find the housing. We have to find better ways. They wait so long to get that voucher. We've got to make sure we can find ways to get them into a home.

Yes. I mean, I just want to agree with you that it's a critical problem that 16,000 or more vouchers are going unused. And we know that this voucher program is the largest rental assistance program in the entire country. So we are leaving money on the table and we have a homelessness epidemic and we need to not have the experiences of the lead witness. That experience is not unique to her. A lot of people have experienced that and it's really a tragedy that's preventable.

I think identifying the problem is clear. That question of what is the solution that can make it so that our organizations that are already doing this really difficult work in the community are able to keep being successful doing it and not overly burdened with administrative costs and duplicative requirements, that's really important too. So I hope you continue to really work with the opponents to try to find that solution because I think everybody would like us to not leave money on the table. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions by our Members? So I'm kind of curious and perhaps one of the lead witnesses will be able to address my question. So coming from real estate prior to coming to the Senate, I know that one of the biggest concerns that we have and challenges that we have in the rental market is the fact that we don't have inventory.

So I'm kind of curious and I want to make sure that we're not unintendedly approaching the situation in a way that it's actually not addressing the root of the problem, which is availability of housing and the reason why we don't have an opportunity to use these vouchers. Not necessarily that the agencies are not doing their job, but the fact that we don't have the inventory to place people in there.

And perhaps we need to reassess whether or not the way that we are giving a time constraint to be able to utilize the voucher doesn't contradict the fact that we don't have the housing available for them. So I'm going to give an opportunity to our lead witness to address the question whether or not and I'm sure with all the information and the data that you folks gather, there has to be one of the top reasons why we are not able to utilize the vouchers. First question.

Thank you. We consider this Bill part of a comprehensive solution to a very complex problem that includes all of the factors you're describing. We do have an inventory problem here. We also have a problem with escalating rents, which is one of the specific issues that this Bill is really getting at. We are trying to help voucher families be as competitive as other housing applicants in the private rental market. But again, recognizing that this is really one piece of a really complicated puzzle.

So, for example, there's a lot of discrimination, as Margo described, against people with vouchers. There's a lot of stigma. So we worked with all of you to pass an anti-discrimination law for voucher tenants. So also part of this comprehensive solution is enforcement of those antidiscrimination protections for families so that, again, we are making them more competitive so that they can actually go into the private rental market and obtain housing. But certainly vacancy rates play a large issue in this problem.

And what this Bill does is increase the number of units available to voucher tenants, because right now what we hear from tenants and advocates in the field is that the payment standard, which is essentially the subsidy amount, is that it's really low. And so it doesn't matter. The rest of the policies don't matter. If your subsidy, if you can't rent an apartment at an average rent level, you'll never be able to compete. You are locked out of huge portions of the rental market.

And so that's one of the issues we're really getting at here. So vacancy rates are a problem, escalating rents are a problem, stigma is an issue. We see this as one part of a comprehensive solution. Does that answer your question?

So following up on your statement that you just made, do you have data that actually shows well, first of all, how often do we raise the voucher amount that's available? Because both private or in non-private, we're going to see vacancy rates even for people that are not voucher. We don't have the housing available in there, just period, which obviously then hikes up the rents in general.

So I look at housing in general, what we have available, and I can tell you, having worked with private or just non-voucher clients, it was incredibly difficult to find housing, even in areas like myself, that represents the Inland Empire, which are a growing area, and yet we still had trouble finding housing. It would take months before we would find anything that was available. So one, how often do you folks raise the voucher amount? And number two, with this data reporting, is there a specific data that you folks are looking for to be able to address either the amount that's being afforded or number two, the vacancy?

Yes. So I'll answer the second part of your question first, which is the data that we're asking the housing authorities to report essentially lease up rates. We call them success rates, but it's really important data that helps us paint the picture of what's happening on the ground with respect to local voucher families.

So right now, what's publicly available is a lot of data on HUDs. They have a public facing dashboard around utilization, budget utilization. But that's a very different number than what we're asking housing authorities to report, which is, again, lease up rates. How many families that are handed a voucher last month were able to lease up with that voucher? That's what we're asking for that's not currently publicly available. Some of the raw data to figure that out, we think is going to HUD.

So what we're asking the housing authorities to do is take the extra step and report it to our state housing agency, HCD, so that then not only do we see at individual housing authorities what's happening locally, but the state can provide some oversight and see sort of what are the success rates statewide? What are the lease up rates? Where are the problem areas? And then focus on working with those individual housing authorities. This is not punitive. As you said, there's affordable housing crisis statewide.

We are offering you extra assistance, work with our state housing agency. Let's narrow down what do we think the local causes are of these Low lease up rates and how can we specifically address them locally? Housing authority. By Housing Authority.

Okay. And then I think behind you, we have some witnesses that would like to also comment, and we'll give them two minutes to be able to address any additional comments that they may have.

I just wanted to respond to your question in terms of the small area FMRs, which is what we're talking about, the Fair market rents. And you're right, vacancy is a huge issue. In fact, that's why a lot of my colleagues are here from the Bay Area, because no matter how high you would raise it, they still can't. There's no inventory. There's no units available. But one of the things that HUD has done is identified which housing authorities throughout the United States will benefit from.

Small area FMRs. And in fact, my housing authority, Sacramento, when they looked at the data, said, you will benefit. And they mandated that we do that. So I think HUD is already looking at housing authorities, is already doing exactly what we're talking about here to ensure that the market conditions are such that if you implement this change, you're going to benefit the residents where they'll have access to those higher opportunity areas.

So for you to create a legislation that really is starting to overrule what HUD has already done the research on, we feel will not benefit housing authorities that will be submitting data, submitting data. But it's really not getting to the people who need it the most.

Thank you ma'am. I would also like to just follow up with a final comp sorry, did you have something.

I actually did want to add one of the things that HUD has allowed is housing authorities to utilize housing choice vouchers in a project based methodology to be able to produce more units. So, for example, the Homekey Initiative from our Governor, that initiative has been successful because many housing authorities in their applications use the voucher project based It and is able to produce more units.

When we talk about the assistance that's being offered by authors, HUD has an office out of San Francisco to provide that same assistance as my colleague just spoke up. And when you look at the associations that are represented today, both Kaha and Naro, one of our claims to fame is to work together and do best practices.

So when you look at the success of the emergency housing vouchers, using our Housing Choice Voucher subsidies to produce more units and some of the incentive programs that have been talked about as far as being successful, we actually share those regularly and routinely as best practices, colleague to colleague. And it's part of the genesis that comes out of the collaboration for these two groups.

Our success rate has been tremendous and is not stopping, but rather many of us are looking at raising and increasing our fair market rents. Some housing authorities have gone up to 110% and 120% through the process that HUD has already placed on us and that allows us to do the work with our leadership in partnership with HUD without having an additional burden of reporting. And as our associate here spoke, that is public information. And the lease up rates is something that the over 100 housing authorities, we call ourselves Housers work tirelessly to do because our main goal and mission is to make sure families get housed.

Thank you very much. I would like to just give an opportunity for Reyes. Member Reyes, would you like to love to give you an opportunity to address the concerns with regards to being in an unfunded mandate and the extra burden that it would cause to the housing authorities that are already doing the work and feel that they're already limited in their capacity to do the current work on that in their departments.

I think it's fair that if we're going to put together a program that's going to help our unhoused be housed, I think reporting has to be an important part of this. And I recognize that there is reporting already being done, but the reporting is necessary. If we have over 16,000 vouchers unused, we really should find out what we can do to help those people be housed. And you're right, actually there are four different reasons that are given for these unused vouchers.

First is the stigma that's associated with people using a housing voucher, the discrimination that was talked about earlier. The second is that the Housing Authority policy also makes it harder to lease up. They require an inspection of a unit before it can be authorized. Part of the program. That is being recommended will assist those landlords that have to do more to get the property ready.

That's important also to provide a better way to do the inspections so that there isn't such a long wait period between the time that the user of the voucher arrives and the time when the property is finally inspected and they can move in. Another, as was mentioned earlier, is the rents are too low, the rent vouchers that are allowed are too Low, and there's discussion about what can be done in that regard.

