Assembly Standing Committee on Local Government

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the Assembly Local Government Committee hearing of April 10. First I want to do some housekeeping lines. I would like to remind the public that for this and future hearings, testimony will be in person, as we are no longer using a moderated telephone service. We also accept written testimony through the position letter portal on the Committee's website. I would also like to go over our ground rules for appropriate conduct.

The Assembly has experienced a number of disruptions to Committee and floor proceedings in the last few years. Conduct that disrupts, disturbed, or otherwise impeach the orderly conduct of the hearing is prohibited. Such conduct may include the talking or making loud noises from the audience, uttering loud, threatening or abusive language, speaking longer than the allotted time, extended discussion on matters not related to the subject of the hearing or the Bill, and any other disruptive acts. To address any disruptive acts, I will take the following steps.

If an individual disrupts our hearing process, I will direct them to stop and wording that continued disruptions may result in removal from the capitol building. I will also document on the record the individual involved and the nature of the disruptive conduct. I may temporarily resist the hearing if the conduct does not stop. I request the assistance of the sergeants in escorting the individual from the capitol building. We have 17 items on the agenda this afternoon. Five of these items are proposed to be for consent.

Item number one, AB 1782 by Assemblymember Ta. Item three, AB 2213 by assemblymember Rubio. Item 10, AB 2634 by Assemblymember Mccarty. Item 15, AB 2812 by assemblymember Kalra. Item 17, AB 3277 by Assembly Local Government Committee. We will hear other bills in the order shown on our agenda. Unless otherwise noted, we will take up to two primary witnesses in support and up to two primary witnesses in opposition. These witnesses will have three minutes each to provide their testimony.

All subsequent witnesses should state their name, their organization and their position on the Bill. I also want to take this opportunity to welcome Assemblymember Bill Essayli to the Committee. Welcome. Happy to see you here. And with that we don't have a quorum, so we are going to be acting as a Subcommitee until we are able to establish a quorum. The first item on the agenda is AB 1889 by assemblymember Friedman. I thought I see her. I saw her a few minutes ago.

Assembly Member Friedman, please when you're ready with your bill, AB 1889, conservation element: wildlife and habitat connectivity. When you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, I want to thank the Committee and the Committee staff for working with my office. I accept the committee amendment on page five, comment seven, of the analysis. AB 1889 requires local governments to consider and minimize impacts to wildlife movement and habitat connectivity as part of the conservation element of their general plan in consultation with state and local agencies. California is one of the richest biodiversity hotspots in the world and the most populous state in the nation. Developments degrade and fragment habitats, leading threats to species imperilment. They also lead to collisions between motorists and vehicles.

And when I did work on wildlife corridors in the past, we had Members from across the state, including on a bipartisan basis, Members getting up and saying that collisions between migrating between deer and cars, between big cats and cars, has led to injuries and deaths across California. This bill simply asks municipalities that have migrating animals as they do their planning process to figure out ways to get those animals through their cities without imperiling drivers, without causing conflicts with developments.

Some policies touch on wildlife connectivity, but state law does not provide clear guidance on how local jurisdictions should address connectivity in their planning process. I authored 2344 in 2022, a bipartisanly supported bill that provided a roadmap for Caltrans to address connectivity on state highways. Some jurisdictions, like Ventura County, have already adopted wildlife connectivity policies, but statewide implementation is essential to safeguard habitat connections across the whole state. AB 1889 does not create any new protections or new programs or provide for more enforcement authority.

It is not meant to stop new housing or other development from happening. This has nothing to do with that. This just asks local jurisdictions to identify important wildlife connectivity values and corridors on their landscapes so that they'll be better equipped to expand needed housing in a way that will avoid damage to the state wildlife projects and also avoid lawsuits, quite honestly, between people who care about the environment and people who are building housing.

If the cities have already said, this is going to be our wildlife corridor, just don't build there, it'll allow that development, hopefully, to proceed more smoothly. Nothing in AB 1889 requires local jurisdictions to construct any new wildlife crossings over roads or highways. It only encourages the local jurisdictions to look holistically at how their long term land use planning impacts wildlife connectivity and consider ways to limit impacts on connectivity.

And I will tell you, in my own community, we have now have to spend money, you know, extra money, to create wildlife crossings. If this planning had been done years ago, it would be so much cheaper, so much less expensive to our municipalities who are now having to go back and correct the lack of connectivity.

If they had just planned for that to begin with, it would have been so easy to include that connectivity in planning, and they wouldn't have to be scrambling now to stop the deaths of big cats on highways, big cats stranded in neighborhoods, and all of the unintended consequences that we're seeing happening. This bill would help give local jurisdictions the tools and the guidance needed to plan for housing and other development in appropriate places.

Testifying in support of AB 1889 is former Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks and J.P. Rose on behalf of our sponsor, the Center for Biological Diversity. This is a good planning bill, it's good government policy, and I would request an aye vote.

Good afternoon, Chair Carrillo and Committee Members. My name is Linda Parks. I'm a former Ventura County member of the Board of Supervisors there, and during my time on the Board, we were able to adopt the county's wildlife corridor ordinance. It's the first in the state, and I'm here to tell you that AB 1889 is much needed and very much is it feasible. Like Ventura County's ordinance, AB 1889 provides clear direction for planners and developers to consider wildlife connectivity in the planning process.

Planners can use resources like CDFW's essential habitat connectivity data that they already have, and developers will know earlier in the process what is expected of them. This will minimize the need for project changes later in the process, and it will also save money and time. I want to emphasize that AB 1889 won't prevent development. Rather, it calls for wildlife friendly fencing and lighting and landscaping, not planting invasive species, clustering development instead of urban sprawl.

We know that CEQA already requires consideration at the project level of impacts on wildlife corridors. However, having foundational scientific information on wildlife corridors all in one place is in the conservation element will facilitate better regional planning and avoid the unnecessary extinction of some of those iconic species, like mountain lions. I want to thank legislators and Governor Newsom for investing in wildlife crossings, including the Wallis Annenberg Bridge, the largest wildlife bridge in the world.

It's going on, being built in Agoura Hills right now over the 101 freeway. Because of Ventura County's wildlife corridor ordinance, wildlife crossing that bridge will be connected to open space when they reach the other side. Wildlife corridors are critical to the survival of wildlife and something 1889 can economically accomplish throughout the State of California. And I really urge your support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Carrillo and Members of the the Committee. My name is J.P. Rose, and I'm the Policy Director in the Urban Wildlands Program at the Center for Biological Diversity. AB 1889 is common sense legislation designed to encourage better local planning to preserve California's unique biodiversity. California is one of the richest biodiversity hotspots in the world.

And while California already has many protected landscapes, we're learning that wildlife still need room to roam between protected areas to find food, shelter and mates and adapt to climate change. A lack of wildlife connectivity can threaten species with extinction, and this is happening now with Southern California and Central Coast mountain lions due to poor planning. Contrary to fears of the opposition, this bill will not impede housing.

Instead, it will help local governments take a long view and a bird's eye view to plan housing and other developments in areas that make the most sense in ways that benefit both people and wildlife. Current policies delay any real consideration of wildlife connectivity until the end of the planning process. This unnecessarily sets up conflicts between developers, communities, and cities, often leading to litigation. By front loading consideration of wildlife connectivity, developers will have a clearer picture of which areas are appropriate to build.

It will also give cities tools to make development safer for wildlife when they are near corridors, such as wildlife-friendly fencing, lighting, and clustering development. At the same time, AB 1889 safeguards taxpayer funded investments in our wildlife. AB 2344, or the Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act, requires Caltrans to include wildlife crossings, where appropriate, on new highways. AB 1889 here will help local governments coordinate with Caltrans to ensure that planned crossings remain functional. This bill will also give local jurisdictions another tool to help implement the state's goals around 30 by 30. Thank you, and please vote aye.

Thank you. Are there any members of the public that want to go on the record in support? Please state your name, organization, and position.

Good afternoon. Chair and members of the Committee, Sosan Madanat, W Strategies here on behalf of Animal Legal Defense Fund in strong support. Thank you.

Natalie Brown with the Planning and Conservation League in support.

Hi there. Megan Mekelburg, on behalf of the East Bay Regional Parks District and the Mid Peninsula Regional Open Space District in support.

Thank you.

Adam Harper, CalCIMA. We have a support board if amended position evaluating the amendments. Thank you.

Good afternoon on behalf of Wildlands Network, we support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Jeff Aaron. I'm here as an individual and I support this Bill. I think it's a logical extension of what other law professors think.

Thank you, are there any primary witnesses in opposition to the measure seeing is someone coming? Yep.

I wasn't planning to be lead, but we haven't. This is Adam Regele with the California Chamber of Commerce, and we have opposed unless amended. We appreciate the amendments so far that have moved it into the conservation element rather than creating an entire new element, which I think a lot of the opposition originally was on. Our surgical amendments, really, I think reduce the cost of local government, which is upon the next substantive update of an element rather than any nominal period change in an element.

Triggering this provision would be a cost saver to local government. And then there's a provision in subsection or Section two in which it says avoid, minimize and mitigate, and we think it should be an or and shall consider which is consistent with the rest of the Bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mister chair and Members Lauren De Valencia, representing the American Planning Association. We actually don't have a position on the Bill and I just want to be clear that we do really appreciate the amendments. They go a long way as introduced. We did have concerns, significant concerns about introducing a new standalone element. We appreciate being able to work within the confines of the existing elements. We're still hopeful to work with the author on the date, the implementation date.

We do really want to see alignment with all the General plan updates that we're looking to implement this year so that it can be looked at holistically when the General plan is updated. But again, really appreciate conversations with the authority, sponsors and the Committee's work. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other Members of the public going on the record in opposition of the bills? In none with that. Assemblymember Friedman, would you like to close?

We're going to continue to work with all the stakeholders to try to address any of their concerns and I appreciate them coming to to make suggestions and we'll continue to work with them.

And you agree with the amendments that we're taking.

Yes, we're accepting the amendments.

And thank you for your help.

Thank you.

Thank you. With that. We don't have a quorum yet, so we're still doing it as staff Committee. You do have two other bills, the next one.

Thanks so much for coming. I'm going to be presenting AB 2253 next. I want to thank the Committee once again and the Committee staff for working with our office. I'm accepting the Committee amendments on page four, comment seven. AB 2553 clarifies that local jurisdictions must impose lower traffic impact fees on transit-proximate housing developments. It also updates the definition of major transit stop to reflect post-COVID service.

Thanks. First, if a local agency has adopted a traffic impact fee, the Mitigation Fee Act requires the fee to be set at a lower rate for housing development projects that generate reduced vehicle trips, as determined by whether the housing development meets several criteria, including proximity to transit. Currently, the law requires the housing development to be within one-half mile of a transit station, quote-unquote, which is a narrow definition that excludes many projects well served by transit.

Many local agencies have a very high traffic impact fee, posing an impediment to the production of housing and overcharging transit proximity to housing developments that would have minimal traffic impacts. However, several other statutes, including the California Environmental Quality Act and the State Density Bonus Law, encouraged development projects to occur proximate to transit by providing benefits such as streamlined environmental review and lower parking standards, among others.

Under these statutes, a development project must be proximate to a major transit stop, which, among other things, includes the intersection of two or more major bus routes with a frequency of 15 minutes or less during morning and afternoon peak commute periods.

AB 2553 requires local agencies to consider reducing traffic impact fees for housing developments within one-half mile of a major transit stop, which will increase the number of developments that qualify for the reduction compared to the current requirement to be proximate to a transit station. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant reduction in transit ridership, which in many localities is proving to be temporary. But right now we're still having lingering effects. So many transit agencies responded by cutting routes and reducing service frequency.

As a result, there are fewer locations that meet the definition of major transit stop. Notwithstanding service reductions, development projects proximate to existing and planned transit generate fewer vehicle trips and have more transit riders than projects located further from transit with benefits to air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. To address this concern, AB 2553 amends the definition of major transit stop to increase the headways for bus routes from 15 minutes to 20 minutes. Testifying in support of AB 2553 is Francesc Marti with this with California YIMBY and Holly Fraumeni De Jesus on behalf of SPUR. Thank you.

Thank you Chair Carrillo, distinguished Members of the Assembly Local Government Committee. My name is Francesc Marti and I am the Senior Director of Strategy and Government Affairs at California YIMBY. We are a grassroots organization with over 80,000 Members dedicated to ensuring that California is a place of abundant, secure, and affordable housing for all. Today, I stand before you to express our strong support for AB 2553 authored by Assembly Member Friedman regarding major transit stops.

The Legislature has determined that proximity to a major transit stop produces transit benefits and has incentivized such projects in many ways. The following laws and processes use proximity to a major transit stop SB 209,7 AB 2011, density bonuses, several CEQA exemptions are also based on major transit stops, the vehicle's miles traveled CEQA impacts as well and the reason that all these recent bills provide these benefits is because transit proximate projects have greater transit ridership and less impact on traffic.

Existing law recognizes that projects that are proximate to transit should pay lower traffic impact fees. However, the definition of traffic transit station is currently very narrow and only applies to projects in the most urbanized settings. The reality is that many projects are close to high-quality transit and have high transit ridership, but are not close to a transit station as currently defined. As a result, many transit-proximate projects are paying higher fees.

AB 2553 clarifies when local jurisdictions must impose lower traffic impact fees on transit-proximate housing developments and also updates the definition of major transit stop to reflect post-COVID service levels and on-demand transit. Projects are currently not moving forward due to high cost, right? This is something that we're all aware of, so anything that helps reduce cost helps increase housing production. So on behalf of California YIMBY, I urge you to vote aye on AB 2553.

Let's work together to create a California that welcomes everybody where every person has the chance to live in a safe, affordable home in a thriving community. And today with me is Holly Fraumeni representing SPUR, the sponsor of the Bill, and she is available to answer any questions you may have about the Bill. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Before we move on to the second witness, we achieved quorum. Madam Chair, will you please call the roll?

[Roll call]

Thank you. Second witness, please.

Thank you. Mister Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm here today on behalf of SPUR, and that's the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, who has been the proud sponsor over the last four years of many bills that have been increasing housing affordability and availability in the State of California. This list includes AB 2097, authored by Assemblymember Friedman, which waived parking minimums for all housing developments near major transit.

And it rightfully did not differentiate between a transit station or a transit stop, treating them equally, because all of these projects are known to be increasing ridership and ultimately reducing those traffic impacts. So it's only fair that the Mitigation Fee Act considers these properties in the same way. We also want to reiterate that this is not a mandatory reduction in fees, it's just requiring the cities to consider that they are near transit.

There's no mandatory reduction, but we're hopeful that it will actually recognize that and the fees will be reduced because of those reductions in impact. So again, we urge your support.

Thank you. Any other members of the public want to go on the record in support? Please name, organization, and position on the Bill.

Mister Chairman and Members. Roger Dickinson, on behalf of Civic Well, formerly the Local Government Commission, in support.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. David Azevedo, AARP California, in support.

Thank you.

AARP.

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of Sandhill Properties and Buckeye Properties.

Thank you. Primary witnesses in opposition. Are there any? Seeing none. How about members of the public going on the record in opposition of the measure? Not seen any. I'll open it to the Committee Members. Any questions or discussion on the proposed measure? No. With that Assembly Member Friedman, would you like to close?

I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you for working with the Committee on this Bill and for accepting the Committee amendments with us. I will be voting aye on this measure. Do we have a motion to move the Bill? Is there a second? Motion and second. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll call]

Thank you.

It is a 5-0. The bill is out. We leave the roll up and for other Members to add on. And we have your third bill next, Assembly Member Friedman, AB 2712.

Right.