And then finally that they're competing with so many others for a limited number of units. The program itself will help our landlords and give landlord incentives also so that they are more willing to help or to accept the voucher tenants. Another is to help with deposits. That becomes a big issue for many of those who have vouchers. They still have to pay for the deposit. So the program would also help with that and of course, the rental assistance, which we're very familiar with.

Now we did include a request in the budget for additional funding which was not provided this year, so it can be subject to authorization in the coming years. There's no question that is something that we're going to continue to look at. But there are a number of reasons, again, why a voucher remains unused. And I think we owe it to those who have those vouchers to find better ways to get them housed.

And if it means an incentive to the landlord or it means helping them with a deposit, finding those ways and finding ways to take care of it. Now, we did hear from Orange County for their housing authority. They've had great success in doing this program. The same thing with Marin County. They have a similar program with phenomenal success. Assemblymember Damon Connolly, who is also a joint author, spoke highly about the Marin County program and how that is helping to make sure that those with housing vouchers get to use them and get to be housed.

Thank you. Assemblymember Reyes, I believe Senator Skinner has some comments or questions.

I completely share what you are trying to do with this Bill because it is a great frustration of mine are in my area, we have had this problem of the vouchers not being able to be used for a long time.

It is not recent, but I just wanted to see if I heard correctly that while you are clear that we need this data and I agree with you, you are also open to continuing to look at how it might be designed to so it is less of a burden and less costly. Absolutely. Okay, we will continue those conversations and we hope to get a response from the housing authorities representatives to the proposed amendments. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Well, with that, can we move bills or is everything we don't have quorum yet? We've had motions before. Thank you. So there's any other comments or questions? Seeing none. Member Reyes, would you like to close?

Yes, thank you. The purpose of the Bill is to increase accountability and to ensure that we are maximizing the use of federal vouchers. It's clear that we aren't, and we've got to find better ways to do this. We have to be able to help those housing authorities that are struggling and provide the best practices from those that are doing a better job. So with that, I respectfully ask for your vote.

Thank you. Keep wanting to say, Leader Reyes. Member Reyes, thank you for presenting the Bill today, and we'll put it on call. When we establish a quorum, we'll proceed. Do we have any other Members here? We have Assemblymember Grayson. Let's see, item number three.

Would you like to proceed with Item Number Three: AB 281?

Wonderful.

Perfect.

Madam Chair and Members, at this point, good afternoon or almost approaching evening. Good afternoon. AB 281 is a good governance measure that would apply 30 to 60 day timelines depending on the size of the development to the time periods that special districts have to weigh in and provide feedback on post entitlement phase permit that a local agency has deemed complete.

Currently, only cities and only counties are under specified timelines for reviewing post entitlement phase permits. Existing law gives these local agencies between 30 to 60 days depending on the size of the development to complete review for these permits. However, these same timelines do not apply to special districts.

This bill builds off of the work that was done in AB 2234 from the last legislative session and would hold special districts to the same standards as these local agencies to help prevent costly delays and reduce barriers to housing production. We worked closely with many of the special districts to ensure that the bill addresses the many different types of situations that different special districts may need to go through during the post entitlement phase.

The bill captures the incremental adjustments that may take place during the development process as certain factors may change throughout the different stages of development, allowing a special district to review and assess information as new factors may arise. And with me we do have--yes--with me we have Corey Smith, Executive Director of Housing Action Coalition through the Chair.

Thank you, Assembly Member. Good afternoon, Senators. Corey Smith on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition. We're a member-supported nonprofit that advocates for building more homes for everybody and we're proud to co-sponsor AB 281 because it continues the Legislature's work on putting reasonable time frames around the review and issuance of building permits.

Last year, the Legislature passed AB 2234 which set shot clocks for cities and counties to review, comment, and issue post entitlement building permits and AB 281 continues that work in that same exact concept to special districts. It was always a goal to improve the process of issuing building permits, a logical paralleled effort with the state's effort to improve the entitlement process and the same reasoning to apply this to special district to sound.

In 2022, there was a 100 percent affordable housing project with 136 units and a dozen backyard ADU colleges that was delayed--ADU cottages, rather--that was delayed due to a sanitary district, and in this situation, the building permit was held up as a means of negotiations for a new deal on fees and it left hundreds of units in limbo.

These types of delays drive up costs and further exacerbate our affordability and displacement crisis. As the Assembly Member said, we believe this is a good government proposal. Thank you.

Thank you.

Michael Lane with SPUR in strong support.

Jennifer Armenta on behalf of the California Housing Consortium in strong support.

Voleck Taing with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in support.

Brian Staff on behalf of Habitat for Humanity, California, in support. Samuel and Fields to properties also in support. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Seeing no other witnesses in support of AB 281, we'll now continue with lead opposition to AB 281 here in Room 2100. Seeing no lead opposition, we'll now continue with any witnesses in opposition to AB 281. Seeing none, we'll now move on to witnesses waiting to testify both in support and opposition via our teleconference line. Mr. Moderator, if you would please prompt the individuals waiting to testify both in support and opposition to AB 281, we will now begin.

For those who'd like to speak in support or opposition to this bill, please press one then zero at this time. Press one then zero. And it appears that we have no one who's signaled to speak.

Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. We want to thank all the witnesses--

Madam Chair, I apologize. We do have one late--pardon me, I'm mistaken again. And pardon me, we do have one person who signaled that they wish to speak. Just a moment, please.

Absolutely.

Apologize.

Better late than ever.

And we're now going to go to line 104. Please go ahead.

Madam Chair and Members, Sheila Blanc for CivicWell, formerly the Local Government Commission. We are in support. Thank you.

And there is no one else.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. We'll now bring the discussion back to our Members. Senator Blakespear.

Yes, thank you. Just briefly, I just want to say this is a good governance bill. I absolutely agree with that and I appreciate the lead witness's example because it makes it real how these special districts can hold up needed housing. So I was happy to vote for this in Govin FIE, and I'll be happy to vote for it today.

Thank you.

Wonderful. Senator Skinner.

If I could make a motion, I would, but we can't yet.

Alright, well, thank you. Thank you very much for the bill. I'll be looking forward to support the bill when the time is appropriate. Member Grayson, would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. What's that? Okay, perfect. So, we will now continue on to Item Number Four: AB 434. Please proceed.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge and accept the suggested amendment on page four of the analysis to add this year's SB 4 to the list of housing laws covered by this legislation. AB 434 seeks to provide greater accountability for local governments by authorizing the Department of Housing and Community Development, aka HCD, to notify a city, county, or the Attorney General [AG] when the local entity fails to comply with state housing statutes.

California has a massive and growing housing production and affordability gap. Six of the nation's most expensive large metropolitan rental markets are located right here in California. According to the Roadmap Home 2030, California needs to build 1.2 million new affordable homes, 120,000 per year to meet the needs of low income families over the next 10 years yet California has never produced more than 20,000 new affordable rental homes in any given year.

As the Legislature has continued to respond to the state's shortage of housing, there have been a number of new statutes passed in recent years that have been meant to facilitate the building of new housing stock and prevent the delay of project approval. Many of these statutes have given HCD the clear authority to partner with the AG for enforcement. However, there have been some housing statutes where HCD and the AG's role in enforcement is unclear.

AB 434 will harmonize the enforcement of these important housing policies by clarifying the roles of HCD and the AG. AB 434 is supported by the Attorney General Rob Bonta, the Bay Area Council, the California Housing Partnership, as well as the California Apartment Association among many others. I respectfully ask for your aye vote at the appropriate time.

Thank you, Member Grayson. Do you have any lead witnesses here?

Not this time. No.

Okay. Do we have any other witnesses here in support of AB 434? Please proceed.

Smith on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition in support.

Thank you.

Mark Stivers with the aforementioned California Housing Partnership in support.

Perfect. Seeing no other witnesses in support of AB 434, we'll now move to any witnesses, any lead witnesses in opposition of AB 434 here in Room 2100. Seeing none. Do we have any other witnesses in opposition to AB 434? Seeing none. We'll now move on to witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference service. Mr. Moderator, please, if you would, prompt any individuals waiting to testify both in support and opposition of AB 434. We will begin.

For those who wish to speak in support or opposition, please press one then zero at this time. Press one then zero.

Two witnesses.

We're now going to go to line 81. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon. Rebecca Marcus representing LeadingAge California in support.

We'll now go to line 89. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon. Janoa Hannaford on behalf of AG, Rob Bonta, in support.

There is no one else.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. We'll now bring the discussion back to the Members. Any comments? Questions? Thank you very much. Member Grayson, would you like to close.

Respectfully ask for an aye vote at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much. We'll now move on to our--oh, is that it? Oh, Mr. Lowenthal? I don't think we've had the pleasure.

How could you miss me?

Welcome, Member Lowenthal.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. AB 1218 provided needed clarity to ensure that the replacement housing and relocation assistance provisions of SB 330 are implementable and can achieve their intended impact. Additionally expands those provisions to apply to any development that is demolishing existing housing to ensure that we are not backsliding and addressing the state's housing supply crisis.

The bill clarifies a number of provisions of existing law that require the replacement of housing units and relocation assistance and a right to return for displaced low income households as a condition of developing sites where existing housing is demolished. These provisions have been flagged by both local governments and HCD as difficult to interpret and have led to confusion for developers.

This has meant that displaced low income households are not benefiting from the important protections they have under the law. In addition, the bill extends the replacement housing obligation under SB 330 to all projects rather than just housing projects. Developers should have a plan to replace existing housing units, regardless of the type of project they are building, consistent with the rules that already apply under Housing Element Law.

While it is true that other parts of SB 330 only applied to housing projects, fundamentally, the bill was about expanding housing supply to address the state's shortage of units. When developers of commercial or industrial projects demolish existing housing with no plan to replacement, it frustrates that goal. The provision expanding SB 330's replacement obligation to nonresidential projects has raised recent opposition. I'm committed to trying to find a solution to the concerns the opposition has raised.

Ultimately, the goal is to minimize the instances in which existing housing is demolished and is not replaced. With me today, I have Valerie Feldman, an attorney with the Public Interest Law Project, to testify in support of the bill.

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I've been an attorney with Public Interest Law Project for the last six years, but for 22 years, I've represented indigent clients in need of housing, both in-housing and land use actions, and our goals have always been to preserve the existing housing that exists, as well as to increase production of housing that can meet their needs.

And our goal here is to increase the effectiveness of this important law to make sure that when housing is jeopardized, not just because of other residential development, but also because of commercial and industrial development, that the housing units and the tenants in those units are protected by either replacing those units if they are empty or replacing those units and relocating the tenants if those units are occupied.

The goal is really to protect the thousands of units that are at jeopardy right now because of the increase in commercial development we've seen in some areas that are questioning whether this law applies to them when these commercial and industrial projects are proposed. This offers the clarification to make sure that those uses know that they are intended to replace housing that's demolished or tenants who are displaced.

The goal, of course, is to steer development in a place that won't destroy housing, any housing, but when circumstances apply that require that development proposals move forward in areas where there is housing and housing that's currently occupied, that we know that tenants in those units will be protected and relocated and we know that we won't lose any housing units in the middle of really the largest housing crisis the state has ever faced. I encourage your support. Thank you.

Thank you. For the record, would you like to state your name?

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Valerie Feldman, Public Interest Law Project.

That's alright.

Thank you, Valerie. Do you have any other lead witnesses in support of AB 1218 here in Room 2100? Seeing none, we'll continue with any witnesses in support of AB 1218 here in Room 2100.

Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership, once again. Thank you. In support.

Anya Lawler on behalf of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, also pinch-hitting for the Western Center on Law & Poverty in support.

Thank you. Alright, seeing no other witnesses in support of AB 1218, we'll now move on to any lead witnesses in opposition of AB 1218. Seeing none, we'll now move to any other witnesses in opposition to AB 1218 here in Room 2100. Seeing none, we'll now continue with any witnesses via the teleconference waiting to testify via the teleconference line. Mr. Moderator, if you would please prompt the individuals waiting to testify both in support and opposition to AB 1218, we will begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Please press one then zero if you wish to speak in support or opposition to this bill. Please press one then zero. We'll now go to line 120. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon. This is Audrey Ratajczak on behalf of the California Business Properties Association. We've been working closely with the author and the sponsors to try to find some middle ground and look forward to continuing to work with them as the bill moves forward. We're just concerned about our commercial business property folks having to build residential housing and how logistically that would work, so we just want to make sure that it's not an additional requirement that we wouldn't be able to fulfill. So we've been working closely with them and we'll continue to do so. Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll now move to line 121. Your line is now open. Line 121, please go ahead.

Good afternoon. This is Matthew Hargrove. I am representing both CBPA, NAIOP, and a couple other groups. Just wanted to call in and apologize for not being able to be in the room myself. We are working with the sponsors on this bill.

We're mainly concerned about being able to move forward with some industrial projects where the bill is very unclear how you replace the housing in areas where there is small RV development going on. Thank you very much, and we look forward to continuing to work with the author and the sponsors.

Wonderful. And I'm sorry, I think I personally missed your name and the organization that you're calling from. I think we lost them.

Good afternoon--

Line 121, please repeat.

Yeah, we lost them. Alright, perfect. Thank you. Well, we want to thank our witnesses both in support and opposition who were able to testify today. We'll now bring the discussion back to our Members. Any questions or comments?

Hi, Assembly Member. When the bill came before GovernFi, which I was on, given that it affects SB 330 and I had not looked in detail on how it did, nor had my Staff, so we did that, and it is as you've described and so when we have a quorum, if we can act, I'll be happy to move the bill.

Wonderful. Seeing no other questions or comments by the Members on the dais. Would you like to close?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to reiterate what I said earlier in my testimony and actually what the folks who called in said, which is we're continuing to work together on a common goal and reaching resolution in this so that we reach the intended effect of SB 330 and at the same time don't disrupt the goals of industrial and commercial development in the state.

Thank you very much, Member Lowenthal. Thank you for presenting the bill, and we'll keep it on call.

Thank you, Senator. Assembly Member Irwin. So we'll now proceed with item number 15, AB 531, by Assembly Member Irwin. Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Madam Chair and Members, I am pleased to present AB 531 today. The connection between homelessness and behavioral health challenges is significant. Among Californians experiencing homelessness, nearly 40,000 have a severe mental health illness and over 36,000 have a chronic substance use disorder. Among homeless veterans, over 50% suffer from mental health issues and over 70% are affected by substance use disorder.

To address what has truly become a behavioral health crisis, Governor Newsom has proposed what would be the biggest expansion of California's behavioral health care system. AB 531 is a significant portion of that. AB 531 would ask the voters to authorize the issuance of bonds, provide housing and behavioral health treatment in unlocked community-based settings, and provide housing for veterans with behavioral health challenges. These investments will go even further with reforms to the Mental Health Services Act.

The $4.68 billion in bond funds would be used to build 10,000 new clinic beds and homes. This funding includes $865 million dollars dedicated to house veterans with serious mental health, illness, or substance use disorder. Voters would need to approve the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Bond Act of 2023 at the March 5, 2024 statewide primary election. With me to testify in support is Michelle Baass, Director of Department of Healthcare Services, and Andrea Devoe, representing the California Association of Veteran Service Agencies.

Also in the room to help answer any technical questions are Myles White from Business and Consumer Services and Housing Agency, and John Spangler from Calvet.

Good afternoon. Michelle Baass, Director of the Department of Health Care Services. As you know, since 2019, California has embarked on massive investments in policy reforms to re-envision the state's mental health and substance use disorder systems. We've invested more than $10 billion in a range of efforts to build out California's behavioral health care continuum, particularly for those most desperately in need for treatment and services.