When you're ready.

Thank you very much. And I want to thank the Committee for the analysis on this bill, and for my comments, I want to just take us back to the original bill that I did about parking, 2097, and explain why we've introduced this bill. This is a bill, by the way, with no opposition that we know of, no registered opposition. When I introduced 2097, the idea was that we wanted to encourage people to use transit. We wanted to create more housing in California.

We wanted to allow developers that were building near transit to decide how much parking their developments needed. 2097 was supported in a bipartisan basis. We had Republicans and Democrats supporting it because of the property rights implications. And the goal was that people would build with the amount of parking that they thought their residential projects would need.

And in many cases, they were going to be building these projects, because it was near transit, for people who were using transit and people who, and people who would not be paying for a parking space that they didn't want to use or need to use, that they would self select into these buildings.

And what we told neighborhoods, existing neighborhoods, was that that's what we're that those if projects are being built without parking or without the same parking that you're used to, it's not going to burden your neighborhood because we're putting these buildings near transit so that they will use transit. But what has happened in some parts of my district in Los Angeles, the very densest parts of Los Angeles, is luxury housing developers are building on the commercial corridors where we have our highest amount of buses and public transportation but offering units without parking, telling the residents that they will give them the preferential parking passes that were meant for the neighborhoods that are adjacent and behind these buildings.

That was never intended by our bill. And what this bill is attempting to do is give some local control back to our cities, to give them the discretion to say no to those developments, to say, if you're going to build hundreds of units without parking, we're not going to allow you to burden those already parking burdened neighborhoods behind you. Rent to people who are going to use public transportation or build the parking that your project needs. We are trying to allow cities the discretion to not impact already overburdened neighborhoods.

So looking at the analysis, the first part talks about preventing a local authority from issuing permits, but, actually, we are doing the opposite. Our bill prevents the City of Los Angeles and many of your municipalities from saying no to giving preferential parking permits, even to a building that's adding 4 or 500 units. That can be a huge burden on an existing already overcrowded neighborhood. That's something that we did not intend when we wrote this bill. We were trying to encourage more public transportation use.

We're not saying the cities can't give the parking. We're saying make a finding. We're trying to give them some discretion back over issuing those permits. Secondly, the bill talks about, what about the harm for a resident of those buildings who now can't have a parking space.

And I would say, what about the harm to taking away the parking now from that resident who's already in that overcrowded parking neighborhood, who is in an old apex from the 1950s that only had three or four spaces that's relying on that permit parking spot. Those residents right now are rightfully saying, how can you now give 500 new permits in this neighborhood? That was not the intent of 2097. 2097 was done near transit so that those residents would take advantage of transit.

So this bill is just trying to allow these cities to have a little bit more discretion when about preferential parking. Now, you might say, why don't they just rezone the area so that they don't have preferential parking? Unfortunately, in the City of Los Angeles, the City Attorney there, in my understanding, has said that commercial corridors that never had housing are now going to be included in the adjacent neighborhood's preferential parking system.

And for City of LA, they'd have to go through a really long process to have public procedures, to have public meetings and to rezone. Meanwhile, these buildings, because the City Attorney has decided it, are getting, just by applying, all the preferential parking that, you know, for all of those residents. It's an unfair burden on the existing neighborhoods. It was not something that was anticipated in our bill. This concern was never brought to me or Senator Portantino when we were writing the bill.

I don't think anyone expected these commercial corridors to be designated as being a part of those preferential parking zones because they never were for commercial parking. So this really is just our attempt to help give the City of Los Angeles, in this case, some control and to put our bill back to the place where it was meant to be, which was build the housing, If you're going to build it without parking, adjacent to high quality transit for transit users.

Not to just bring hundreds more cars in without mitigating through parking spaces. That's what we're attempting to do. I think it's really reasonable. It's giving some local control back. The bill has no opposition that we know of. Not by the supporters of 2097. Certainly, I can tell you LA doesn't move very fast.

I've had conversations with my Council Member who is not just enthusiastic, she wants this to have an urgency on it because right now they're giving these parking passes to these new luxury developments. These aren't even affordable housing developments. That they're okay with. These are luxury housing market rate developers that are saying, oh no, we're just going to build it without parking and give every unit three preferential parking passes. It's not fair.

It's not what we intended. And I would request an aye vote so we can continue to have the discussion moving forward. And we'll continue to work with your Committee, if we can get through, we'll happy to address any of your concerns to move this policy forward.

Thank you. Did you have any witnesses in support? I see one coming up.

Yes. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon, Chair Carrillo and Members of the Committee. My name is Natalie Brown with the Planning and Conservation League, and I'm here today to second what Assembly Member Friedman has said and to express California's need for the smart and responsible parking reforms put forth in AB 2712. AB 2712 recognizes the need to support transit-oriented development and affordable housing without encroaching on and overcrowding the curb parking that existing residents rely on.

By excluding low and no parking development from preferential parking districts, AB 2712 will, one, prevent infill development from displacing neighbors from the curb parking they currently rely on. Two, it will diffuse opposition to new housing businesses on the grounds that they'll overcrowd nearby street parking, making it easier to get important projects off the ground. Three, it'll ensure that transit-oriented development, as Assembly Member Friedman said, is actually transit-oriented.

These projects should support car-free transit using tenants and customers, not simply push parking demands to already crowded streets. AB 2712 is a win for affordable housing for existing neighbors and for climate and public health goals. We know that California cannot meet its long term climate goals without reforming our land use patterns to curb VMT growth.

We know that affordable housing won't truly be affordable as long as low wage households are displaced to the urban periphery and priced out of transit access and proximity to economic opportunities. Where transit is an option, we know that mandatory parking minimums impose artificially inflated prices on residents that they do not need and potentially cannot afford. By addressing concerns about removing parking minimums and reducing opposition to nearby low income housing development, AB 2712 fosters inclusive and resilient communities.

And by curbing urban sprawl and induced car usage, AB 2712 contributes to reductions and vehicle miles traveled, thereby reducing air pollution, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, advancing California's climate goals, which is a win for everyone. AB 2712 is an incredibly creative and incredibly pragmatic approach to our climate and housing crises that supports both equity and existing community needs while giving power back to the local governments to address these problems. This bill is important and thoughtful, and I urge your support.

Thank you. I don't see a second primary witness in support. Are there any members on the public that want to go on the record in support? Please state your name, organization, and position on the bill. Seeing none. Any primary witnesses in opposition of the measure? Not seeing one. How about members of the public going on the record? Don't see anybody. I'll bring this back to the Committee. Are there any questions from Members? Assembly Member Haney.

Yeah, no. Thank you. And thank you to the author. I think that your presentation helped to clarify for me some of the motivation behind it, and definitely appreciate the analysis and the work of the Chair as well. It does read to me as a sort of a cleanup bill in its own way.

I mean, certainly the intention of limiting or not requiring these kind of parking minimums, having high levels of parking near transit, the intention of that was not then to have all of those folks then go park in the surrounding neighborhood. And that was obviously, it seems to me, something that does need to be dealt with.

I guess the question is who is the appropriate authority to deal with it and whether it makes sense for us to be extending these kinds of restrictions from here or what prevents the localities from doing it. And I wonder if you might speak to that a little bit more. I mean, is it possible if there was a larger development... And it also resonates for me that part of the concern here is that this will make neighborhoods more likely to oppose new housing because we often hear about the concern around parking.

And I think the prior law that you did really gave us a great tool there to say it's not going to flood your streets in limited parking and impact your limited parking. But can they currently sort of carve out an individual development or what are the barriers to them doing this as opposed to us doing this?

Thank you. So under 2097, they cannot require the parking on site. So we took that ability away from them with 2097. And what we had told the neighborhood is we know we all need new parking. We know we need more housing. You don't want the traffic impacts in your neighborhood. And this is a way that we can add housing without adding tons of congestion. Because if we don't have the parking, these are people then that will use the housing who are going to take public transportation.

And as a witness said, if you're now giving everybody preferential parking, not only are you bringing all that new congestion at the city, you're also taking that curb parking away from these neighborhoods who are really relying on the curb parking. So in some cities, in a small city, they may be able to act quickly to change their preferential parking zone.

Although, a developer could probably counter and say that it's some kind of spot zoning to just all of a sudden, willy nilly take away parking, you know, from this kind of development. What's in the City of LA though, for them to do this for all their commercial corridors, where their maps of where the preferential parking zones are really just not that... They're kind of fuzzy is what's happened.

And because they're a little bit fuzzy, the commercial corridors that never allowed housing in the past because of a lot of the legislation we passed, and they can all of a sudden build housing in those places, now their City Attorney has said, nope, that's in the preferential parking zone. And for the City of LA to undo that, their planning process is a couple of years. Like, they have to have public meetings, they have to do an environmental impact report.

Maybe it has to go into their general plan. They just can't move that fast. And then they have to have a hearing. And who knows? Maybe the developers of the property owners gonna come and say like, no, we've never had it, but we're now thinking of building some giant, you know, some giant development. And we want prefrontal parking, you know, for all that curb space.

We wanna let the cities now have a little bit more of a surgical approach to those areas in terms of giving the preferential parking passes. So we're not changing the parking ordinances, we're just saying the cities don't have to give them the preferential parking for an adjacent neighborhood that's, by the way, behind them. It's not even where these buildings are. It's like they're going to walk, you know, a couple blocks and take up the parking in another neighborhood.

And I will say, from my experience around parking, this is a highly fraught area for local governments. When I was on the Board of Supervisors, there was always neighborhoods that wanted these additional permits or wanted them extended in some ways, and it was very difficult to change from that. In fact, for San Francisco, it's the San Francisco MTA that has that authority, and so the Board of Supervisors didn't even have that authority. So it does end up being something that's hard to do quickly. And so I think what you're saying makes sense in terms of their inability to sort of do this in a more specific way and fulfill the intent of the legislation.

Exactly. The intent was always less cars, more housing, less cars. Let people self select in. There's a lot of people in Los Angeles who take the bus and who take Uber and Lyft these days. And so we want them to be able to have that cheaper unit potentially. You know, certainly we know affordable housing projects don't use as much parking, but these particular developments that we're responding to are not affordable.

These are market rate developments that are saying we're just going to not spend the money to build the parking because we're just going to get them, you know, 2-300 parking passes, you know, for our building. And that neighborhood, those adjacent neighborhoods, they cannot bear that. And, you know, then you're really just bringing in all those additional cars. It's causing real effects.

And this was unintended in our bill, and this is a cleanup bill responding to the neighborhoods' concerns about what's happening and the concerns of the Council Members. And, absolutely, the knee jerk response of the neighborhood is to say, we're going to oppose all housing. We want no new housing. We're going to do whatever we can to keep housing out now because of this. And that's a terrible consequence of this.

Any other Members? Mr. Essayli.

Parking. This is why I did not run for local office. These issues. So this is very hard because on one hand, I'm kind of an absolutist on, like, public property should be public. I don't, you know, necessarily like that some people have preferential access to something that's public. But at the same time, I also understand how frustrating it is. You're at work all day, you're exhausted, and you want to come home, and the last thing you want to do is drive around and look for parking.

So it's a hard issue. I guess my question is, is there something in the law now that denies the local government discretion to issue this preferential parking? Because your bill is kind of a bar. It blocks issuing any permits unless there's a finding that it will not have a negative impact on the preferential parking area. So it is, I view it as limiting local government's authority in that sense. So maybe you can help me. Am I missing something?

Yeah. It's so interesting because the people that have expressed the strongest support are the local government officials, the Council Member in the district where this is becoming a problem. And they want, she wants the ability to decide, one, case by case whether or not that building should have preferential parking, whether the neighborhood can absorb it, you know, they want that flexibility. And, basically, they don't have it because these developments are going into areas that have not had housing before.

So they were sort of unintentionally put into the preferential parking zone because these are commercial corridors that, until the state kind of overruled that local zoning that was, you know, and said, oh, no, you can now build housing on these commercial corridors that were just commercial before. They were just retail and office before. And because their map was really intended for this neighborhoods, this residential neighborhood behind it, they just got caught up in that.

So they feel, their City Attorney, it's my understanding their City Attorney has basically said, nope, we can't deny it if, you know, they're in the preferential parking zone. So every one of their residents gets it just when they apply for it. So they feel that they themselves can't deny it. They would have to redo their general plan and take that area out again.

Yeah. So they would have to do like a conditional use or... I don't know all the local government terms. But they just saying it's just too difficult for them to change it on the local level?

It takes them, they have to go through a long planning process and a lot of public hearings. And so they would like, and they're going to do that. They want to sort of stop this from happening now while they undergo that process. There's too many projects coming in asking, saying do building, no parking, and asking for hundreds of preferential parking permits. So they want to stop it.

The people that have asked me to do this or that neighborhood, they're saying, let's stop this so we can spend the time to go through and decide how much of this and where. I don't mind keeping it for small units. If someone's adding 10, you know, 10 units, five units, fine. These are buildings that are adding 400 units and asking for like 800 preferential parking passes.

The neighborhood right now, even with those passes, residents still have to drive around to look for parking because these are old built out neighborhoods. You know, this is the middle of Los Angeles. If you know LA, like this is the area around, you know, the museum, around the LACMA, around the Tar Pit museum. Like, for people who live there, these are old built, what they thought were built out neighborhoods.

No, I appreciate the concern. It's a real concern. And, you know, I'm not too sympathetic to government people who say something's too much work. So I'm a little concerned about one size fits all. But I do appreciate your passion. You're very, very passionate about this, and I do think you're very genuine about it. So I appreciate that. So I think I've sort of expressed my personal concerns.

And just to be clear, they're willing to do the work. Their process will take a couple of years. That's really the problem is, because of all of those public process that's built in and the reviews they have to do, they're willing to do the work. They're starting right now, but they're saying, we need you to stop what we did while they're undergoing the process.

Maybe we can streamline the process for them.

Maybe.

Thank you. Assembly Member Wilson.

Thank you. And that was, I was going to ask, it is a very much broad approach versus the example given and the specific, there's a specific thing happening in the state as a result of the previous bill. So a lot of times when we do our legislation and we find like, ooh, in real life, you know, there's an issue, I need to fix it. But is it a statewide issue or is it that specific issue? So it feels like we're taking a specific issue that is happening as a result of the bill and applying it statewide. And so I just wonder what your thoughts are on other jurisdictions.

Yeah, and that's absolutely true. And we are willing to narrow it. I don't know whether other areas like San Francisco, let's say, that have this issue, whether this has popped up there yet is an issue. But if LA is any example, it might. So I'm fine with making, I mean, I can go back to LA, see who kind of wants in, wants out. We can narrow this. That's not, you know, I'm fine with that.

We're trying to just avoid unintended problems around permit parking passes due to our bill. And I just feel like other areas might run into the same thing. And again, it's, you know, but they may not. So I'm fine with narrowing it too.

And there's not a, and I was trying to look for a way to allow it to be a tool in a tool chest versus just being blanket. That was my thoughts, you know, yesterday, you know, after the briefing, after staff briefing, and then we had the talk. And so, do you see any way to allow it to be a tool in the tool chest versus just an absolute everybody's...

Thank you. That's why we had the, and I'll tell you, there's another bill on the Senate side that's a similar bill without the proceeding that we put in this to allow them to go through findings where they're going to give the preferential parking pass because we were trying to find a way to make it more flexible so that, if they really want to give that... Like, I was trying to envision, maybe there's a neighborhood where people have permit parking because just during the day there's some big mall, you know, but at night there's plenty of parking for residents.