These include investments in prevention and early intervention, such as the investment in the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, to investments with those with high needs in programs like the Community Assistant Recovery Empowerment Act or Care Act, and support for critical system improvements such as through Cal Aim and the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program. However, we know that more must be done.

The Governor's proposal to transform the state's behavioral health system includes two bills that complement the initiatives underway and are designed to specifically address the remaining gaps in the continuum of care for our most vulnerable Californians.

These two bills include Assembly Bill 531, authored by Assembly Member Irwin and coauthored by Senator Eggman, which would establish the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Bond Act of 2023, and Senate Bill 326, authored by Senator Eggman, which would reform the Mental Health Services Act and improve statewide accountability, transparency, and access to behavioral health services. If approved by voters in March of 2024, AB 531 would authorize the issuance of $4.68 billion in bonds to finance grants to continue the investment to build out our community based behavioral health treatment and residential care settings and housing that this Administration and the Legislature has championed in recent years.

Specifically, this would include up to 865 million administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development to acquire capital assets for, construct and rehabilitate housing for veterans and their families who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness and are living with a behavioral health challenge.

Future amendments will include up to 922 million in making loans or grants administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development to acquire capital assets for conversion to permanent supportive housing inclusive of scattered site projects, and to construct and rehabilitate permanent supportive housing for persons who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness and are living with a behavioral health challenge.

The remaining funds, about $2.7 billion, will be for grants overseen by the Department of Health Care Services for the acquisition of capital assets for, and the construction and rehabilitation of unlocked, voluntary, and community-based behavioral health treatment and residential settings. This will expand on the current efforts to build out the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Continuum program, which was established in July of 2021.

We call it BHCIP, but the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program provides $2.2 billion in grants to construct, acquire, and expand properties and invest in mobile crisis infrastructure through June 30, 2027. We are pleased with the overwhelming interest in our infrastructure program. Round five of the program, we received requests of over $2 billion, and we had only $430 million in available funding for that round. The statewide need for behavioral health continuum expansion exceeds the authorized funding that we have to date.

That is why this bond act is so critical. The bonds would fund the development of an array, again of voluntary, unlocked, community-based treatment and residential care settings that are necessary to support individuals with the most complex behavioral health conditions succeed as they journey through the care continuum to recovery and rehabilitation.

With me today I have Marlies Perez, Chief of Community Services at the Department of Healthcare Services, Myles White, Deputy Legislative Secretary for Business and Consumer Services and Housing Agency, and John Spangler, deputy Secretary of Legislation with Calvet. We are happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you and good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Andrea Devoe, proudly representing the California Association of Veteran Service Agencies, also known as CAVSA. We're in strong support of AB 531 and thank Assembly Member Irwin for bringing it forward. Her tenacity in doing so. I will keep my comments abbreviated. The prior witness covered the bulk of the Bill and its importance.

I do want to say that the dedication of funding to veterans with behavioral health needs in this measure who are currently experiencing or at risk for experiencing homelessness cannot be overemphasized. Among homeless veterans, over 50% suffer from mental health issues and over 70% are affected by substance use disorders. In 2021, it was acknowledged that after a decade of awards, the successful Veterans Housing and Homeless Prevention, the VHHP program, was set to run out of funding in 2023.

Through the efforts of Assembly Member Irwin and others, last year's state budget included a $100 million augmentation to the VHHP program to keep this program afloat. The inclusion of housing for veterans with behavioral health challenges in this administration's transformation of California's behavioral health care system through Assembly Bill 531 and Senate Bill 326 is righteous and should be applauded by all. The CAVSA Association is in strong support. Thank you for your authorship. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. We will now proceed with witnesses in support of AB 531 here in room 2100. Don't be shy.

Hi, Chair and Members. Colin Hawley on behalf of the City of Riverside in support. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members, I thank the author. City of Santa Monica, in support.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Meagan Subers on behalf of the California Professional Firefighters in support.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Chris Lee here on behalf of the Urban Counties of California as well as today the Rural County Representatives of California. We have a support in concept position, have a few ideas about how to strengthen the Bill, but appreciate your consideration.

Danielle Bradley, on behalf of the California State Association of Counties. We also have a support in concept position and align our comments with RCRC and UCC. Thank you.

Seeing no other witnesses in support, we'll now move on to any witnesses, lead witnesses, in opposition to AB 531 here in room 2100. And seeing none. We will now continue to any witness in opposition to AB 531 here in room 2100. Seeing none, we'll now move on to witnesses waiting to testify via the Teleconference service. Moderator, if you would please prompt any individual waiting to testify both in support and opposition to AB 531, we will begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to comment in support or opposition of AB 531, you may press one and then zero at this time. Our first comment comes from line 83. Your line is open.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Corey Hashida on behalf of the Steinberg Institute in support.

And at this time we have no further comments in queue.

Thank you, Madam Moderator. We'll now bring the discussion back to our Members here. Any questions or comments? Senator Skinner.

Assembly Member if we had quorum, I would move your Bill. I appreciate you bringing it forward. We need this and I don't have any questions about it.

So Member Irwin, I'm very excited to see this Bill. I've had a Bill similar to this with the expansion of the mental health capacity throughout the continuum of need both last year and this year went through with unopposed through the Senate. Unfortunately died in appropriations because unlike yours, it wasn't a bond, it was actually requesting some funds from the general budget. But I am grateful and I truly hope that this goes through and that it's voted in by Californians because we do need to expand the mental bid capacity.

It's one of the major concerns that we've had across the state as we speak to different organizations on there. So it's desperately needed in the state. So I'm happy to support the Bill when the appropriate time comes as well. So would you like to close?

I just respectfully ask for your aye vote when the time comes.

Wonderful. I'm surprised we don't have more lists in support.

We are just starting the process but haven't talked to anybody that is pointing this out as one of the number one issues of our time. Yes. And so I think this is an audacious bond and audacious goal by the Governor and really pleased to be part of it. I've carried the VHHP Bill for bond for years and we did get some funding last year in the budget, but it's been supported overwhelmingly by the voters.

And if you look at the one group that actually has decreased as a percentage of homelessness It's veterans because we did put the resources there. So we're hoping to bring this even further and hopefully have that same kind of success. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you, Member Erwin. Hello, Madam Chair and Members. Sorry. Welcome, Member Friedman. We'll now continue with item number 20, AB 894. Please proceed when you're ready.

Thank you very much. Madam Chair and Members. There are 15 million parking spaces in the Bay Area alone, enough that if they were put end to end, they would stretch around the world 2.3 times. LA has almost 6 million parking spaces, or one and a half for every resident, including children who don't usually drive. Often what appears as a parking shortage is actually a parking management deficiency. Jurisdictions frequently require construction of new parking for developments and even sometimes for changes of use of existing buildings, even if there's an abundance of unused parking nearby.

The building that I have my district office in, in Burbank is in a parking structure that's maybe five or six stories tall. And even before COVID only about one floor of that building was in use at any given time. And yet, if a new business was to move in or someone tries to build a new building right next to that structure, they would probably be required to build a lot more parking, even though that parking is empty.

What this Bill does is a very common sense approach that says that if a developer contracts with nearby parking lot using standards that are objective standards for distance, if they make that contract to use that parking, that can count towards their parking requirement for new development. It's as simple as that. It doesn't force anybody to share their parking. It doesn't say that a developer can't build their own parking.

It just says that if they're able to use adjacent parking that is available, that can count so that we don't have the wasted resources and climate impact of doing a lot of construction that's unnecessary and which, with the advent of autonomous vehicles in a few years, could become a stranded asset. This Bill will designate the circumstances where it should be allowed, and it requires public agencies to allow this, but no one is required again to share their parking.

Testifying in support on behalf of our sponsor, Spur is Michael Lane, and I respectfully request your I vote. Great.

Madam Chair Members, Michael Lane with spur, a public policy think tank in the San Francisco Bay Area. AB 894 is designed to be a light touch Bill that provides a framework for shared parking based on more than two decades of work by Uli, the Urban Land Institute.

Developing and refining best practices while some jurisdictions are good at utilizing shared parking agreements to maximize the use of and access to existing parking spaces, the vast majority have adopted either no or very limited policies, ordinances and practices in this area. It is important to note the methodology for determining available underutilized parking spaces is driven by local data gleaned by on the ground observation and direct experience.

AB 894 will create greater consistency predictability and transparency for both local agencies and project applicants, and we respectfully request an Aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We have one lead witness. Yes. Okay, perfect. We'll now continue with any witnesses in support of AB 894 here in room 2100. Seeing now we'll now move on to any lead witnesses in opposition to AB 894 here in room 200, seeing none. Any other witnesses in opposition to AB 894? Seeing none. We'll now move on to witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference line. Mr. Moderator or Miss? I think this one is Miss. Moderator, if you would please prompt any individual waiting to testify both in support and opposition to AB 894, we will begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair, if you wish to comment in support or opposition of AB 894, you may press one and then zero at this time. Our first comment will come from line 88. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair, Members Dane hedgings, calling in support on behalf of the City of Bakersfield.

Our next comment comes from line 123. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. Lauren D. Valencia, representing the American Planning Association in support

and line 104. One moment, please. Line 104, your line is open. Line 104, you may be on mute.

Madam Chair and Members. Sheila De Blanc for Civic Well, formerly local government Commission in support. Thank you

Madam Chair, we have no further comments in queue. Thank you, madam. Moderator we'll now bring the discussion back to the Members on the dais.

Yes, thank you. This is such a smart bill. What a good idea. I fully support it. Thank you for bringing it. Your microphone was not on, Senator Skinner. And if you want it on or not, but just that you would have a motion from a variety of people on the dais if we had a quorum. Thank you. Very.

Question for the author. I'll be supporting the Bill today. What does the Bill envision in terms of the duration of the arrangements? Clearly, you wouldn't want, say, I owned a building next to you, and I agree for the next five years to provide you shared parking. Again, very smart. But I go away, that contract expires. And what happens then? Is that part of what's pushed down to the locals to figure out?

Exactly. My understanding is that it would be up to the local governments to basically certify the agreement so they could have standards and say, Listen, six months isn't enough. We want to see longer. There's also the objective standards that the Planning Institute has developed that look at distance, amount of time, all of that.

All right? Okay. It's good enough for me. Thank you.

Thank you very much. See? No other comments from our Members. Assembly Member Freeman, would you like to close?

Sure. Thank you. The Bill has received bipartisan support. It doesn't have any registered opposition. And we have cities like Bakersfield who are interested because they want to do this, but they don't want to have to spend the time doing the hearings and doing the planning process with that. I really appreciate the support and thank you all for the discussion.

Thank you, Member Friedman.

We're going to keep that on call until we're able to establish a quorum. Thank you very much for being here. We'll now continue with item 21, AB 1377.

Thank you very much. This is a Bill that is received, as far as I can remember, unanimous support in every hearing that it's had. We found out a couple of years ago that one of the reasons that we believe we're experiencing such an impact of the homeless population on transit is because some of our homeless agencies that are contracted with counties to provide homelessness services have been reluctant or in some cases refused to provide their services on transit. Either they feel that it's not their jurisdiction or they want to be compensated in a different way. They're not providing the homeless counts on transit.

And what that's doing is causing our transit agencies to basically have to stand up their own homelessness services. Now, they're not equipped for that and they're not funded for that. We don't give them money to provide homeless services and they don't have experts. They're good at running trains, they're good at scheduling. They're not good at being social workers. And we don't think that they should have to do that.

What this Bill does is it requires the agencies for which the state does Fund homeless providing services, to provide those services on transit as well through agreements with transit agencies to make sure that there is safety, that there is access. All of those issues are dealt with. But we want to make it clear that this should be the job of our county contracted homeless providers, not of our transit agencies.

I think that the public is tired of hearing people, our agencies say, hey, that's not our problem, that's somebody else's problem. And since there's ambiguity in the law, we want to clarify that it's homeless agencies that should be responsible for everyone in the county, whether they're on a city street or in a train station, that it should still be those county agencies. This Bill is being supported by the LA. County Board of Supervisors, the Bay Area Council, and transit agencies up and down the state. Testifying in support on behalf of our sponsor, LA. Metro is Andrea antweet.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members, Andrew antwee, on behalf of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The author stated it well. We really thank the author for bringing this Bill forward. Metro has been a partner kind of in a forced situation to invest precious dollars dedicated to transit to address the problem of homelessness as it presents itself on the stations in the system. LA.

Metro has worked with the Los Angeles homeless services authority and the County of Los Angeles to ensure that the needs of people experiencing homelessness on the transit system are incorporated in the planning and delivery of services funded by the state. Metro has over 100 rail and bus rapid transit stations that include publicly accessible spaces that serve as places of refuge for, ultimately of the unhoused.

Accountability for exactly how resources are or not spent is not a problem that's unique to Los Angeles County, but the problem is particularly acute. And so, once again, with thanks to the author and the Committee, we think this will do what the state says it needs, which is to show where the dollars are going and how they're being spent and to cover the gap, as the author stated in the reporting, that might exist today. And for those reasons, we support and proud to sponsor.

Thank you very much. See no other lead witnesses in support of AB 1377. Will now continue with witnesses here in room 2100 in support of AB 1377. Welcome.

Thank you. Madam Chair Members, Martha Guerrero, representing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. In support and urge I vote. Thank you. Ms.. Guerrero.

Seeing no other witnesses here in room AB 2100 in support, we'll now continue with any lead witnesses in opposition to AB 1377 here in room 2100, seeing none, we'll now move to any other witnesses in opposition to AB 1377 here in room 2100, seeing none. We'll now move on to any witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference line. Madam Moderator, if you would please prompt any individuals waiting to testify both in support and opposition to AB 1377, we will begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and again, if you wish to comment in support or opposition of AB 1377, you may press one and then zero at this time. Line 64, your line is open.

Good evening, Madam Chair and Senators Alchemy Graham on behalf of the California Transit Association, caltrain and San Mateo County Transit District in support.

Thank you. Line 126, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good evening, this is Steve Wallach on behalf of the California Association for Coordinated Transportation and the Napa Valley Transportation Authority. In support

and we have no further comments in queue.

Thank you, madam. Moderator we'll now bring the discussion back to the Members on the dais. Senator likes fear.

Yes, thank you. I appreciated what you said in your introduction that it's important that people are served by the agencies that are supposed to be serving and approaching homelessness, and transit staff are not trained to do that.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator Blakespear. Any other comments, questions? Seeing none Member Friedman. Would you like to close?

Yeah, it requires them to report on what steps they've taken to service those individuals. So there's nothing in here that's prescriptive in terms of saying you have to enter a station a certain number of times.

I just wanted to ask if this Bill requires them to do anything or if it just requires that they report on whether they did do anything or plan to do anything.

It just says hey, what have you done to count the people in these systems and what have you done to service them? And we're hoping that it's that transparency as they come forward to the Legislature and to the state that it's the beginning of that accountability so that we can help foster collaboration between the transit agencies and the homeless agencies. Okay. Yes.

Because if they were writing down in a narrative format, we specifically exclude and avoid the transit stations, then we would know that that's a problem. Exactly. And if they said, hey, we've reached out, we can't get access, then we would know who to be talking to about the problem. Right. Okay, good. Thank you. And I will move this Bill when we get to that point.

We just hear that this is a real problem for transit riders, and it's certainly a problem for people who are experiencing homelessness. And we want them to be offered the services that they need to find housing and to be safe. And certainly we have people that are in the transit system because they feel safer there than being on the streets. But we need to make sure we're doing the outreach to offer them even safer and more permanent housing.

And we're hoping that this will foster the kind of communication that we need to service those individuals and get them housed properly and also to make sure that transit riders have an experience that's conducive to keeping them riding our transit systems.

Wonderful. Thank you, Member Friedman. And we look forward to voting on this measure. Thank you very much. Well, now like to welcome Assembly Member Wicks, and I believe you're presenting on behalf of item number 27. I'm presenting two bills that are not my own. So.