We want it to be able to for them to make that finding and say, no, no, we can give this new, new 300 unit building the parking passes, and it's not going to impact the neighborhood. That's why we have in the bill the idea that they could go through a procedure and make those findings, where that was our attempt to do exactly that. The other bill on the other side doesn't have that. It just removes their ability, just full stop.

But this doesn't allow, even in a legacy project, because the ability to reduce parking is fairly new in comparison in our transit-oriented developments, which a lot of times are downtown type areas. And so this doesn't allow... And so a lot of those, they had more parking, but they've since reduced. And they do this preferential pass just because it's now difficult, because now that additional housing has come up, it's caused this issue. And so this doesn't allow those kind of projects then.

Well, again, they could still make the same, do the same procedure, make the same findings. They can make findings. And that was our attempt to give them the ability to look at a particular project like that and say, this is different, this is unique. We need this, you know, the neighborhood's fine. To go through this process and make those findings and then give them the preferential parking. We are more than happy, you know, this bill still, this is its first stop.

Hopefully it gets through and we can have all these conversations. I think you see what we're trying to... We're trying to stop something from happening that we never anticipated in 2097. We were trying to protect these existing neighborhoods, trying to help those residents that right now are so parking burdened from this impact that we created. And I will take responsibility as one of the people that did that. And we didn't anticipate this issue. And so we're more than happy to figure out how to narrow it, how to give the flexibility to allow the protection of those existing neighborhoods and to still have the goals of 2097 continue to be fulfilled.

And that goal of being allowing transit oriented development without having to have minimum parking standards is the goal that you're overall trying to achieve. Okay.

Without having developers basically say, we're still going to do the parking now, but we're just going to use the existing curb space. That's not what we wanted, and that's what now they're doing with these preferential passes.

I think there's that recognition overall is that, you know, as much as we want people to use less vehicles, people still use vehicles. And that, and we haven't, even with changing our housing laws, we haven't yet curbed fully people's use of vehicles. And I think there's, you know, a lot of other ways to do that by giving people choice and, you know, increasing the capability of being choice. I am concerned about like the cities and charter cities.

I think there's a line in the analysis that talks about the finding and declaring. And I think this is in some other language too, so it's not just this one. That greenhouse gas and dependence on car use is a matter of statewide concern rather than municipal. So it applies to cities and charter cities. So even charter cities who chapter on their own aren't exempted from this. And that's an interesting concept. But thank you for the back and forth, and I appreciate your answers.

Any other Members with questions? Assembly Member Pacheco.

Thank you.

So I also had some concerns about this bill because, you know, it's like a one size fits all of kind of approach. So parking is a big issue in the city where I live in Downey, where I served on City Council. And so we actually had to have preferential parking for the residents that lived in certain neighborhoods because of apartments nearby that were taking the parking spaces of those streets. So we actually did preferential parking but only for that street.

And permits had to be given to the homeowners, and it wouldn't be given to the, you know, the people that lived in apartments because ideally they had to live, you know, they had parking spaces within their apartments. But I think the whole problem is so many people own vehicles, so sometimes these apartments, and I believe that's been the issue as well. You have, you know, apartments that maybe 2, 3 people live there, and everybody has a car, and everybody needs to get to work.

And in Downey, it's really hard to get to work in a timely manner because you have to catch maybe three different light rails just to get there when driving a vehicle is sometimes a lot easier. So I am also having a problem with that one size fits all because, you know, the suburbs are completely different than, you know, like, downtown LA. And also, I also had a question with respect to, like, I live here in Sacramento now. There's preferential parking here also in Sacramento.

So if you live in a certain area, you can get a permit from the City. So say, for instance, there was a new apartment complex being built, which a lot of development is happening within the city. If a new development was built, would the city still be able to give permit parking or preferential parking for those residents that live there? Because at times, there's also an extra cost to even get a parking spot where someone lives.

And that's what happened with me where I had to get a permit so that I can park my vehicle on the street. So is there new development, even here in Sacramento, for instance, is the city going to be able to give preferential parking to the residents within that apartment complex?

So what this bill would say, so what 2097 did, the previous bill, is it said that if the development is near high quality transit. So in Sacramento, if you were an area that was near their light rail, for instance, a light rail stop, they don't have to build any parking any longer. So they could build an apartment building without putting parking into it.

So what we're saying is, if there's preferential parking already in that neighborhood, it's probably because it's really hard for the people who already have that preferential parking to find a space. So we don't want a giant building of, like, 400 units to come in without any parking at all, and then to automatically get 800 parking permits for that neighborhood. Because it's going to overwhelm that neighborhood that's already parking constrained.

What we want to say is, if the city believes that there's enough parking to give them the permits, we want them to make a finding so that they actually make that determination, rather than, in some cases, they might feel that they wouldn't have wanted to give all those permits, but right now they're unable to say no. At least in Los Angeles, they don't have the discretion. They, because that building might be in an area that's already preferential parking, they just have to give them all those permits, whether they think it's going to overwhelm the neighborhood or not.

We want to give the city the flexibility to tell the developer up front, look, we're not giving you 800. We don't have enough room on the street for you to have 800. If you think you're going to have parking, put some parking in or only rent to people who are going to be taking that light rail.

But the idea is to protect areas that are already critically overburdened by on street parking from having to try to absorb an amount of new cars that they can't absorb into those neighborhoods. That's the idea. And we do have that loophole in the bill. Not loophole, but it's a process where a city could make the determination that it's fine to give all those parking, or maybe they want to give half.

Maybe they're going to give it for a certain amount, one per apartment instead of two per apartment. But we want the city to be able to make that finding. But we don't want these cities that, right now, many of them have these zones from way before our bill. So they didn't anticipate that. You know, before 2097, they would have required parking on those sites. Let's not forget, most of them would have required parking.

So they didn't rechange their permit parking in some of these areas because the permit parking was really intended for older legacy buildings that didn't have parking, buildings from the 1930s, buildings from the 1940s that were built with limited or no parking. So until 2097, most of these cities had parking codes. They had parking minimums for this reason. So we've basically caught them a little bit unaware, and it's going to take them time to go through their process of re-deciding how much permit parking they needed.

Maybe they want to build a municipal lot. Maybe they're going to do managed parking with unused commercial spaces, you know, old, the shopping mall that doesn't use the parking at night. Some cities, like San Francisco, have successfully done parking management like that. But it's going to take them a little while to get up to speed.

Not seeing any other Committee Members with questions or comments? No. Would you like to close, madam?

Well, I think you... I'm sorry to take so much time with this. I really am trying to, you know, fix a situation that we did anticipate. I think we all have the same goals, build more housing, to not burden neighborhoods that are already overburdened. We all know the parking, you know, is a big deal in these older communities. And to still give communities the chance to make those more spot decisions.

We know maybe this isn't there yet, but I would really love the ability to continue working on it to get it there because we've got residents right now who are saying we are going to fight tooth and nail against this new housing because of this impact, and that's a really bad outcome. So with that, I would request an aye vote so we can continue working on this with all of you.

Okay. I do have some concerns too with the way that the discussion went. Clearly, you are very passionate about this issue, and I thank you and the Members for the lively discussion on this bill. And you... There was a lot of reference to the bill that you authored, 2097, which prohibits local agencies from imposing minimum parking requirements on specified residential and commercial developments located within half a mile of public transit. This change to law made it easier to build housing near transit. That is correct.

But I do believe that we need to invest more in public transit. We're not there yet. We are making very big efforts in building the units that we need, obviously. But I believe that, without really matching that amount of investment in public transit infrastructure, I don't think that it's fair to tell the residents in those regions that they have to give up their car, that they have to give up their freedom to be able to go where they need to go without providing them a reliable public transit system.

And I think that you and I can agree on that because we just have not made that investment to have that option, to have me choose whether I want to use public transit where I have to wait an hour, maybe even longer, and I have to be at a specific place at a specific time to be able to meet my commitments. And for me to give up that freedom, it's difficult.

And your efforts and Legislature's efforts to build more housing, I think that, again, we need to match the infrastructure needed so that we can convince our residents that they have a choice, a choice that can be reliable and safe and clean, and we're failing in that effort.

I believe that you are sincere about keeping you working on with the Committee Members and moving forward, but I just don't think that we're there yet. Again, trying to dictate to people that they have to give up their freedom to be where they need to be because there is a bus stop within half a mile, you have to use it, and then you just don't have to have the freedom to use your own vehicles to get to where you need to be.

Whether it's school, work, wherever you need to go. Local jurisdictions still have mechanisms for them to dictate and manage their parking requirements. This seems to me, seems to be a very specific issue with the City of LA. It may transfer to San Francisco, San Diego, other very highly urbanized areas. But again, I appreciate your effort in trying to make us be able to provide the housing that we need. I agree with that. But again, not until we are able to provide infrastructure for public transit.

I think that we need to match those efforts. So with that, you know, we're still very reliant on cars, mobility, and people's livelihoods. This could have detrimental effect on construction workers that need their vehicle for work. Also relying on income from rideshare and food delivery economies. I mentioned students that need to get to class weekly, and these types of households could experience barriers to housing in high resource areas. And again, local governments already have the discretion to make the decisions on parking for their jurisdictions.

This bill would severely limit the discretion and add burdens to local governments that seek to provide parking, especially in areas that are still growing, areas like the ones that many of us represent that need the investment and infrastructure. Do we have a motion? My vote will be no on this bill. But again, I appreciate the efforts and your commitment to continue to work on this particular issue. The motion is do pass to Housing and Community Development Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

We'll leave the roll open for those Members that are not here yet.

Yeah, I would like reconsideration. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Is there a second? Please call the roll.

Carrillo.

But it's on call. I don't think that we can do that yet. The bill doesn't have the votes yet. It's on call, so we wouldn't be able to do that.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Right.

Thank you. With that, we do have a quorum. We had a quorum established. Yeah, we keep the quorums. But I was gonna ask if we could vote on the items on the consent calendar. Can we do that? Which is lost. We had a quorum, so I'd like to see we can get a motion for the items on consent. Assembly Member Pacheco, is that a second for the consent items? Is there a second for consent items? By Assembly Member Wilson. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The vote is 5-0, the bills are out, and we'll leave the roll open for those to add on. The next item on the agenda is item number four, NIC, Assembly Member Addis, on AB 2302. Whenever you're ready.

Well, thank you, Chair, staff, your staff, my staff, and our advocate who's here today. Today, I'm here to present AB 2302, the Local Meeting Accessibility Act, and to provide some context about how we got here and what's needed, in 2020, as we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic made it unsafe for large groups to meet in one place, including local legislative bodies. In response, the Governor issued a series of executive orders that temporarily relaxed in-person meeting requirements.

And even after the emergency proclamation ended, local bodies found that allowing members to attend meetings remotely was helpful when they had difficulties attending in person. In 2022, AB 2449 by Assembly Member Rubio, allowed members of local legislative bodies to participate in meetings remotely under certain circumstances for a maximum of 20% of meetings a year. But the problem is that current law does not specify whether multiple sessions of a legislative body that happen on the day should be classified as one meeting or two separate meetings.

So some local agencies consider open and closed sessions on the same day to be two separate meetings, while others consider them to be one meeting. This creates an unintentional two-tiered system where legislative bodies are treated differently under the law. Current law also fails to clearly state how many meetings members may attend remotely each year. Instead, it provides a 20% limit that can result in confusing numbers for members who are simply trying to comply with the law. So the solution is AB 2302.

That would clarify the number of meetings that a member that members of a local legislative body can participate in via teleconference each year based upon how many times the local body meets. This preserves the original intent of AB 2449, because it is still about 20% of the legislative body's meetings each year. It will also define the term meeting to mean any number of meetings of a legislative body that begin on the same calendar day.

This will reduce confusion around existing law and ensure that public servants will not receive any unfair penalties while attempting to follow the law in good faith and serve their communities. Joining me today to testify in support is Erika Inderlied. I'm gonna say I got it. Okay. The city Clerk for a city very near me, the City of Pismo Beach.

Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member. Good afternoon, Chair Carrillo and Members of the Committee. My name is Erica Inderlid, and I'm the City Clerk for the City of Pismo beach. And I'm here today on behalf of the city to express my support for AB 2302, which will give cities like Pismo Beach the flexibility that was afforded to all other local governments during discussions around changes to the Brown Act in 2022. Am I too quiet? Sorry.

The City of Pismo Beach is a coastal community on the Central Coast and prides itself on transparency and public participation. The City Council has always encouraged input from residents, especially at City Council meetings. This has led the city to conduct its open and closed sessions of the City Council as discrete, separate meetings with separate agendas to provide a more predictable timeline for the public to allow for participation.

These meetings are nearly always held consecutively on the same evening, and this nuanced approach has served several cities well to maximize transparency. As you're aware, new laws were adopted in 2022 that address virtual participation in city council meetings by legislative body members, capping the number of meetings that members of the body can participate in virtually. This language was negotiated with local governments with the understanding at the time that they would be applied uniformly across all public agencies.

However, legally conservative interpretations of these new laws have dispersed disproportionately impacted cities like the City of Pismo Beach, who agendize and conduct separate meetings of the city council for both open and closed sessions. As this results in a double counting of meetings in which members of the city council can participate in remotely. AB 2302 seeks to rectify the unintended consequence of these comprehensive bills from 2022 and restore flexibility and parity that was previously afforded to all local governments.

We believe that this Bill is the right approach to addressing the problem and simply clarifies the intent from AB 2449 from Assembly Member Rubio in 2022. Under interpretation of the current law, our City Council members in Pismo Beach can participate remotely for only half the time compared to what we believe was intended. Thank you for your consideration of AB 2302, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Not seeing a second primary witness coming up. How about those members of the public that want to go on the record in support? Please state your name, organization, and position.

Good afternoon. Johnny Pena with the League of California Cities in support. Thank you.

Hello. Keeley Morris with Edelstein, Gilbert, Robson, and Smith on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association in support.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members. Marcus Detwiler with the California Special Districts Association in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any primary witnesses in opposition? I don't see anyone coming. How about any members of the public in opposition of the measure? Not seeing none. I'll take it back to the Committee. Are there any questions from Committee Members? Move the Bill and second. Would you like to close?

I respectfully ask for your aye vote. I see a lot of people who served in local gov. and I think you can relate to this situation. So respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you for working on this clarifying legislation to help avoid confusion for local agencies governing boards when they attend meetings remotely. I will be supporting your Bill. We have a motion in a second. Will you please call the roll?

The motion is do pass.

The motion is do pass.

[Roll call]

It's 5-0, the Bill is out and we'll leave the roll open for other Members to add on. Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on the agenda. I am next on the agenda, but I'm going to let Assemblymember Quirk-Silva since she's here with her Bill, AB 2433. Whenever you're ready.

Good afternoon Mister Chair and members. First, I want to thank your consultant and team for working with my office on this Bill and I accept the Committee amendments. AB 2433 addresses the lengthy delays in the building permit process by introducing flexibility in inspection timelines and the conditional utilization of private professional services. Over the past decade, many factors have contributed to prolonging the processing times of building permits and inspections.

This challenge has only been exasperated by events such as the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the retirement of older, experienced personnel and the ongoing difficulty of hiring qualified replacements. Affordable housing projects and disadvantaged communities, which require efficient use of capital, are particularly harmed by these added undue costs and delays, further hindering investment precisely when it is needed most. AB 2433 will cut through the red tape in the building permit process by setting reasonable, common sense deadlines for plan checking and inspections.

It is all about keeping projects moving forward smoothly and providing relief to our local agencies facing challenges in a timely permit processing. By making the process more efficient, we can support both our communities and businesses, creating an opportunity to tangibly improve the lives of countless Californians. The sponsors in my office have been working diligently with those who are concerned with the Bill in order to address any issues, and we will continue to work with them as we move forward with the legislative process.

With me today in support of AB 2433 and to answer any questions you may have, is Skyler Wonnacott, Senior Director of Government Relations with the California Business Properties Association, and Patrick Schlehuber, a Member of both the California Business Properties Association and NAEP SoCal.

Please good afternoon, Mister chair and members. I'm Skyler Wonnacott with the California Business Properties Association. On behalf of our Members, NAIOP California and BOMA California, proudly sponsoring AB 2433 to enhance California's building permit process efficiency. Our local building departments are currently facing challenges including staffing shortages due to economic downturns, the COVID-19 pandemic, and retirements leading to permit processing delays that hinder economic growth and construction projects crucial for addressing California's housing crisis and decarbonization efforts.

AB 2433 proposes conditional use of licensed engineers and architects for plan checking and inspections. If local agencies exceed 30 day review and five day inspection deadlines. These professionals must submit affidavits affirming compliance with state building code, ensuring process integrity and quality. Carefully excluding projects like health facilities and high rises. AB 2433 reinforces the ultimate authority of local agencies to approve or deny permits, even when a private professional is employed.

This measure aims to foster a more efficient, transparent permitting process while upholding our commitment to public safety, welfare and local control. Thank you for your consideration. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, next witness.

Hi, my name is Patrick Schlehuber. I'm Chief Investment Officer for Rexford Industrial. We're a public REIT, focused on the ownership and operations of industrial properties in Southern California. I'm really here on. And we have properties about 50 million sqft across Southern California.

So we have properties in most of your districts that represent Southern California. But I'm really here on behalf of our tenants. We have about 1800 tenants. Our average tenant size is about 25,000. They're the ones who really are the beneficiaries of this. Accelerating the process to occupy and generate income for their business in occupying spaces because that actually is a real problem in many cases. Thank you

Thank you. Are there any members of the public like to add on testify, please. Name, organization and position.

Mister chair and members, Matthew Hargrove here today representing the Institute for Real Estate Management and the California Building Industry Association request an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you.

Afternoon, Mister chair, members of the Committee, Tim Jamal, CEO of NAIOP SoCal, in strong support.

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Committee, Adam Regele with the California Chamber of Commerce and strong support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Franco, on behalf of the California Fire Chief Association and the Fire District Association, we're currently working with the author's office to find a solution for our concerns. I just want to go ahead and voice that.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition of the measure? You can have a seat if you like.

Good afternoon. Tracy Rhine with the Rural County Representatives of California. We do still have significant concerns with the Bill. We do appreciate the amendments that are taken in Committee, and we do want to say that the author, staff and the author have worked with us in good faith to try to address our issues. And we do appreciate that. We appreciate the work that your consultants have done.

However, we still believe that this structure in the Bill creates a financial incentive for the third party professional who is actually acting in the place of a regulator, to give favorable findings to site reviews and for the inspections. And we're really concerned about public health and safety with that structure. We did send amendments that would create an expedited permitting process that's in place that is similar to what's in place for other types of permitting.

And we think that that would probably get us to the place of neutral on the Bill. And we just continue, we will continue to work together with the author and her staff to hopefully find a good place. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there a second primary witness?

Thank you, Mark Neuburger, California State Association of Counties definitely align all of our commons with those provided by Tracy RC. Definitely thank the Committee, the office of staff, and the sponsors for their work and hopeful that we can find some amendments that work for us as well.

Thank you. Please state your name, affiliation and position.

Good afternoon, chair Members. Chris Lee, on behalf of the Urban Counties of California with an opposed unless amended position.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Brady Guertin, on behalf of the League of California Cities, also in a respectful, opposite unless amended position. Thank you.

Thank you, Committee Members. Any questions, comments on the measure? Yes.

I wanted to ask about the fire issue, and I know the gentleman came up if he wants to answer the question or not. But what's happening with that? Is it only for inspections of a new development or is it ongoing, the regular inspections that normally would happen?

This would apply to all building permits. We did exempt healthcare facilities and high rises and such. We are working directly with the Fire Chiefs Association. They have given us amendments that we will plan on taking and look forward to removing their opposition.

Okay, so you're working closely with them?

Yes

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Anybody else?

I think Ward was first.

Oh, please.

All right, Mr. Chair, I want to thank you for introducing this Bill and working on it as something I was researching over the fall and as capacity grows and, you know, we couldn't take on any more bills, it was something I was very excited to look into. And so I think that you're approaching things in a really helpful way. And I'm not sure. Mister chair, is this the motion? Is it going out to housing or. It's all referred to housing?

Yes.

Okay, At that time I might request to be added on as a co author, but at this time I'm happy to support the Bill today.

Thank you. Do you have anything? No?

I do. No, no, I do. I just didn't, I just saw his hand go up before mine and so I wanted to defer. Thank you. Thank you to the author to bringing this forward. In regard to what the overall issue is, right, is we need streamlining, is any way possible to increase housing, decrease development overall, whether it's related to housing or economic opportunity. You know, I have so in my own individual city, we use a third party to do most plan check.

We're small, we don't have capacity to comply with the 30 days. So we actually contract out. The fee is listed someone there, in essence, the developer is contracting, is sending it to the city, and the city is contracting with a third party to do the work. And we heavily involve our public safety in that, our public safety partners, which are our fire, police, and that in that plan check, or whatever you want to call it, process.

My concern is that that circumventing of it's not through the city or the local agency, whether it's the city or the county. It's that it's directly with the third party and then there is an interest there. They're being paid by the developer to do that work versus it being just the city or the county or whoever the agency is being required to contract with a third party if they do not, cannot meet the 30 day deadline. So that is concerning me.

I think there's work to be done in this space. I think what I've heard, and thank you, Skyler, for your, all your conversations on this. But what I've heard is that there are lots that are posed unless amended. And so I'll support today to give an opportunity to amend, recognizing that it is going to another Committee that I'm on and some of these issues relate more to that Committee than this one. And so I Reserve the right later to change my mind.

But today I will allow you to keep having those conversations. But I would say definitely listen to the concerns of the opposition. Having been a local leader for 12 years before coming here, I share those same concerns. And like I said, I think there might be an opportunity to thread the needle with this in terms of requiring a city or county or whatever the agency is, to have a relationship existing that if they cannot complete, then they are

required to use that firm versus having that direct financial interest related to a developer.

Thank you. Anybody else from the Committee? Yes, please.

So I did initially have some concerns over this Bill, but I'm happy to see that the author is working with opposition, and it seems like it's going to get to a place where they're going to be neutral. So I really appreciate all your efforts and, and all the conversations you're having. So today I will be an aye. Thank you.

Thank you. Not seeing anybody else. Would you like to close?

I would, and, yes, I will reaffirm that we will continue to work with any opposition that is out there. And as we all know, with legislation, you kind of start in a big place, and then sometimes you need to narrow and narrow.

I'd like to bring it down to a smaller area, which is now we're talking about permits in general and buildings, but if you take it down to really an individual level, one of the things we've seen over the years is individuals go to a city, and I was on local government eight years, and they want to make some type of renovation. And many times it's the delay in getting the permits.

And as you said, some cities go to a third party, which adds to time as well. So we've heard this over and over, from the smallest renovations in a single family home to, of course, major commercial type of development. And even the League of cities has many times used the slogan let's cut the red tape. I've heard this many, many times, or we've got all of these regulations.

So this is attempt to look at the delays, look at how we can move forward in a timely manner. But of course, safety is of utmost of importance, so we certainly will continue to address that as we move forward. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. I can tell you that based on my experience working for three different local governments as a city planner and working alongside with public works and building and safety, we always were happy when we had additional help contract for these type of services. We really appreciated that. And I really believe that that's going to help expedite these type of permits that we need to expedite so that we can continue to provide the infrastructure that we need. Is there a motion?

Did I miss a motion to pass the Bill? 2nd? First and a second. Thank you, Assemblymember, for your work on this Bill and for accepting the amendments outlined in the analysis. I believe that we should be doing more to ease the development process and that your proposal is worthy of further consideration by the Legislature. I appreciate your commitment to continue working with the opposition to address their concerns and will the following of the Bill as it progresses I will be voting aye today.

The motion is do pass amended to the Housing Community Development Committee Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The vote is 7-0. The Bill is out. And we'll leave the roll open for others to add on. Thank you.

Thank you, Members.

We're going to do a little bit of cleanup. We did not have a quorum for 1889. For those members that are here now, secretary, please call the roll. Is there a motion on 1889, Friedman? Wildlife in habitat connectivity. We have a first and a second. 1889. Item number two on the agenda, yes.

[Roll Call]

The vote is 7-1. The Bill is out. And do we need to leave it open? No. Right. We still need to leave the roll open. I see. Mr. Joe Patterson, are you ready to present your Bill? And that's item number 13 on the agenda, residential fees and charges.

Well, thank you so much for the opportunity today. It's great to be here and it's the first time I presented in this hearing in this Committee. So looking forward to that opportunity and a positive outcome, of course.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Here today to present AB 2729 which would prohibit local governments from requiring the payment of many impact fees before the home builder has received a certificate of occupancy for a housing project. As you may know, I've spent six years on a City Council. During my tenure there, while I voted against some projects, the city approved every single one, every single project while I was on the City Council.

Most importantly, we understood the importance of delivering housing to our residents and did what we could to keep costs down while ensuring fiscal sustainability of our community. At times, this meant fee deferrals, but we were also parties to various JPAs and other groups that we really could not control. So we would defer fees on many occasions. But special districts, or JPAs, which we were a party, would not. And our fees represented only about 20% of the project.

In other words, our ability to deliver housing, especially affordable housing, in our community, was severely limited and impacted by other players. I've read the opposition letters, and I'm quite in tune to the needs of local government. They have a lot of challenges remaining sustainable in the long run, and I am sympathetic to that, and in no way do I want to impede that.

But if we're going to address one of the most pressing needs in our state, one that contributes to homelessness and housing unaffordability, we have to think outside the box. Some jurisdictions are charging upwards of $70,000 per unit for a park. And when you look at traffic lot impact fees, the projects may be many, many years out. For example, we participate in agency to expand our highway. I'm hoping this won't be the case, but there's a legitimate chance that I may never see that thing get built.

But people are paying fees as the building permits are pulled. The ever-increasing costs of housing is impacted by these fees. But my bill does nothing to prevent the collection of these fees. They're important for local governments. They need to happen, and it just needs to happen at the appropriate time so it doesn't impact the delivery of housing.

And I also want to say that I understand, I've read all the opposition letters, of course, and I know that, you know, schools, which I have four children, sometimes I joke I have four too many. And also from our public safety sector, we don't want to impede their ability. And so I'm open to suggestions on this bill as well. I'm not ironclad into exactly this policy. I'm open to working on it. And this is a double referred to another committee as well.

And we can continue those conversations should this bill get out. But I think we really need to start the conversation of what fees are actually necessary to get a project that actually contribute to the project itself. Not, oh, it's going to add a traffic light five years from now down the street. Those aren't the fees we should be collecting or a park that might be built years from now or even after the development goes in.

And one more point I'd like to make is that, as you know, when a lot of these communities, whether it's an apartment complex, but especially in the suburbs where I live, the developer often puts in the infrastructure themselves. And so there might be an arrangement in which there's, you know, instead of paying a fee, you do the, you know, you do the park or something like that, but that's not always the case.

And so what happens is you're building a park, but you're still paying a component of a community park fee, for example. And I think that, that's really problematic because unless the project's happening right now, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to be collecting that fee right now. So I am open to continuing the conversation. I hope we have that opportunity.

It's just, you know, this is something that I really see becoming an issue on building housing, especially as the fees continue to go up, by the way, in extraordinary amounts. And with me, I have a really good friend of mine, I'm not sure which organization you're representing today, but. Okay, perfect. We have such broad-based coalition of friends that I would like to invite Holly to testify on my behalf.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Holly Fraumeni De Jesus with Lighthouse Public Affairs here, testifying on behalf of SPUR, that's the San Francisco Urban Planning Association and think tank and research organization. But also over the last four years, we have sponsored and co-sponsored many pieces of legislation that have passed by the Legislature that are aimed at increasing affordability and availability to build more homes in the State of California. This year in particular, we're in a difference crisis.

We're also in a financial crisis for construction. In previous years, we haven't had to worry about the rising interest rates, but it's particularly this year with the cost of interest rates going up in construction. Construction is stopping everywhere. Projects that are entitled, projects that are even building permits are being pulled, are coming to a screeching halt because of the cost of the financing costs and the rising interest rates on construction. So this bill is not going to change the fee schedule.

But the one thing the Legislature can control is timing. Timing is everything. It's at what point in time are we going to start paying interest rates on the construction? And projects are now not just getting bigger as they used to be, they're getting smaller. Like office space is being reduced in projects. Projects are being completely redone to reduce office space because there's not a need for that anymore.

And housing units are going up, office space is going down, which means the fees that were once paid when a project was approved, sometimes 3, 4, 5 years before construction ever stops, let alone occupancy. But these fees are set and paid very, very early on in the process. The timelines are very long.

So all this is asking is to reevaluate, and I know the author is open and everyone's open for modifications on the timing, but to give grace to the fact that this money just usually sits in account for a while until construction starts and long before what impacts, which means a project impact on the community the impact happens after construction, after occupancy, after people move in.

So we're just hopeful that there could be some grace in giving deferrers because the deferment just means interest doesn't get triggered until you pay those fees. So the longer that we can wait, it is one cost that you can control, which again, is everything. So we hope that you support this bill and just supporting of the timing and just delay of the amount of interest that we start paying and incurring on these fees earlier, too early in the construction timeline. So thank you.

Thank you. Any members of the public that want to add on, please name, organization, and position.

Hello. Seamus Garrity from Lighthouse Public Affairs. I am here on behalf of BuildCasa, Sand Hill Properties, Buckeye Properties, and Fieldstead, in support.

Thank you. Not seeing anyone else, any primary witnesses in opposition to the bill.

You can have a seat there if you like, as a primary witness.

I'll keep my comments.

Okay.

Mark Neuburger, California State Association Counties. We're here in opposition to the bill. Definitely want to thank the author as well as the committee for taking time to discuss it. I'll keep my comments brief. While we completely understand the intent of the bill, we'd also like to note that similar to the state law, local governments are not in a great fiscal position too, as well. And the bill is very broad in the timing of the fees that the support indicated in their testimony.

We're definitely open to willing to work on amendments to the bill, but there are definitely critical fees that are needed for counties and of course, other local governments to provide the services that housing and any development requires. And that's what the piece we're open to discussion to going forward.

Thank you. Anybody in the public wanting to add on as opposition to the bill, state your name, organization, and position, please.

Obed Franco, on behalf of the California Fire Chiefs Association and the Fire Districts Association of California, respectfully opposed.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Marcus Detwiler with the California Special Districts Association, in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Brady Guiertin, on behalf of the League of California Cities, in respectful opposition to the measure. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we go to the committee members. Any comments, questions? Assemblymember Wilson.

Thank you to the author and working with the sponsors. You know, looking at the sponsor list, it's a very robust list of well-respected organizations, and understand the full intent of recognizing the environment we're in for affordability and trying to figure out a ways to make projects more affordable.

Having had the opportunity to serve in local government and at the same time have the opportunity to serve leading the financial operations for a home builder, I understand all too clearly how difficult it can be to make projects pencil and how much the resources are needed on the city level. So I'm going to approach it from two different vantage points, which will probably highlight my concern. From a developer point of view, fee deferrals are amazing. They really do help you, not only help project pencil because the carrying cost is extremely real as well as it allows you to get that cost closer to the revenue, which is a good environment.