Item 13. Assembly Bill 529 by Assembly Member Gabriel.

Yes, I've got Mr. Gabriel's Bill today. Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. I also have Mr. Alvarez's Bill today. So I'll start with Mr. Gabriel's AB 529. Thank you, Madam Chair. Members. California's Crippling housing shortage is well documented, and the shortage is especially concerning for our affordable housing supply.

As I know we discussed many times in this Committee, AB 529 seeks to help address this issue by adding the adoption of policies that facilitate the conversion or redevelopment of commercial properties to housing, known as adaptive reuse, into the criteria used to grant jurisdictions pro housing designation. Adaptive reuse can have many benefits, including encouraging economic growth in underutilized areas and advancing environmental and infill development goals.

By bringing residents closer to jobs, amenities, and public transportation, AB 529 will help incentivize development of underutilized commercial land into affordable housing and facilitate the increased utilization of this important tool for addressing our housing shortage. With me here to testify in support of the Bill, I believe, is JT Harechmak. Yes. Great. Policy manager for NPH and respectfully asked for an aye vote.

Thank you and welcome.

Hi there. Thank you, chair and Committee Members. I am pleased to testify in support of AB 529. I represent the nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California, which is comprised of 750 affordable housing builders, advocates, community leaders working to support the creation and preservation of affordable homes for Low income residents. As you all know, COVID changed the workplace practices and needs of our economy. And as businesses shift to remote and hybrid work, the need for office space is reduced.

Here in Sacramento, the recent shifts in office work could keep 20% of commercial buildings vacant. These trends threaten the economic health of our downtowns and urban cores. But as housing builders, where some see empty storefronts and blight, we envision homes and communities. The key is creating the right incentives and partnerships to make commercial to residential conversions feasible. AB 529 helps us do that. Through the adaptive reuse additions to HCD's prohousing designation, we will give local governments a financial incentive to support conversions.

And with the reexamining of building standards for conversions, we can cut red tape, reduce costs, and still protect public health and safety. The smart and practical Bill offering the rare carrot approach in a state housing policy. And we urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll now move on to witnesses in support of AB 529 here in room 2100. Welcome.

Michael...Strong support.

Sheila Ellis. AARP Capital response team in support.

Mark Stivers of the California Housing Partnership, in support.

Hi, my name is Ellen Madill, here on behalf of the International Interior Design Association. Both Northern and Southern California chapters in support.

Wonderful. Seeing no maybe one more.

Priscilla Quiroz here on behalf of Stop Waste and City of Santa Monica in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses in support of AB 529 will now continue with any lead witnesses in opposition to AB 529 here in room 2100. Seeing none, will now move on to any other witnesses in opposition to AB 529.

Seeing none, will now move on to witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference service. Madam Moderator, if you would please prompt any individual waiting to testify via the teleconference service both in support and opposition to AB 529, we will begin.

Thank you. Madam Chair, if you wish to comment in support or opposition of AB 529, you may press one and then zero at this time. Line 91, your line is open. Go ahead. Line 91, your line is open. Okay, we'll move on to line 104. Line 104, your line is open.

Madam Chair and Members Sheila De Blanc for Civic Well, formerly the local government Commission in support. Thank you.

And we have no further comments in queue.

Sorry if you didn't hear me to the previous witness over the teleconference. You have radio voice on that end. All right, we'll bring the discussion back to the Members on the dais do we have any comments or questions? Seeing none. Assembly Member Wicks, would you like to close?

I just request an aye vote when you establish Quorum. Been with your Chair for the last 3 hours in the Natural Resources Committee.

Thank you. We'll now continue with item number 27, Bill AB 1449 by Assemblymember Alvarez.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to present AB 1449, 1449, 1449. Yes. On behalf of Assembly Member Alvarez. AB 1449 is an important Bill that until 20 let me try that again. AB 1449 is an important Bill that until 2033 provides an exemption from the Sequa process for 100% affordable housing projects that meet location, prerequisites, rigorous labor standards, and specified environmental requirements. We're in the midst of a housing crisis which not only renders the state unaffordable for a large number of Low and middle income individuals, but also costs the state billions of dollars of economic output annually.

All the studies and data tell us that we need to build millions of new housing units each millions of new housing units, much quicker than we do now to get out of the hole that we have found ourselves in. Despite the good intentions, sequa has played a contributing role in this crisis by inhibiting developers ability to build affordable housing projects in a cost effective way.

Consider a report by the California Business Roundtable that found in 2020, nearly 50% of all housing production of that year was challenged under CEQA. The lengthy and expensive Sequa process and the ease with which someone can abuse it needlessly increases the cost and length of housing projects, often resulting in the projects becoming cost prohibitive and permanently delayed.

Recognizing the housing crisis we are in and its real life or death consequences, AB 1449 seeks to remove barriers to affordable housing while requiring robust location, environmental and labor standards until 2033. Thank you for your time. Respectfully ask for your aye vote. And I know here to testify in support briefly will be Mark Stivers, the Director of Advocacy for the California Housing Partnership, and Chris Martin, Policy Director for Housing California. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Chris Martin, Policy Director at Housing California, a proud co sponsor of AB 1449. Despite the well established need for affordable and supportive housing, these projects face vocal opposition around our state. AB 1449 would exempt 100% affordable housing from CEQA, while ensuring new developments are on climate friendly infill sites and meet certain environmental protections.

By its nature, and as a result of state and local funding priorities, 100% affordable housing is higher density and built on location efficient sites, close to services and amenities its residents need. Unlike other buy right or streamlining bills, this Bill does not override local decision making or the development approval process. The local government still retains any land use discretion. AB 1449 balances the need for California's two most pressing issues.

In housing and homelessness with environmental concerns to ensure more affordable housing is built quickly for those most in need. Thank you for your time and respectfully request your aye vote.

Mark Stivers of the California Housing Partnership. I just echo those comments and just say this Bill closes some of the gaps that remain. We've done quite a few exceptions for 100% affordable housing through CEQA, and this closes some of those remaining pieces. So thank you very much for your support.

Brian Sapp, on behalf of the United Way, Greater LA. In support. The San Diego Housing Commission in support. And then also filter set of properties, also in support. Thank you.

Sharon Rapport with Corporation for Supportive Housing in Support.

Jennifer Armenta on behalf of the California Housing Consortium, co-sponsors of the Bill, in support.

Thank you, Michael. Lansburg. In support.

I just finished our support witnesses. We're now going to continue with any witnesses, any lead witnesses in opposition to AB 1449. Seeing no lead witnesses in opposition, we'll now continue with any witnesses in opposition to AB 1449 here in room 2100.

Thank you. Madam Chair, Members Andrew Antwih on behalf of the City of Beverly Hills in respectful opposition thank you.

Seeing no other witnesses in opposition to AB 1449 here on 2100, we'll now continue with any witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference service. Madam Moderator, if you would please prompt any individual waiting to testify both in support and opposition to AB 1449, we will begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero. Press one, then zero. There is no one who signaled that they wish to speak.

Thank you very much. We'll now bring the discussion back to the Members on the dais. Do we have any questions or comments? Seeing none. Member Wicks, would you like to close.

Respectfully ask for an aye vote when you have a quorum.

Thank you very much. Have a great day and safe travels. We do not have any other authors here, so we were going to pause for a bit and wait for our next author to come.

Good afternoon to Assembly Member Ward. Good evening. I guess is in order. Welcome. I'll be presiding temporarily, and you may proceed to present file item number 10 whenever you're ready.

Well, thank you, Senator. First, I wanted to thank the Committee. I know we've been over with your chair for some time as well, sitting over there in the Committee in the Capitol. So I'm happy to be here to present AB 671. I want to accept the Committee amendments and thank the Committee consultant for their work on their measure.

Community Land Trusts are nonprofit organizations which offer Low and moderate income housing through the use of a ground lease that ensures that the permanent affordability of the land is there in perpetuity and allows residents to own or rent their unit on top of the land owned by the CLT. It's an effective tool to offer more affordable housing, and it's a natural pathway to homeownership.

To expand this model, community land trusts want to utilize the state accessory dwelling unit policies and state programs to maximize their housing opportunities. AB 671 gives the Department of Housing and Community Development the explicit authority to allow CLTS to build ADUs with Cal home funds. This Clarification will allow CLTS to be an effective tool in addressing the state's housing crisis. And I'd like to present my witness in support of the Bill, Amy Hineschike of the Wildcat Consulting.

I would respectfully request at the right time your vote on AB 671.

Thank you so much, honorable Chair and Members. My name is Amy Hein Scheich with Wildcat consulting, representing the California community land trust network. The California CLT Network has approximately 36 affiliates in all areas of our state, from the Oregon border down to San Diego. With approximately 3500 residents, they collectively represent well over $220,000,000 of community assets in the form of permanently affordable homes and community facilities.

The first Community Land Trust grew out of the Southern Civil Rights Movement as a tool for establishing a new form of land tenure for black farmers and their families. The model was pioneered by black farmers in Georgia and spread across the country as communities realized its potential for preserving access to land. Over many generations. Our modern community land trust model has inspired CLT movements in Australia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

CLTS are purchasing properties containing one single family home, constructing ADUs and thus creating affordable home ownership opportunities for two Low income households on each lot. Residents own their own building, and the CLT owns the underlying land. To ensure the property remains affordable. Housing in perpetuity, utilizing our 99 year ground lease, as Mr. Ward has already stated. Recently, one CLT received an allocation of Cal Home Program funds intending to do just that.

However, in discussions with the California Housing and Community Development Department, which administers the CalHome program, the CLT was told that the CalHome program guidelines did not contemplate a nonprofit organization such as a CLT using program funds in this way. In a recent technical assistance meeting with HCD, we were told that actually, the Cal Home Program funds could have been used this way all along. But unfortunately, that was through a different program. The HDPL program. The Home Ownership Development Program loan.

So now AB 671 will be used to make this abundantly clear so there is no confusion moving forward. We look forward to working with HCD regarding their technical assistance, and we respectfully request your aye vote. Thank you so much.

Now just AB 671 here in room 2100, seeing none. We will now continue with any lead witnesses in opposition to AB 671, seeing none. Any other witnesses in opposition to AB 671? Here room 2100, seeing none. We'll now continue with any witnesses waiting to testify via the.

Teleconference service. Madam Moderator, if you would please prompt any individual waiting to testify both in support and opposition to AB 671, we will continue.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero. At this time, press one, then zero. We're going to go to line 111. Your line is now open.

Yes, my name is Francis Andrade I am from the resident United Network. I support AB six, five, three. Thank you.

Madam Chair. There is no one else.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. We'll now bring it back to the dais. Do you have any questions or comments by our Members? Seeing none. Member Ward welcome. zero, did you have questions? Okay. Would you like to close?

Thank you, Madam Chair, at the time, I would respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you very much. I'm sorry. Really quick, just for clarification purposes, we wanted to clarify in the beginning, you stated that you were accepting some amendments. At this time, the Committee doesn't have any amendments with the Bill, but they look forward to working with you on any future amendments.

I will be happy to leave these draft amendments. I thought they were in consult with the Committee, but I'll happy to leave them with you as a copy and we can work on this as it's processed out of Committee.

Wonderful. We wanted to make sure we had that on record.

Thank you, Madam Senator.

Okay. Seeing no other Members, we will be in a short recess while we wait for the next author to arrive by. Member Santiago. Welcome. zero, right here. We want you up close and personal here. Welcome. Yeah.

Thank you, ma'am. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to present on AB 785. If the chair would like, I'd go briefer there rather than longer, but it's up to you.

It's up to you.

What this Bill really intends to do is to sequent, exempt and fast track all the different housings that we have in Los Angeles as it pertains to permanent supportive housing, emergency shelters, transitional housing, and affordable housing under certain government funds. And basically, we're trying to do is to ensure that we get enough housing up to solve the homeless issue. Because right now, it's taking too long. Lawsuits, the processes are taking too long. If we intend on solving homelessness, then we need a roof over people's heads.

And this is why we're pushing extremely aggressive and fast to get this done. This Committee, in years of passing Legislature in 2019, helped us to pass something like this. It was a little bit trimmer, didn't include affordable housing, but it's shown in Los Angeles to increase the amount of roofs over our unhoused population. So we're seeking now to add affordable housing to make sure that we fast track.

The sponsor on this is Mayor Bass, and it's part of her initiative to increase and fast track all housing so that we can solve this problem with me. I have one witness, Mr. Kevin Keller from the Mayor's office.

Good afternoon again, honorable chair and Members. My name is Kevin Keller. I'm with Mayor Bass's office. I'm the Senior advisor on planning and land use, and Mayor Bass is very proud to sponsor this legislation. Thank you for letting me speak today.

I know we know homelessness is a major crisis, so I'll get right to the main points. On their first day in office, Mayor Bass issued a State of Emergency and issued Executive directives to streamline approvals for 100% affordable housing and temporary housing projects in Los Angeles. Within 100 days, Mayor Bass housed approximately 400,000 Angelinos.

Through this expedited program, AB 785 builds off of Assembly Member Santiago's previous legislation, AB 1197, which has had a direct impact on the city's successful ability to create over 2000 shelter beds and nearly 3000 units of supportive housing, with over 65 additional 6500 additional supportive housing units on our development pipeline. Today, AB 7085 responds to the housing crisis by removing barriers to the construction of publicly funded affordable housing shelters, supportive housing, and transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness.

It includes environmental safeguards, is linked only to qualifying public financing sources, and directs these projects into existing infill locations. In a year when additional state investments in housing and homelessness will be hard to come by, this legislation offers an opportunity to meaningfully address California's homeless crisis. We support and appreciate the Committee's staff efforts to work with us in the recommended revisions to enhance the clarity of this proposal.

And finally, Mayor, best wishes to thank Assembly Member of Santiago for authoring this important legislation and appreciates your consideration of an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you again, Madam Chair Members. Martha Guerrero, representing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in support. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. We'll now continue with any witnesses in support of AB 785 here in room 2100.

Brian staff on behalf of United Way Greater LA. In support. Thank you.

Mark Stivers. The California Housing Partnership in support.

Wonderful. Seeing no other witnesses in support here in room 2100. We'll now continue with any lead witnesses for AB 20 or I'm sorry, 785 here in room 2100, seeing none, will now continue with any other witnesses in opposition to AB 785 here in room 2100, seeing none, will now continue with any witnesses waiting to testify via the teleconference line. Madam Moderator, if you would please prompt any individual waiting to testify both in support and opposition.

For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one than zero.

Mr. Moderator, if you would please just pause for a moment, I believe we are able to establish a quorum.

Okay.

Senators. Weiner, Ochoa-Bogh. Here. Senator Blakespear? Here. Blakespear? Here. Caballero Cortese. Here. Cortese? Here. Mcguire. Padilla. Padilla? Here. Sayarto Skinner. Umberg Umberg here. Wahob. Wahob. Here. We have a quorum.

Wonderful. We've established a quorum. You're going to be probably the very first Member today to get an actual vote. So I apologize, Mr. Moderator, if you would please proceed with any witnesses willing to testify.

Thank you. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero. At this time, press one, then zero. We're going to go to line 102. Your line is now open.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. Chair Members. Christopher Nikhil Bowen, Director of Policy at LA Family Housing strong support of AB 785.

And we'll now go to line 91. Line 91, your line is now open.

Zero, good afternoon. My name is Rita Stevens. I am a person with lived experience, resident of the City of Los Angeles, and I am in support of AB 785.

Thank you. There is no one else.

Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator. We'll now bring it back to the dais. We have a motion by Senator Wahab. We do have a comment by Senator Blakespear.