From a local government point of view, what we found is there are opportunities to be flexible and to provide those levels of deferral, but also recognizing that there are some costs that you do need upfront, and so allowing local governments to have that flexibility in terms of deferring what could be an impact or mitigation fee where those assets that you're trying to build or services that you provide in a community are not needed at this time and they're needed down the road. And so you can have it closer.

But recognizing in some cases there are, that you might need those sooner than later, depending on when it is that project or that infrastructure was to be built in the community. Also, when you think about some of the fees relate to administrative time related to staff time, because a fee, if it's not substantiated by a study or a real thing, it is a tax. Right?

So we're not talking about taxing, we're talking about fees where an agency, a jurisdiction, whether their city or county, has determined that this cost is relevant. And so to say that they can't have that till the end when they are actually doing that work is very much a concern. And so your Bill is very much broad-based. It's not narrow or nuanced. And even in your testimony, your answers, your testimony had nuances in it because of your familiarity having served in local government for eight years and not incorporating that before coming to this committee, strikes me as odd.

Right? Because you have familiarity in the space. So to give that blanket, broad brush that says all fees and no flexibility within a community based on the timing of their own infrastructure projects to support a community, as well as the timing of the staff who are committing time-related to these projects, you know, strikes me as odd. So I'd wondered if you have any comments related to that.

Yeah, I think. Well, thank you for raising the point on the carrying costs alone, because I want to, you know, one particular fee in my community, you know, for a 200 unit project, block and a half from my house, was $3 million for one fee. And when you're talking, as you mentioned, carrying that cost and all those sorts of things, it's just, it's really unsustainable, particularly because that project's not, that payment of $3 million fees doesn't actually add any infrastructure to this particular development, you know, but there are always nuances. This is what's kind of interesting about, we just sat on a committee for like four hours today discussing a lot of these issues and a lot of the problems that there are always nuances in which this may not work here.

This, you know, maybe there's a little tiny bit here, but I think from a policy perspective, to charge these fees upfront because these are impact fees. And by the way, I have a whole side note on how impact fees are developed in the first place. That actually gives me a lot of heartburn because I participated in that process and I did not feel comfortable with it on how we came up with those. So I have some concerns generally with that process, but that's not this bill.

But I mean, I think it's, look, it's a fair point to say, hey, staff's working on it, but when a development project, we have a planning team just like your city had or every city has or the Chairman's participated in that process, want to make sure he gets paid, right, for doing his job. We're not getting rid of those staff as we process the entitlements of a project. Sometimes if a project doesn't get developed anyways, you have a staff that's put all this time and effort into a project and it never happens. We don't fire the staff. You keep working through the process. So I'm not sure.

No, they actually pay because most of the time you pay that stuff as you go.

On the application fee, correct. When you do the application fee and you're going through the process, that's when you pay the application fee. And those, we're not getting rid of those. We're not getting rid of the pre-application fees to get it up to the council and things like that. We're talking about after approval. And as you know, a lot of these projects may not ever even happen or may start in the process and may not happen.

And then the inspection fees, those can happen at the time of inspection. So I think there's some give and take, like I said, that we're willing to do. But I do globally think that collecting these fees upfront when most of the time we know it, most of the time the infrastructure isn't going in right then. When the project happens, that's most of the time.

Sometimes infrastructure has already occurred and it's a repayment of bonds related on the infrastructure occurring. You're saying that you can't collect that till the end of the project, assuming that the project ends, depending on the type of development is. I was referring to single housing earlier, but it could be all in one project. What I'm saying is there's no, I don't yet hear you talking about, and as we were noting we were in housing earlier, there's no flexibility. It's an all-or-nothing.

And you knew that going into today. And so that's where I'm concerned is that there hasn't been any thought process related to or, and not to say you haven't thought about it. Let me clarify. There hasn't been any adjustments to the language recognizing that there different needs at different jurisdictions and so the cities or counties have no control. You said at the end, and that's it. And so, and that's what's concerned me.

And I haven't heard that yet, and I don't want to take up all the time because I'm good for doing that.

Same. Same. Can I say one more thing on that? Mr. Chair, is that all right? You're right. And I think, look, if we went through policies in this building and we considered the impacts in every little nuance, and we would never pass a piece of legislation, which could be a good thing at the end of the day, but maybe I'll prefer that. But really, this from a state policy perspective, we're charging fees before the development goes in. And I just, I don't philosophically agree with that.

I get what you're saying in terms of, oh, you're to repayment of a bond. We have those in Rocklin as well, where we've already built the overpass, but it doesn't hinge on that particular project being built. Our repayment mechanism is for when development happens someday at that particular facility. But that's a nuance. In this particular project. There are a lot of nuances. And so what I'm trying to set is a state policy, generally speaking, we should not be collecting these fees upfront before a project happens.

And what I would say is if your bill even just had simple language, that the jurisdiction would have to have a finding of when they accepting a fee which is not in there.

Correct.

When the finding of when that. So not just establishing a fee, but a finding of when it is appropriate and there's a nexus to it, I would be inclined to, but it doesn't. And the reason why I'm not inclined to support it today is because I know you know, and so, and because I know you know, I'm just concerned with it being like this without any adjustment. But I promised I would not talk anymore, so I won't.

Assemblymember Ward.

Great. Thank you. I think without repeating too much, I guess I just see the opportunity here maybe in a little bit of a different light. I think, you know, like you have a certain local government and we understand, you know, very distinctly the difference between like, a development impact fee and maybe an administrative fee that is necessary for staff time to do what it responsibly needs to do to be able to work through permitting review and to be able to get things up to council.

And so I am very, I know this is maybe part of a bigger conversation that you and others would be having here in the Legislature, and I'd like to see us be able to further those conversations. You know, there is a no existing law that is able to exempt local governments from certain opportunities. Like for example, there's already a bond issue, there's already an account established.

But you know, for me, just, you know, kind of from a common sense lane, you know, the impact fee, often if you're doing an impact fee for a fire station or for a new park or for a park facility, whatever those fees are, which are calculated. And I've also had to approve those documents that are updating our fees. And it's difficult to do.

But you know, the math is there, the nexus is there, but you know, that that facility is not coming for 10 or 20 years, hopefully, if it comes at all. And you're just doing your kind of pro rata share into that, into a bank account somewhere.

And so when the person, the new person is going into the new development and actually starting to create an impact on the community, I mean, I don't see why you would need to pay that impact fee years prior at the start of, or hopefully not years prior, even a year prior to at the start of a permit review process, because the thing that you're paying for may not even be there even at the time of occupancy. So I do like where it's going.

I'm going to support your bill here today because I think we need to stoke this conversation and just appreciate some of the thought that has gone into this. And then, you know, if this lives to see another day or you continue to work on this issue in another way, you know, there are issues raised here and everything that I think are solvable.

Assemblymember Kalra.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I follow up on what Assemblymember Wilson was talking about. I mean, this is, I think your comments and your conversation on this has been nuanced, but this bill removes authorization. I think it would be a disaster for local jurisdictions if they didn't have the ability to be able to collect fees outright in any case without any flexibility. Like you, I served on City Council for eight years, several years before that on the Planning Commission.

In a big city that's more suburb than it is city, and the ability, the amount of money it takes for traffic engineers design to plan for a project. And I have an example that was in my district where they were able to build parks, they built a fire station, they built the roads out, and then the development of over 3000 people was built. So you need to have that infrastructure in place and you can't do that without actually having resources to do it.

Or if you have park in-lieu fees, well, now you can cobble together in in-lieu fees and now you can actually plan for and build a park regardless of whether that development comes in or not. I mean, developers are given an entitlement to be able to build and I think the community should expect something from that.

And especially, you know, I've seen situations where it took 10 years for the actual development to be built, but in the meantime, infrastructure was put in place, parks were put in there, a commercial shopping center was built for the community. And that helped to actually make the ultimate project that much more successful because it was not being put into a vacuum, it was actually being put into a community that was helped to be built by those advanced fees.

And I think the ability to allow developers to simply walk away and have the taxpayers hold the bill for the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars of engineering costs and other costs that have been put into developments that they're anticipating are going to be coming down the road I think would be irresponsible.

So I appreciate, I know how thoughtful you are when it comes to legislation and the sponsors you have, as Assemblymember WIlson said, thoughtful sponsors, so I don't, I appreciate where you're going with it, but I just can't support it. So thank you though for the dialogue.

Vice Chair Waldron.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to kind of tag along with what our colleagues are saying. I know we had a conversation and I'm happy to hear that you're willing to continue to work on it and massage it because I mean, it's an important issue. I know when I was on the City Council, we would defer certain fees depending on the issue or the timing or whatever the project was until occupancy or something like that.

And I was sitting here and I started to write down like I was just trying to remember, it's been 12 years now since I've been on the council. But we had the building permit fee, environmental fee, mitigation fee, art fee, sewer water, public safety fee, fire fee, school fees, park fees, traffic fees, you know, just to name a few.

And you know what my colleagues have already said, I won't repeat, but I mean, cities do incur costs going into these projects and it could take years if a project is even built. And we've seen projects sometimes because of the economy, 10 years in, go belly up. And meanwhile, roads have been put in, parks have been put in, things like that will cost, you know, a cost, and generally, they're already prepaid by fees or by the taxpayers.

So, you know, in San Diego, it's not unheard of, and even years ago to have building permit fees of upwards of $150,000 a unit, I mean, it's down there very costly. So, you know, they're hiring traffic engineers or consultants or whatever to go through this.

So my advice would be, because the bill, I went through the bill, it does exempt, it's saying chapter six, which is education fees to maybe delineate or more detailed in the language of the bill itself, like what fees could be deferred versus which fees would not because right now it says requires the local government to do it. And I think it's important that I mean, maybe the art fee could be put off or, you know, something.

It really depends on the project and the community, what they need, you know, which could be done. But I would suggest kind of delineating which fees we're really talking about that would be required to be held off because I think that would help a lot of people's concerns with the bill. And I'd like to see it move to housing so that it can, you know, continue to be worked on because, you know, it's a good balance if you can get it to be precise. And I didn't know if you wanted to respond to that about specific fees.

Yes, the art fee should be delayed. Yeah. You know, I mean, I could obviously address. I'm going to remember that when we see each other in Housing Committee next. But no, just kidding. Okay. So, you know, essentially there are definitely fees that we don't need upfront. I understand. You know, there are the impact fees that the development has gone in. And by the way, when I used to live in San Jose, there are a lot of investments go in in advance hoping to attract development.

That happens in any city. We've made developments in the City of Rocklin to try to attract development, but also at the same time, we're not banking on this exact project. Right? So there are so many nuances. I understand, and I'm willing to continue to work on it. I don't know. It's kind of like a mixed bag. If it's going to see another day after this, I hope it does. But we don't want to put the taxpayers on the hook.

I understand what we're saying, but also we have to require some responsibility in the collection of these fees. Like, I just can't ever justify collecting $70,000 for a park fee in advance of any development going in or an art fee or you just listed like 10. There's probably 20 in your city, right? So the only thing I suspect is what's going to happen is that there are going to be reasons to not delay any of those fees. And that's what concerns me about this.

But we have to, as a Legislature, come up with a standard like, hey, we got to put the brakes on this collection of fees upfront unless they're actually needed right now. So I appreciate your comments on that. And this is why you folks are the Local Government Committee because you've all seen this before. Many of you have seen this before, although I wish Mr. Kalra hadn't seen this before because he came at me pretty hard.

Assemblymember Pacheco.

So I know everybody has said it before. I also served the local City Council, so I have some of the same concerns, but they were already voiced. I was just wondering, prior to today, have you had conversations with opposition to try to fine-tune this bill before getting to us?

So my staff did reach out to one of the opponents, won't mention that. I wasn't surprised to see, see the opposition, frankly, and we were hoping to get those concerns in advance and didn't receive them until the letter was issued. So it was kind of hard to, you know, we did proactively ask for them and didn't get them until the letter came in.

And I'm just curious to hear from opposition. I don't know who wants to speak, but is there a way to make this feel better?

I think if it goes in the next committee, it's definitely going to get better.

Again, thank you. Mark Newberg, California State Association of Counties. As your discussion and the discussion on this bill is kind of highlighted, there's a lot of complexity to what fee we're talking about, when it should be, when's the appropriate time to be completed. When are the services going in, what needs to be done to make whatever land or development we're talking about, have the adequate water, sewer, you know, all the other utilities in there? So for sure, it's a very complex conversation to be had.

We definitely appreciated reaching out to the author's office and articulated kind of the broad sketches of what has been discussed here about when things go in, that there is a time when local governments are putting kind of those costs in when they need to put in those services. But definitely want to stress it's a very complex conversation, as many of you have experience with.

Thank you.

Assemblymember Essayli.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate it. I just have a quick comment and then I'll address your bill. One, I've never been on this committee before. I've never been on local government. I do not believe in development fees. I think it's the government's responsibility to develop infrastructure, passing those fees along to developers who just pass it on to the homeowner. I just think it's unfair and doesn't make sense. And people and government has looked at developers and homeowners as a cash cow.

So I'm philosophically against this. But having said that, that's not related to your bill.

You're for the bill against the fees?

Yes, I'm against the fees. Now, I think some, I think some people, the opposition is not looking at the bigger picture because if we're able to make these projects more financially accessible to people and that we can build more projects, which is the stated intent of the state, is to build more housing. So if we're able to build more housing overall, the government will collect more of these fees. So I actually think your bill will generate more revenue for the government, not less revenue.

So, but some of the concerns I've heard from my colleagues is they're worried about that short term, you know, if there's short term issues there. So I'd like to maybe ask my esteemed colleague if you commit to delineating between which fees could be deferred. Are you willing to do that?

Yes. Half this committee is on the next committee it's going to. So.

I'll ask my colleague if you'd be willing to reconsider, at least giving him the opportunity to amend it before it gets to housing. And I know that at least two members or more are on that committee and they could properly dispose of your bill if it falls short. So I just put that request out and I'll move the bill, Mr. Chair.

Assemblymember Wilson, you had a follow-up question.

Just one follow-up comment, because I had geared my remarks more related to city, county, local jurisdiction. So I just wanted to remind everybody that this is every single government entity, as Vice Chair Waldron noted, it is the water agency, it is the school district, it is all of the, this is a blanket for all of those agencies who don't yet necessarily have that flexibility. So I would just like everybody to keep that in mind.

I started the whole city county thing and people kept going with it, and I just want to make sure everybody knows it's every agency, including the smallest district. And so it's about carrying, not just carrying costs for the developer, but carrying costs for our taxpayers, which is our agencies. Thank you.

Yes, Assemblymember Pacheco.

A follow-up question. Is the author willing to narrow this bill? It just seems, as you can tell, there's a lot of concern here. Are you willing to narrow it?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I don't know if I really had many options anyways, but like I said, in the next committee, if this isn't addressed going into the next committee, which Mr. Ward's on, I'm the vice chair, you know, we won't present it. I can't say it's going to make everybody happy. Right? But we'll get to a place where it's acceptable. I think so like I said, half of you are on the next committee anyways. It will die there, a slow, painful death if I don't do that. So I do commit to doing that.

Thank you. Because I used to sit on the, as a board member on the League of California Cities and as a local elected official at one time. I just want to make sure that some of these concerns that were mentioned here, but also by opposition, that they're addressed, and I will be, I will be supporting your bill just to get out of committee. But you have to make that commitment that you're willing to work with everyone. That's why I asked that question.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll do that.

Would you like to close, Assemblymember Patterson?

I don't want to dig a deeper hole, so I just ask for an aye vote.