Yes, thank you. I very much support this Bill, and I know it follows up on an earlier Bill that you had similarly in Los Angeles. I think it's really important that we though, remember that one of the most difficult areas to do sequel streamlining is in the coastal zone. So the need for us to look at the Coastal Commission and the areas where that can create incredible delays to building homeless, serving housing, as well as other housing is really important as well. So I just wanted to make sure that we get that out there as the next frontier. But I very much support this, and I'm glad you brought the Bill. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? So, Assembly Member Santiago, did you accept that?

I was going to add that.

Okay, no problem, no problem. So, would you like to close?

Yeah, I'd like to accept the Committee amendments. And I hear your comments loud and clear, but as you know, these bills get contentious when you go through the Legislature. And so what we narrowed down to the LA area and just to be clear, LA City and the unincorporated portions of LA County. And look, I think a longer conversation, a bigger conversation is merited, but this was our starting point. Thank you. And respectfully to ask for an aye vote.

Wonderful. Thank you. Madam Secretary, would you like zero, yes. We do have a motion by Senator Wahob. The motion is due pass as amended and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Weiner. Ochoabogh aye. Ochoabogh aye. Blakespear. Aye. Blakespear. Aye Caballero. Cortese. Cortese. Aye Mcguire. Padilla. Padilla. Aye Sayarto Skinner. Umberg aye. Umberg aye Wahab. Wahab I. That has six votes. Wonderful. We have sorry, six votes. Six votes. So we have six votes. We'll place the Bill on call for the absent Members.

Thank you.

Yeah. Okay, let's do that. So we're going to go ahead and remove the bills on call.

This is AB 86. The motion is due. I'm sorry. Do we have a motion? Got a motion. Pardon me. The motion is due, pass and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh aye Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear aye. Blakespear aye. Caballero Cortese, Cortese aye McGuire Padilla Padilla I. Seyarto Seyarto I. Skinner Umberg aye Umberg aye Wahab. That's seven to zero.

We'll keep that item on call for the absent Members. We'll now continue with item number two. AB 1734.

I'll move it.

Motion by Senator Blakesphere.

The motion is due, pass as amended and rerefer to the Committee on Appropriations. Weiner. Ochoa Bogh. Blakespear. Blakespear, aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto aye. Skinner. Umberg, sorry, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. Ochoa Bogh aye. Ochoa Bogh aye. That is seven to zero.

Yes, seven to zero on that fire lighter number two. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We will now continue with item number three. AB 281 by assembly member Grayson do we have a motion? Do we have a motion? Senator Wahab has moved the Bill.

Great. The motion is due, pass and re refer to the Committee on appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto aye. Skinner. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's seven to zero.

Wonderful. We'll keep that on call for our absent Members. We'll now continue with item number four. AB 434. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, pass as amended and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh no. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto no. Skinner. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's five to two.

We have five to two on item number four. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number five. AGR 3, Grayson.

This will be the consent calendar.

Oh, sorry.

No, that's okay, we can do that.

Well, we have a motion by Senator Blake's here for the consent calendar.

Great. The motion is be adopted, Senator Weiner. Oh and I'm sorry. On the consent calendar, which consists of file items 5, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16, 22, 24, and 25, the motion is be adopted, Senator Wiener. Senator Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto aye. Skinner. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That is seven to zero.

Seven to zero in the consent calendar. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number seven. AB 480. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, pass and rerefer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh no. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto no. Skinner. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's five to two.

We have five to two on that Bill. We will now leave that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number eight AB 1433. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, pass and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto aye. Skinner. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's seven to zero.

We will leave that at seven to zero. We'll leave that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 10 AB 671 by Assembly Member Ward. We have a motion by Senator Wahab. Sorry, pardon me.

I'm ready for you now.

We do. Motion by Senator Wahab.

Great. Thank you. The motion is due pass and refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto aye. Skinner. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. Skinner aye. That is eight to zero.

That's eight to zero. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 12 AB 911. By assembly member Schiavo. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, passed and referred to the Committee on appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto no. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That is seven to one.

That is seven to one. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 13 AB 529 by assembly member Gabriel. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

Motion is due, passed and re referred to the Committee on appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto aye. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's eight to zero.

And that's eight to zero. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 15 AB 531 by assembly member Erwin. We have a motion by Senator Wahab, oh, Senator Skinner. Sorry.

The motion is due. Pass and rerefer to the Committee on Governance and finance. Senator Wiener. Ochoa Bogh. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto no. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. Ochoa Bogh aye. That is seven to one.

That's seven to one. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 17 AB 653 by Assembly Member Reyes. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, pass and rerefer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto aye. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's seven to zero.

We habe seven to zero. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 18 AB 785 by assembly member Santiago. Senator Wahab makes a motion.

The motion is due, pass as amended and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations Caballero. Padilla, Padilla aye. Skinner, Skinner aye. That's nine to zero. I'm sorry? Eight to zero. Eight to zero.

And I voted on that one. Right.

Okay.

You did.

Wonderful, wonderful. And we'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 19.

We haven't taken up 19 yet.

Oh, we haven't? That's right, I haven't seen her yet. How about item number 20, AB 894. By Assembly Member Friedman we have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due. Pass and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh no. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto no. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's six to two.

That's 6-2. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now move on to item number 21 AB 1377. By Assembly Member Friedman. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, pass and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto aye. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's eight to zero.

That's eight to zero. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now move on to item number 23 AB 1218. By assembly member Lowenthal. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, pass and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's 6 to 0.

That's six to zero. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now move on to item number 26 AB 1308. By Assembly Member Quirk-Silva. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, pass and rerefer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese, Cortese aye. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto, Seyarto no. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That is seven to one.

That's seven to one. We'll keep that on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 27 AB 1449 by Assembly Member Alvarez. We have a motion by Senator Wahab.

The motion is due, pass and rerefer to the Committee on Appropriations. Wiener. Ochoa Bogh, Ochoa Bogh aye. Blakespear, Blakespear aye. Caballero. Cortese. McGuire. Padilla, Padilla aye. Seyarto. Skinner, Skinner aye. Umberg, Umberg aye. Wahab, Wahab aye. That's six to zero.

That's six to zero. We'll keep that on call for our absent member.

I made a mistake on item 785. I just need to call one of the Members. I accidentally called a Member twice and didn't call Mr Seyarto. Item 18. I need to call your name. I think I missed you on one of the votes. Do you mind just voting real quick? 785? Do you mind calling? Yeah, if you just name the file item and then I'll call the Members.

We're going to lift the call on file item number 18 AB 785 by assembly member Santiago

Wiener. Caballero. McGuire. Seyarto, Seyarto aye. That is eight to zero.

That's eight to zero. We'll keep it on call for our absent members.

All right. We're good.

Okay, absolutely. We're going to lift the calls on the bills one more time to make sure that we have covered all of our current members on the dais. We're going to begin with item one AB 86 by assembly member Joan Sawyer.

Weiner. Caballero. McGuire. Skinner, Skinner aye. That's eight to zero.

That's eight to zero. We'll keep it on call for absent members. Item number two AB 1734 by assembly member Joan Sawyer.

Weiner. Caballero. McGuire. Skinner, Skinner aye. That's eight to zero.

Wiener. Caballero. McGuire. Skinner, Skinner aye. That's eight to zero.

That's eight to zero. We'll keep it on call for our absent members. Item number three AB 281 by Assembly Member Grayson

Eight to zero. We'll keep that on call for absent members. We'll now continue with item number four. AB 434 by Assembly Member Grayson.

Wiener. Caballero. McGuire. Skinner, Skinner aye. That's six to two.

That's six to two. We'll keep it that on call for absent members. We'll continue with item number five? I'm sorry. Item number seven AB 480 by Assembly Member Ting.

Wiener. Caballero. McGuire. Skinner, Skinner aye. That's six to two.

That's six to two. We'll keep that on call for absent members. We'll now continue with Item number eight. AB 1413 by Assembly Member Ting

Weiner. Caballero. McGuire. Skinner, Skinner aye. That's eight to zero.

That's eight to zero. We'll keep it on call for our absent members. We'll now continue with item number 10 AB 671 by Assembly Member Ward.

I think everybody here has voted on them. On the rest.

Okay,

File item five. And we can do the consent calendar.