Okay, so we have a motion in a second. You know, thank you for presenting your bill today, and I'm not going to go over all the discussion that already happened with the concerns. I appreciate your commitment to facilitate the development of housing. As you heard, there's a lot of concerns and I can think of others, but the sake of time, and not to reiterate what's been already said, but when local governments look at development, they oftentimes look at plan developments, future developments of the city.

The infrastructure cost is not going to be bared by one development. Just to give an example, a sewer line costs millions of dollars. A housing development of 100 units or less is not going to be able to pay for that infrastructure. So the development that is planned for the future also brings in a lot of costs that is not going to be there with one developer only. It's the development as a whole.

And that's one of the reasons why local jurisdictions, local governments want to be able to collect those development fees as the development gets proposed, that the ultimate goal, they're able to provide the infrastructure needed for bigger developments. So AB 2729 would remove a local government's ability to impose charges or fees for related public improvements or facilities before the final inspection or the issuance of a certificate of occupancy. Existing law allows local governments to defer payment of those fees for affordable housing projects.

Existing law also allows local governments to collect fees or charge on developments with more than one dwelling unit on a pro-rata basis. So based on the different types of developments that are proposed, there are already some mechanisms that will allow developers not to pay the entire fee upfront. As I mentioned here, with affordable housing, those type of things that we want to see in our communities also.

There are also options in existing order, allow a local agency to enter into a contract with a developer to pay impact fees as a condition of receiving the building permit. So that's also already a mechanism that is available. Existing law has options for local governments to facilitate development and ensure that local agencies are not required to affirm the cost of infrastructure. For those reasons, I will vote no on this bill. The motion is do pass. We have a first and a second do pass to Housing and Community Development Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The bill is out. Congratulations.

Thank you.

So in the interest of respecting my primary witnesses on the bill that I have, bill AB 2371 I want to go ahead and present that bill and then we'll move on to the next item on the agenda, which is Assemblymember Petrie-Norris, but I will go ahead and present my bill. The vice chair left. I was going to handle the gavel to her, but she left. Assemblymember Pacheco. Oh, she's here. I'm sorry, I didn't see you here. I will handle the gavel to you. Thank you.

In 2015, SB 582 was a result of extensive consultation with leading academics and public safety experts to ensure the safe design and implementation of electrified security fence alarm technology.

Such security alarm systems are regulated by the statute that AB 2371 proposes to amend and also by licensing under the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services under the Department of Consumer Affairs. For the past eight years, and at more than 1,000 properties throughout the state, including public agencies such as CAL FIRE and city public works departments' electrified security fencing, basically a fence inside a fence, having safely and effectively securing properties and employees without incident.

Some local governments embrace California law that governs the installation and operational standards for these security alarm systems and work quickly with businesses and government agencies to protect their workers and secure their property in a timely manner. However, some local governments have been experiencing delays when issuing permits to install such security systems. Currently, there are almost 400 businesses waiting for their local government to issue approval, and most concerning, these businesses have been waiting on average for more than one year and still don't have approval yet.

AB 2371 addresses this by requiring that the local permitting process is consistent with that of other security alarm systems. Under our Bill, local governments also retain the absolute right to make locals-only decisions that dictate where these type of systems can be used. For example, you cannot put an electrified security fence on a residential property. Joining me to testify in support is Annalise Augustine with a Family Business Association of California and Lars Freebird, a hard-working local business owner.

With the permission of the presiding Chair, I would like to ask Keith Kennel with Amaka to come up and be available for any technical questions, if that's okay for the witness.

Thank you, Mister Chair, Vice Chair, Members. Annalee Augustine on behalf of the Family Business Association of California, a nonprofit dedicated to helping California's 1.4 million family-owned businesses and committed to the 7 million employees of family businesses in California. Many of our members currently use this electrified security fence technology and credit it for their ability to provide a safe workplace for their employees and protect their long-term investments such as vehicles, construction equipment, tractors, and other forms of large inventory and machinery.

This property is what businesses rely on for their operations and often it is so expensive that a replacement or repair might not be an available option for them. More importantly, the safety of employees is of critical concern to Family Association members as the risk of trespass and damage creates unsafe working conditions with the potential use of damaged equipment or unknown people being able to enter their establishments.

Electrified security fence technology has been proven through time and application to be near 100% effective at deterring crime and most importantly is a proven safe security solution. This Bill is a way to combat commercial theft with a safe and unique approach in the prioritized fight against theft and crime, stopping it before it even occurs, and without changes to the criminal justice procedures. We appreciate your consideration and are pleased to support the Bill today. Thank you.

Next.

Chairman Carrillo, Chair, Madam, thank you. My name is Lars Freeberg. I am the owner of Salinas Valley Ford Central Coast. I have worked at my family-owned dealership since 1981. I started washing cars there, worked my way through all job functions of the business until finally buying out my father and now owning and operating the business.

We had two facilities in Salinas, one selling and servicing cars and light trucks in north Salinas and one selling and servicing large commercial trucks, semis, and motorhomes in the south part of town. In the summer of 2020, after years of increasing property crimes at our five-acre truck facility, including theft and burglary of customers' vehicles waiting for service repairs, I submitted a city permit application for an electronic security fence that other businesses in my area were utilizing with great success.

During the fifth month of waiting for the city to approve the permit, tragedy struck my business. In the early morning of January 13, 2021, my property's perimeter fence, a cyclone fence, was breached again by a criminal and he broke into our service department building, started a customer's motorhome on fire inside the service department, which quickly consumed the entire building, 20,000 square foot, including 11 customers' vehicles, $1 million of parts, inventory.

Everything was a total loss and the building was demolished, 21 people were out of work and the property sits empty to this day. Prime real estate on Highway 101 in Salinas. This tragic incident would not have happened if my business was allowed to install electronic security fence in a timely manner. City staff never apologized to me for the inexplicable delay in processing my permit application and in fact, still processed the permit associated fees with the application review.

Had AB 2371 been law in January of '21, my dealership would not have been destroyed by arson. I respectfully urge you to approve this crime prevention security technology to protect our business, employees, and communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have other witnesses in support? Name, organization, and position only.

Madam Chair, Members Randy Perry with Aaron Read and associates, on behalf of PORAC, CAL FIRE firefighters who use one of these systems, and the Taxicab Paratransit Association of California.

Ryan Allain on behalf of the California Retailers Association, in support.

Brenda Bass on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in support.

Michael Caprio on behalf of Republic Services, here in support.

Jack Yanos on behalf of the California Fuels and Convenience Alliance, in support.

Good afternoon. Sherry McCue, representing the Self Storage Association, in support.

Catherine Charles, here on behalf of Bay Area Council, in support.

Dean Talley with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. Strong support.

Annalee Augustine, also here on behalf of Copart, in support.

Thank you. Do we have any witnesses in opposition? Please come forward.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Brady Guertin on behalf of the League of California Cities in a respectful opposed unless amended position. We've been talking with the sponsors and author's office about that and are trying to find some or deal with our common concerns with that. The main issue that we have with the measure is as currently written, the law allows electrified fences in areas designated regardless of zoning, except for it has a clarity about residential uses and hospitality uses, which we appreciate.

We think the language needs to be fine-tuned because of the push from the state to develop housing in commercial zones and extend that outwards, that this is a safety issue for the forerun where we have an adjacent housing unit near it and we don't have the ability to go back or set standards necessarily for health and safety at the local level if a residential housing comes through. So we're working on some amendments to address that.

The main concern being the future push for housing projects to make sure we're doing it safely and that locals have the ability at their own discretion to do the necessary standards. And as currently written, this Bill would not do that. So we'll look forward to continuing to work with the Chair and look forward to the continued conversation with the sponsors. And thank you guys for the time. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Seeing no other opposition. I'll bring it back to Committee for comments, questions. Mister Ward.

Thank you Mister Chair, for bringing this Bill. Just for clarification, because this is intended to be limited toward commercial industrial lands and facilities. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay. And to, I think opposition point, is that something that you can look at going forward to try to make sure that ether local general plan, land use categories, or zoning is conforming?

That is correct, yeah. And just to address the concern of having a residential development right next door. Development standards already have those within local jurisdictions. When you have an industrial commercial development adjacent to residential, part of that is to build an attenuation wall, a block wall, whether at 6ft or 8ft, not only for the separation of uses, but also for mitigation reasons. Noise is one of them.

A six-foot wall or an eight-foot wall will be determined based on the noise study that is presented for the development. So there is an industrial commercial development with an electrifying fence, and if it is next to residential development in the future, the CEQA process acts for noise attenuation and noise study. And again, based on the projection of the noise of the adjacent use, the mitigation measure can be a six or eight-foot wall. So that's one way that this can be mitigated.

And we'll be happy to continue to work with the opposition as well.

Thank you.

Any other comments from Committee? We have a motion and a second. Would you like to close, Mister Chair?

Yes, I would like to close just by saying that to point out on the Bill that would give our local businesses the ability to more easily access a tool to combat threats to their livelihoods. That's just one mechanism that will address those concerns. For these reasons, this Bill is supported by over 100 businesses and industry associations, as well as you heard in some of the comments, as well as law enforcement and first responders.

Again, I'm committed to continuing conversation with the opposition to see how we can address the concerns that they have presented. Thank you, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is do pass. [Roll call]

7-0. Your Bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for Members to add on.

Thank you, madam Vice Chair. With that, we'll move on to AB 2684 by Assembly Member Bryan. When you're ready.

Good afternoon, Mister chair and colleagues. It's good to be before you. First time, Mister chair, and the only time this year.

Welcome.

I'm proud to present AB 2684 a Bill that will require local jurisdictions, cities and counties to account for extreme heat in their local hazard mitigation plans or safety elements. I want to thank the Committee staff for working as incredibly hard as they always do, and of course, I will be accepting the amendments. Strategic planning in response to extreme heat will allow our local jurisdictions to be as prepared as possible to protect our residents from extreme heat.

Looking ahead to 2050, over 200 California cities will experience average temperatures surpassing 90 degrees fahrenheit. The height of this is going to be felt deep southern Inland Empire. In the City of Coachella, temperatures are expected to soar to 116 degrees. Meanwhile, in La County, a city that I'm incredibly fond of, Palmdale is set to grapple with average temperatures of 102 degrees, while Los Angeles itself will have an average of 98 degrees.

At a time when the state is facing a deficit, we should be looking at all the ways we can set our communities up for success. By requiring the inclusion of extreme heat considerations in our local mitigation plans, we lay the groundwork for local governments to access crucial federal FEMA funding. California has made considerable strides in factoring extreme heat into its state plan, with over half of our cities and counties following suit.

However, there are remaining communities throughout the state that are currently experiencing and will soon confront the urgency of addressing extreme heat. It's unwise to leave federal dollars on the table when local governments can utilize these funds by simply including extreme heat in their hazard mitigation plans. Joining me to provide testimony today are Michael Jarrett on behalf of climate resolve and former Assembly Member Roger Dickerson, representing civic well.

Good afternoon. Thank you. My name is Michael Jarred and I'm here talking on behalf of Climate resolve. Climate Resolve is a nonprofit based in Los Angeles that builds collaboration to champion equitable climate solutions. Climate resolve connects communities, organizations and policymakers to address a global problem with local action. Climate Resolve is proud to sponsor AB 2684 which supports local planning efforts on extreme heat.

One of climate resolve's areas of focus is extreme heat because it is a silent killer that disproportionately impacts the elderly, children, Low income households, and those with pre existing medical conditions and communities of color. Extreme heat is growing in intensity, frequency, and duration, and our communities are not prepared.

The state Legislature recognizes the impact that extreme heat is having, and that is why it established the Office of Planning and Research Extreme Heat and Community Resilience Program, first of its kind grant program to combat extreme heat in the communities that need it the most, and also by codifying the extreme heat action plan.

AB 2684 looks to support local governments by making more local communities eligible for FEMA pre hazard mitigation funds extreme heat impacts some communities every year, and others can be impacted in rare extreme weather heat domes. Climate resolve believes it is good government for every local government to plan for extreme heat. AB 2684 would open up new funding channels for local governments to plan for and implement transformative and resilient infrastructure adapted to rising temperatures. We respectfully ask for your I vote on AB 2684.

Thank you.

Thank you Mister chair and Members. I'm Roger Dickinson, policy Director for Civic well, previously the Local Government Commission. Assemblymember Bryan has described the Bill well and we want to thank him for his leadership. Extreme heat is increasingly a major issue for communities across California as the impacts of climate change manifest themselves. We not only see cities and counties in the Central Valley and Southeast California enduring growing numbers of episodes of extreme heat, but cities and counties elsewhere throughout the state are experiencing the same pattern.

Extreme heat can cause profound health, public health, extreme consequences for local economies, public health and the environment. Those who are most vulnerable among us, older populations, children, and those with health conditions face the greatest risk. However, there are steps we can take to reduce the impacts of extreme heat, including applying cool surfaces and creating green spaces. We can improve energy efficiency and increase clean energy to reduce heat island effects.

AB 2684 will allow local communities to build on the state's extreme heat action plan and extreme heat and communities resilience program through the Office of Planning and Research by incorporating an extreme heat component in the safety element of their General plans. In so doing, communities can use hazard mitigation planning and funding to address extreme heat conditions. AB 2684 also provides a complement to SB 852 by Senator Dodd in 2022, which civic well co sponsored that authorizes local governments to create climate resilience districts.

AB 2684 addresses a major threat to our cities and counties throughout our state. I respectfully urge your. I vote.

Thank you. Are there any Members of the public that wants to add on to the support on the Bill? Yep, here comes somebody.

Good afternoon again, Mister chair. Lauren de Valencia, again representing the American Planning Association with kind of an in between position. We again really appreciate working with the author and the sponsors in the Committee. We agree, absolutely. Addressing extreme heat at the local level is just as important as we're looking at fires and flood and the like. We just wanted to make sure that the language was something that could be implemented at the local level.

So moving that language up into the core section of the safety element, and then again the timeline to implement. So thanks for all the work on that, and we are going to move to a neutral position. Thank you.

Thank you. In the principal witnesses in opposition of the measure, seeing none, I'll open it to the Committee Members. Any questions? No? Yes. Assembly Members Essayli.

With all respect, I don't support putting mandates in General on the local government, and I think that for heat, we should focus on having cheap and reliable electricity because people need air conditioning. So that's what I would focus on.

But the reason I'm speaking is because my great colleague Miss Wilson asked me to express her comments and support because she had to step out. So Miss Wilson wanted to convey that she thinks this is a great idea not only for cities that traditionally experience high heat, but there are cities that aren't used to having high heat but will on occasion have some really hot days, including, she mentioned, a community in her neighborhood that had two really high peak heat days.

So she thinks it's good for those committees to be prepared for it as well, or communities to be prepared as well. Miss Wilson supports your Bill.

Thank you. Your Bill made me think about things when I was on the City Council. I mean, in Escondido, where I served, it's an inland city. It's an older city. It's lots of concrete. You know, the basic infill area has pretty much been developed. So when that heat came, there was no recourse for people, you know, to go anywhere. We were able to kind of open up libraries.

People wanted to get out of the heat, but, you know, if they want to go about their day to day business, you know, walking on pathways or sitting, you know, on a park bench or a bus bench, even though that's, the buses are under the authority of the transit district. But, you know, where do people go if they have nowhere to go or just trying to, you know, go to the store or things like that? There's no cover. So I support the Bill.

I think it's a way to get communities in their planning to think ahead about these things.

So any other Committee Member seeing? None. Would you like to close the Assembly Member Bryan?

Absolutely. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair, for your comments and definitely understand the perspective of my colleague from Corona. There are many jurisdictions that have not been mandated to provide air conditioning for everybody and have built homes that don't have air conditioning. All across Los Angeles, if you're within a proximity of the ocean, you don't have it, for example. So I'm certainly not requiring, and you may, if you want, at some point to require that air conditioning is going all homes.

But what I do think we should do is not fail to prepare for every single year being the hottest year on record. And with all due respect to the tremendous work that's happening at the local level, cooling centers are not an answer. We need to plan for this. We need to build up the resiliency. We need to do it with community. And by doing so we are saving the taxpayer disaster money here locally by drawing down on federal dollars that we currently don't have access to.

And so this is a smart, thoughtful, future looking, but important now type measure, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Is there a motion? Motion by assemblymember Pacheco? Second by assemblymember Ward. Thank you, Assemblyman Bryan, for working on this Bill and requiring local governments to consider the hazards of extreme heat. You referenced the City of Coachella. I worked for the City of Coachella for six years, and it is very common to see at least three days of over 120 degrees in August. So thank you for working on this. And you also reference the City of Palmdale, coming from the high desert.

I know how extremely can be impactful in our communities. With your acceptance of the Committee amendments, I'll be voting I on your Bill today. The motion is do pass as ammended to the emergency management Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll call].

Five to one, the bill is out. Congratulations. We leave the roll open for them. I don't see Assemblymember McCarty, but Assemblymember Petrie-Norris is here whenever you're ready, Assemblymember. AB 2559.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. I'm here to present Assembly Bill 2559 which will streamline the permitting process for EV chargers today. There are a little under 100,000 EV charging stations across the State of California. In order to hit our goals, we need to have 1 million charging stations by 2030 and more than 2 million by 2035.

Those are very big numbers, and the reality is, for us to actually hit that, we need to fundamentally change the way in which we're permitting this EV infrastructure, because right now, for a variety of reasons, we are faced with delays of two or sometimes three years. And so AB 2559 does two things to streamline this process. Number one, it will create a permit streamlining specialist at GO-Biz who will be tasked with expediting, permitting, and identifying permit streamlining barriers.

And number two, the bill will require GO-Biz to develop a reporting platform, or EV service providers can log on any issues that they have with a local jurisdiction. The goal is that this tool will give GO-Biz the information that they need to identify obstacles and challenges in implementing these charging stations, get down to the root of that delay, and be able to identify solutions so that we can actually deliver more than 2 million charging stations by 2035. Please be joined today by Megan Mekelburg, who's here on behalf of CALSTART to share her perspective and experience.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Chair and members. Megan Mekelburg here on behalf of CALSTART. They are a global nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of zero-emission vehicles and infrastructure. We're grateful to the Assembly member for her commitment to expediting infrastructure build out and for authoring AB 2559.

As she described, this bill intends to help expedite permitting for EV charging stations and shed light on the challenges and barriers associated with permitting. Existing law requires jurisdictions to adopt a streamlining ordinance and comply with ministerial approval of EV chargers. However, EV service providers are still encountering delays receiving their permits. When these delays occur, GO-Biz in their role as the sub-market development lead, does great work to help bridge that communication between EV service providers and the permitting authority to help resolve delays.

This bill simply formalizes existing practices and takes it a step further through the creation of a working group and then a subsequent support or report to explore the obstacles and challenges with permitting. As EV adoption grows, the infrastructure must keep pace, so understanding the root causes of these permit delays is really essential to making that happen. So with that, we ask for an aye vote as well.

Thank you. Any members of the public wishing to add on to the record in support? Seeing none. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing somebody coming. You can have a seat if you like. It's up to you.

Hi, Damon Conklin with the League of California Cities. We're not in opposition. We're kind of a tweener, if you will. I've been working with the stakeholders involved in this, sponsors of the bill as well as the author's office having some productive conversations. Our main concerns are not with the intent of the bill. Cities, local municipalities, and permitting authorities are eager to see full deployment of EV charging throughout the state. Our issue is just with specific language in the bill that isn't specifically clear that it's not public-facing. We don't want any alleged delays or complaints to be public-facing and used as a scarlet letter for certain permitting authorities.

We've already had challenges with GO-Biz who have inaccurately identified cities as the permitting authority on their dashboard in compliance with either 1236 or 970 when it's actually the county that's the permitting authority. So we just want to make sure that this is an internal database and not public-facing. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no one else, I'll take it back to the committee members. Are there any questions or comments on the proposed bill? See nobody. Is there a motion to move the bill? Is there a second? We have a first and a second. Thank you for your work to help the state and local governments identify and reduce barriers to the permitting of EV charging stations. As we know, the faster we build infrastructure for EVs, the more we encourage people to invest in EVs. And those numbers that you mentioned, hopefully, we'll get there as soon as we can. The faster that happens, the sooner we reduce GHG emissions. Simply to support your bill, the motion is to pass to the Committee on Jobs, Economic Development, and the Economy. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Five, zero. The bill is out. Congratulations. We leave the roll open for other members to add on.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We move on to Assemblymember McCarty on AB 2427. Whenever you're ready, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chair of this committee. This is a measure that some of you may know from prior local government hearings related to EV infrastructure. You know, in order to reach our climate goals and get, you know, a million plus electric vehicles on the road, we need to dramatically improve our charging infrastructure. And with that comes opportunities in people's residences. A lot of people live in apartments or live in homes.

We don't always have a garage. And so having these curbside mobile charging options are really important to do this. So this bill would focus on expanding those opportunities and having adoption more in our communities throughout California. And right now, about a third of multi-family residents don't have any opportunity to access their charging infrastructure. These are especially focused on our lower-income residents and with communities of color.

So with us, we've been working with local government groups and trying to make sure we make the bill better from last year. With me today are two witnesses, and I'd like them to present and respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Cory Bullis, on behalf of FLO EV charging, here in strong support of the bill. FLO is a charging station manufacturer and a network operator with over 100,000 charging stations deployed across North America. I would also note my fellow co-sponsor, a company called Itselectric could not be here today. They specialize in curbside charging as well and are also in strong support. One of Flow's specialties is deploying curbside chargers. We actually have the largest deployments on the continent.

We have 1000 curbside chargers in Montreal, 500 with the City of LA, and 100 with New York City. We can share firsthand the benefits of deploying curbside chargers. There's three in particular, I'll note. The first is we are able to strategically cite these chargers in locations for residential areas that would not otherwise have access to charging. So we're increasing equitable access to infrastructure.

Two, we have seen, once we've deployed the charger, over time, once the community gets used to it and embraces it, we see utilization steadily tick up on the charger. If you build it, they will come. In fact, we have also learned and seen from our data on our network that our curbside chargers have some of the highest utilization across all of FLO's chargers in North America.

And third, if you are reducing the need for these drivers to rely exclusively on DC fast charging, you're reducing cost impacts for them. DC fast charging costs on a per-session basis for a driver are typically higher than a level two charging station. So you're reducing costs for the driver, you're reducing disparities in those impacts. We really want to maximize bringing these benefits to California as well.

Permitting is a key aspect of that, creating transparency at the local level on where and how and what the requirements are to deploy these chargers. There's certainly a lot of unique considerations in the right of way that don't, that have been traditionally different than when you deploy off street charging. So we feel like this bill will help provide that needed transparency so that we can continue to do what we do best, bringing more chargers to the state. Thank you.

Chair Carrillo, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Ted Lamm and I'm senior research fellow at the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment, where I lead the center's EV Equity Initiative, a multi-year effort focused on providing local governments with the tools they need to ensure that all residents have access to zero emissions, mobility, and infrastructure.

As we just heard, the California Energy Commission has estimated that California will need over 2 million publicly accessible chargers to support electric vehicle drivers in the state by 2035, and currently we have just over 100,000. The Energy Commission and independent researchers have found that lower-income communities and communities of color are the least likely to have access to public charging and the most in reliant on it.

My team's research and engagement with local governments and stakeholders has identified the curbside and public right-of-way charging, the subject of this bill, as a core strategy to meet that need. This charging will be crucial for Californians who live in multi-family buildings, lack off-street parking, or lack the capital to install their own chargers. Without it, residents of underserved communities and dense cities will face barriers to EV adoption.

But curbside and public right-of-way charging also present a novel business case, complex permitting and contracting questions, and a limited set of appropriate high-priority zones in any jurisdiction. California cities, including Los Angeles and Sacramento, have developed successful pilot programs for curbside charging, but none has yet taken a comprehensive approach to permitting, contracting, and site selection. Pure West Coast cities like Portland and Seattle are already doing so.

By requiring local agencies to develop permitting checklists and identify approved sites, and requiring state agencies to develop best practices and conduct a needs assessment, AB 2427 can enhance local efforts to promote public and curbside charging and maximize utilization of crucial investments. My team at UC Berkeley is working to support this effort by developing a model equity-focused EV action plan for local governments and a free map-based decision tool for those governments and stakeholders to identify priority sites for charging.

We hope to have these tools available at the end of this year or next week. I believe the local and state efforts outlined in AB 2427 can be a key step to make sure the electric vehicle transition over the coming decade happens effectively and equitably. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Any members of the public wishing to add on in support of the measure, please come out. State your name, affiliation, and position.

Obed Franco, on behalf of the California Electric Transportation Coalition, in support. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, members. Roger Dickinson on behalf of CivicWell, in support.

Andrew Mendoza, on behalf of the California Building Officials, in support.

Michele Canales, on behalf of Union of Concerned Scientists, in support.

Margie Lie, Samson Advisors, on behalf of the California New Car Dealers Association, support.

Megan Mekelburg, on behalf of CALSTART, the Electric Vehicle Charging Association, and Valley Clean Air Now, in support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition of the measure? Seeing none, any members? Oh, here they come. You can have a seat if you like, or it's fine.

It's not that serious.

Okay. It's not that serious.

Tracy Rhine, Rural County Representatives of California. We do not have an official opposed position on the bill, but we have been working with the author's staff and the sponsors for a number of months on the bill and the provisions of the bill and we do really appreciate that they've been working with us in good faith. We do have some concerns around some of the processes that the bill, I think, put in place that weren't necessarily the intent of the sponsors and authors. So we just want to continue to work that out as we move forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Damon Conklin, with the League of California Cities. Echo the same sentiments my colleague from RCRC. We've had some very productive conversations with the sponsors. We appreciate the productive dialogue. We agree that there's some, I think, some drafting issues that we can iron out. We look forward to working with them as the bill moves forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? Members of the public? Seeing none, I'll take it back to committee members. Any questions, comments on what's in front of us? See nobody. Would you like to close, Assemblymember McCarty?

No, thank you. We all know that we need to dramatically increase our charging infrastructure, and the easy stuff's been done, so now it's the more complicated things on busy streets, apartment complexes, and this will allow us to expand availability. But make sure we respect and work with governments along the way. We're committed to working with the local government groups that are concerners today. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you for that. I'll just say that it's exciting to see that this could bring that infrastructure to multi-family developments for those that don't have the facility to be able to install an electric charging meter on their parking lot because it's private property and other reasons why.

And I do hope that the distribution of this resource goes across the state to every neighborhood, again, particularly those that live in multi-family developments, that makes it very difficult for them to be able to charge the electric vehicles if they're interested in getting one. Thank you for your work to help prepare the state for its future. Heavy deployment planning for evac in the public right away is time and effort well spent, especially for constituents who have a little or no access to charging where they live. I'm pleased to support your bill. Did we get a motion? Second? We do have a motion and a second. The motion is to pass to the Transportation Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Five, zero. The bill is out. Congratulations. We'll leave the roll open for the members to add on. We have two more measures on the agenda, and one of those is AB 2783. Assemblymember Alvarez, stop him if you see him, let him know we're ready for him. The other one is AB 2922, Assemblymember Garcia. The same goes out to staff. Please let him know that we're ready for them. I thought I saw Assemblymember Garcia. I don't see him, but anyway. He is outside. Thank you.

Assembly Member Garcia, when you're ready on AB 2922. Excuse me.

Good afternoon, Mister chair and Committee Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present AB 2922 which will extend the authorization for the capital investment incentive programs until January 12035. We have included emergency clause which will enable the SIP program to go back into. Go into effect immediately what's inside by the Governor.

This program is a program that provides incentives that already has created a successful program that attracts many corporations to invest in the underserved areas of the State of California, including, and it's been proven to pay off dividends in the imperial county, where in Imperial county for many decades, we've seen high numbers of unemployment. With me here today in support of the Bill is Rebecca Terrazz Baxter, assistant county CEO for the County of Imperial, to testify.

Just want to thank your staff for the Committee analysis and we'll be respectfully asking for your aye vote thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. Once again, my name is Rebecca Terrazes-Baxter. I am the assistant CEO for the County of Imperial. The County of Imperial is the proud sponsor of AB 2922 a Bill that would provide local governments like ours with opportunities to attract large manufacturing facilities to invest in our communities and to encourage emerging industries to locate and invest in those facilities here in California.

Specifically for Imperial County, AB 2922 will help us as we move forward with our lithium Valley Economic Opportunity investment plan. The subject matter of AB 2922 the Capital Investment incentive program was extended in 2018. As previously mentioned, has been a critical tool that local governments use to bring jobs, high paying jobs, to our regions, along with other positive community benefits. Unfortunately, this program was allowed to expire on January 12024 and Imperial county is in dire need of reinstatement of the program.

With the growing demand of portable electronic devices and state mandates around the increased production of electric vehicles, which are powered by lithium, Imperial county has become a central component to the state's efforts to extract and recover local resources of lithium. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab report that was released in November, it is estimated that Imperial county may hold as much as 18 million metric tons of lithium. That's enough to support 375 million ev batteries.

Imperial county has a population of 180,000 people with a median age of 32 and a median household income of less than 50,000 a year. Our unemployment rate has always hovered in the double digits. It's currently at 17%. The potential economic opportunity that comes with the extraction of lithium from imperial county cannot be understated. However, we need programs like the SIP to encourage companies to come to Imperial county and hire our local population and partner with our communities to make much needed investments in our region.

AB 2922 is a critical step on that path. We are so grateful to assemblymember Garcia for being a passionate and dedicated advocate for our county. Therefore, we respectfully ask for your. I vote of AB 2922.

We have a motion. Thank you, first and second. Thank you. Any Members of the public wishing to add on to the measure, please state your name, affiliation.

Mr. Chair and members, Mike Monaghan on behalf of state building trades in strong support. Thank you.

Brady Guertin, on behalf of the League of California Cities and strong support. Thank you

Horacio Gonzalez on behalf of controlled thermal resources, we're a geothermal and lithium recovery platform in the heart of the Lithium Valley in strong support.

Alejandro Solis, on behalf of Los Amigos De La Comunidad, in the Lithium Valley in support.

Dean Talley with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. Strong support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses? In opposition, see none of our Members of the audience specifying opposition. Seeing none, take it back to the Committee Members. Any questions, comments on the measure? Seeing none, we got a motion in a second, right? Yeah. Would you like to close? Assembly Member?

Thank you, respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you for authoring this Bill. I support efforts to attract large manufacturing investments and I believe that this is a reasonable program to do just that. I will be voting aye on your Bill. The motion is do pass as amended. You do accept the amendments?

You do and it's do pass through Appropriations Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

Yes sir.

[Roll call].

Thank you.

Thank you.

7-0, the bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for other Members to add on. Thank you. I believe we have our last bill. Assembly Member Alvarez, when you are ready. And that's AB 2783. Please, when you're ready.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Try to save the best for last for all of you. Hopefully you've had a very productive Committee, and I appreciate the opportunity to present this bill before all of you. I wanted to first start off by thanking staff and the Chair. We have been working collaboratively on the bill, and I think the analysis, if you had a chance, and if you haven't, it's worthwhile, a second read. I think it's very well written and valid analysis, and I appreciate that.

You know, oftentimes we have bills that we have sponsors, you all know the process, but many times you don't have a sponsor of a bill. If it's a bill that's impacting mainly a community that has been underrepresented for a very long time. Part of this bill is about that.

It's about communities that while some of you might have a vision of what the Port is because you fly into San Diego and the skyline is amazing, or you know about Coronado and the Hotel Coronado skyline is also beautiful. There are other parts of the Port of San Diego, and those other parts of the Port of San Diego are who I get to represent, and I have the honor representing here today.

And you'll hear from two witnesses who are here on their own accord, who are live in the Port and have lived experiences of a long time of being Port residents and leaders, and you'll hear from them. Assembly Bill 2783 implements key reforms aimed at approving transparency, accountability, and oversight at the Port of San Diego. The Port of San Diego is unique.

The Port is consisting of multiple member cities, five member cities, to which council members or city councils from each of those cities appoint their representatives, and it was created by the state legislature in 1962. By establishing clear guidelines for ethical standards, this bill will enhance the Port's participation as a community partner and ensure that Port decisions are made in the best interest of the public. I personally recognize the value of the Port in San Diego's economy and the workforce.

I have personal relationships, brothers who work at the Port, at the working waterfront as welders, two of them as welders, one as a plumber at the Port. And like them, live in the community where all, many of our neighbors are either used to work for the Port of San Diego, for an entity at the Port of San Diego, or still do today. The reforms of this bill recommendations were outlined in a grand jury report that was issued in San Diego County last year.

And there are two components that I want to focus on, that the bill focuses on, that I want to focus your attention on. The first was the grand jury report's finding that there is a lack of oversight, transparency, and accountability for an organization with such far reaching power and jurisdiction. That's a quote from the grand jury's report.

It also revealed concerns among Port District stakeholders where smaller cities reported a lack, quote, a lack of follow through and investment in their cities disproportional to the revenue generated at the Port District within their municipal boundaries. These are two findings of which came from the grand jury, of which this bill has been centered around and drafted around.

AB 2783 responds to this report by proposing a few things: term limits identical to that of the state legislature of 12 years and other ports in California, including the Port of Long beach. It also requires that 1% of operating revenue and 1% of lease rents as defined to respond to the lack of follow through on those investments in the communities that are impacted by Port activity.

These provisions mimic impact funds found in other port districts across California, and we have a sheet of what other port districts do in their own communities. These funds would have helped mitigate health impacts for residents that live close to maritime industrial activity. According to CalEPA's CalEnviroScreen 4.0 tool, census tracts that are adjacent to the Port of San Diego score 199th percentile in exposure to diesel particulate matter and 95th percentile in asthma and poverty rates.

The neighborhoods where I am raising my family, where I was raised, are red shaded, as gets to the severity of the scale. It goes from lighter colors to red. 15 years ago, legislation, it was also outlined in your analysis, was attempted but did not move forward. But legislation was introduced to create an impact fund to support these communities.

While the legislation did not go forward, we'll acknowledge that the Port realized that they needed to do better, and they created the Marine Industrial Impact Fund in an effort to help offset the impacts caused by the maritime activity. Since the fund was established, a total allocation has been about $2.5 million in over 15 years.

AB 2783 would rename that fund and set the allocation to approximately, from the projections we've seen from public documents about the Port's budget, set the allocation to 1.5 to 2 million per year, according, again, to budget projections. This is in comparison to the Port of Long Beach, which has an annual allocation of 3 to 4 million dollars for these same purposes, and the Port of LA, which averages $1.8 million every year for the same purposes. I also want to acknowledge the opposition on this bill.

You've received some letters, and there are some letters that raise some points that are legitimate, and I want to acknowledge them. I want to be very clear though that this bill does not require the Port to reduce or halt maritime activity or future projects. It is not the intent of this bill to diminish the Port's ongoing development projects, such as the Chula Vista Bayfront development, known as the Gaylord Project, and it is not the intent to risk their ability to finance future projects.

Again, acknowledging that there has been some input, we received amendments from the International Longshoremen Workers Union that clarifies the use for one of the funds, and we will accept those amendments. And we are open to more amendments that exclude any debt service for redevelopment project, for development projects, excuse me. And we have asked for specific language to address these concerns. I want to highlight this. We have asked. We have had well over 45 meetings with individuals.

We have asked, in particular, the City of Chula Vista, where this project is located, that you'll hear some opposition around stating that that project is jeopardized. We've asked them to give us the language to ensure that this project is not jeopardized. We have not received that, but we are still committed and will be drafting language ourselves to ensure that that happens. This is a project that is the most important in my district.

There is an absolutely no way that I would want to do anything to jeopardize that project. It creates good jobs, not only construction jobs, but then longterm jobs as well. And this, again, this project is something I've testified in support of. We want to make sure it's successful. And so you'll hear opposition that this project is jeopardized. We want to address that. We've asked them for language. We have not received it, but we will be drafting that language ourselves.

AB 2783 is a comprehensive bill that implements transparency and accountability standards foundation at other ports and in public agencies. Again, very open to changes, but the status quo cannot continue. The public needs to regain trust in the Port of San Diego by adopting findings from last year's grand jury report, which is what AB 2783 intends to do. I now ask National City Council Member, one of the Port member cities, Luz Molina, to speak. She'll be followed by Ms. Laura Wilkinson to provide supporting comments. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Assembly Member. Hello, Chair Carrillo and distinguished Committee Members. My name is Luz Molina, a National City Council Member, and the district that I represent includes our city's Port lands. Today, I am speaking on behalf, on my own behalf. I urge your support for Assembly Bill 2783, which is vital for reforming the Port of San Diego and providing transparency on the work of this important and powerful agency. AB 2783 proposes critical reforms to increase accountability. Thank you.

AB 2783 proposes critical reforms to increase accountability and openness from the Port. It includes establishing an independent ethics committee crucial for oversight. It would also promote a more balanced relationship between the Port and its member cities without infringing on the Port's mandate to serve the public trust. The San Diego County grand jury released a report that raised multiple issues regarding the Port's governance of our title lands and regions.

One finding stated, quote, the Port District is incentivized to maximize revenue to fund its operations, a goal that may create conflict of interest in the priorities, allocations of resources, and other decisions made by the Port Commission end quote. Our City Council supported this finding and several others publicly and unanimously. The Port's response was, in summary, that it is beholden to the greater good beyond our cities. As stated in the public trust doctrine, this response is insufficient.

It dismisses genuine concerns and past injustices faced by National City and its residents. The Port has been in existence since 1962. It is a product of its era during which our South Bay San Diego communities, mostly low income and diverse, took the negative brunt of decisions made by agencies in power in the name of greater good. The Port has intentionally or unintentionally perpetuated longstanding patterns of disenfranchising National City and its people.

After the grand jury report, the Port has been mired in additional controversies that make the call for independent oversight even more timely. The censure of our Port Commissioner, the resignations of the CEO and the immediate past Commission Chairman, investigations into a private citizen. These are just some of the developments that demonstrate that this legislation is absolutely necessary, if not now, then when?

To truly restore confidence in the Port, even if these issues are unrelated, the solution must come from outside in the form of an independent ethics committee, not from within. The state has the opportunity to get the answers that our city deserves. True cooperation happens between equals, and in the lack of equality, then a commitment to honesty and accountability is required to balance that relationship...

Can you please close?

This bill is a step in that direction. Thank you very much.

Perfect. Thank you.

Let's see if I can do this. Good afternoon, Members of the Committee. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm a community member, citizen advocate. I live in Coronado, in the Coronado Caves in South San Diego in the Bay. My name is Laura Wilkinson Sinton, and I live from Red Bluff to Coronado. I grew up in LA. I love this Golden State. This is my first time in front of the Assembly, so forgive my nerves.

The San Diego Port has been mired in lawsuits and environmental injustice issues for a while now. This is what AB 2783 will address. Importantly, the Port of San Diego has come out in stated opposition to this bill. But, yet, I'll bring up the fact the Port Commission has not agendized this bill, has not discussed this bill publicly, nor has it voted on this bill in opposition or in favor of this bill.

So are they in violation of the Brown Act, which they're kind of famous for doing in San Diego, or are they letting a Vice President set public policy for the Port of San Diego? This is the behavior that we're dealing with and have been dealing with for some time. The Port Commission was subject to the grand jury report, as you know.

It's the third grand jury report that has come out, and made recommendations which this same Port directly rejected out of hand all of the recommendations and findings. The Port is a special district. It's subject to LAFCO oversight, yet it's threatening and saber-rattling about litigation when the San Diego LAFCO voted unanimously to assert its state authorized oversight over the Port just last month.

The Chair of the State Lands Commission, Chair Malia Cohen, has indicated that she is agendizing discussion of this bill at the next State Lands Commission meeting. It's a very unusual move for the SLC, but shows you what we need here. The League of Women Voters and other good governance groups are considering this bill as well to endorse it because it's so needed.

The Port is claiming with zero evidence that this bill will kill jobs all over San Diego County. And I quote, they also said it would cease to exist as a commercial maritime entity. That's an absurd allegation. We have a $350 million public entity using our money and behaving like a private company. There's no transparency, there's no accountability. They're fighting this bill, and they've been dumping their polluting maritime activities into National City and other Port communities for decades.

And they've denied National City waterfront access as well, all of this time. This bill is about equity, and this bill is about integrity of the Port of San Diego. It will allow representation from communities who don't really currently have a voice on the Commission. And it would codify ethics, which, sadly, need to be codified for the Port of San Diego. It's not a best practice when you have an audit committee that is all employed by the Port.

So the Port needs an independent audit committee as well, external auditors, to regain trust with the public on how they're spending their money. They've spent over a million dollars on two investigations of a CEO and a Port Commissioner, and they haven't disclosed this information, and they're in fights in lawsuits about PRA as well, public records acts. The Port is using our money to dedicate full time staff. They've hired lobbyists and communication firms and have not disclosed this.

We only know this from the correspondence they've had with you. We are just community members in San Diego's South Bay. We're here on our own dime. We can't afford to have lobbyists line up to this microphone behind us. So we really depend on you to be our voice here for equity and for integrity for the Port of San Diego. We don't want our voices to get drowned out by these entrenched Port staff and Port commissioners. They enjoy this control of our public lands and the revenues they generate without the accountability that comes with that responsibility. And we appreciate you hearing us out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any members of the public wishing to add on in support of the measure? Please state your name, affiliation, and position on the bill.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Michelle Rubalcava with Nielsen Merksamer, and I'm here on behalf of the City of Chula Vista. We are in a support if amended position. We do appreciate the author's willingness to have continued conversations on some of the concerns we have with his bill. We understand what he's trying to do, and we're willing to continue those conversations to help him get there.

Thank you. Not seeing anybody else coming up. Principal witnesses in opposition, if you'd like to come up.

Good afternoon, Chair Carrillo. My name is Danielle - and the other members of this committee. My name is Danielle Moore and I'm the Vice Chair of the board of the Port of San Diego, and I am here on behalf of the port to speak in opposition to AB 2783. The port values a close working relationship with the legislature and state agencies, including the State Lands Commission.

We are a strong partner with the state in delivering on the responsibility of managing 34 miles of remarkable, diverse state lands. It is a multifaceted job, and we embrace our role as the State of California's primary steward for state lands in the region. On the state's behalf, we support 21 billion in economic benefit throughout California, including more than 114,000 jobs and 64 million in economic impact via the maritime trade and cargo handling industry.

There are three primary issues that we see with this bill, and one is that it seeks a state solution for what can easily be done at the local level. It also codifies what is already a policy at the port, and then it eliminates jobs. The port is committed to holding its members to high ethical standards. This bill seeks to require the adoption of a code of ethics. We have a code of ethics. It was enacted in January 42002.

We are currently undergoing a comprehensive process to review our code of ethics, and I am a part of that ad hoc committee and we expect it to be updated at the end of this year. Where there is existing law, the state law should prevail. It restricts lobbying efforts and limits it from one year, limits it from the one-year requirement to two years, and it should be consistent with the FPPC rules and the government code that this body is also held to.

When we talk about the port values good governance, and currently we have a structure where there are seven commissioners with the proposal that we have that this bill, what this bill proposes is to basically take from one disadvantaged community and create seats for them, ignoring other communities. And while Chula Vista has said that they come out in support if amended, last night at their city council member, they talked about how they would like to have a seat, and there's rumors that others will.

And so this disrupts and creates the vision for a unified port so that other people can try and secure seats. And right now there is, we have representation for our, for the member cities. The other challenge is that the port is committed to maintaining good local jobs on the waterfront and essential maritime and industrial uses.

It said that this bill will not eliminate jobs, but if you take maritime and industrial uses and make it open spaces that are currently used for maritime and industrial purposes, then there's nothing that can be done except for to eliminate those jobs. And currently we have jobs to the sum of 39,500 in those spaces that would be created as open spaces. And those jobs are good-paying jobs that are represented by IlWU Teamsters and the harbor police officers.

The port values being a good neighbor to our portside communities. We have invested over 60 million since 2022 to promote clean air, healthy communities, and environmental justice. The Port of San Diego is a port of first. We are so proud of the work that we are doing to eliminate diesel particulate matter in our neighboring communities. We are the first port to have all-electric mobile harbor cranes and the first all-electric tug.

When we look at our operations from ship to shore, we want to make sure that we are not polluting our communities.

You can close in 5 seconds.

Yes. Thank you, chair. So, this bill is an overreach. It singles out the port of San Diego with mandates that apply in none of the other ten ports in California and can be easily addressed without state legislation. And we ask that you vote no in opposition to AB 273.

Thank you.

Mister Chairman, members of the committee, Shane Gusman. On behalf of the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council, we are unfortunately opposed to this bill. We are representing our members that work in and around the port of San Diego, specifically Local 911, who has the employees there, as well as our members who drive in and out of that port every day. We are concerned about the impact of this bill on jobs.

I know that isn't the intent of the author, but if you look at the language of the bill, and that's what we have to concern ourselves with, it does divert money away from those maritime uses, and mitigation is great. But as the previous witness stated, open spaces don't provide a lot of jobs. We need to find a way to balance both, and this bill is a hammer when we need to come up with sort of a solution that works for everyone.

In terms of the ethics pieces of this bill, we have no issues with it. They're fine. What we are concerned with is the fund transfer and then also the term limits for those members, those commission members. We don't believe that term limits has worked well in every instance, and we think that the cities who appoint those members of the commission, they can decide whether or not to reappoint or have term limits on their members themselves.

But we think the legislature stepping in here is not the best policy. So, for those reasons, we oppose the bill.

Thank you. Any members of the public wishing to come up on the record in opposition, please state your name, affiliation and position.

Mister chair and members: Mike Monagan, on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades, apologize to the committee and to the author. Our opposition is late, but we have been working with Mister Alvarez. Thank you.

Jonathan Clay. I've been asked to chime in for a colleague on behalf of the California Association of Port Authorities, who also have an opposed and less amended position.

Omar Lazari, on behalf of the California Labor Federation, also want to apologize for the late submission of our letter, and we want to see how the conversations continue. So, thank you to the author for being willing to continue the conversations.

Thank you

Mister Chair and members: Marvin Pineda, on behalf of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 94 and 46. We don't have a position on the bill. We have been talking to Assemblymember about amendments for the bill.

We are loading and unloading every ship that comes to the port. We want to protect jobs, but we are going to ask that you move the bill forward with the commitment that our concerns are addressed, including a member on the board.

Thank you. With that, I'll take it back to the committee members. Assembly Member Ward.