Assembly Standing Committee on Local Government

At the request of the chair, we will begin today's hearing as a Subcommitee welcome to the Assembly Local Government Committee hearing. 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, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the hearing is prohibited. Such conduct may include talking or making loud noises from the audience, uttering loud, threatening or abusive language, speaker longer than the time allotted, extended discussion of matters not related to the subject of the hearing or Bill, and any other disruptive acts. To address any disruptive conduct, I will take the following steps.

If an individual disrupts our hearing process, I will direct them to stop and warn them 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 recess the hearing. If the conduct does not stop, I will request the assistance of the sergeants in escorting the individual from the Capitol building. I would like to note that today is administrative Professionals day and recognize Marissa Lanchester, our community secretary.

For all of her hard work and dedication, Marissa works diligently behind the scenes and here on the dais so that our hearings run efficiently and smoothly. Thank you, Marissa. Let's give her a round of applause. I would also like to note that Assemblymember Ceylee will be absent today. Assembly Member Haney will also be absent. Assemblymember Valencia will be replacing Assemblymember Haney for today's hearing. We have 30 items on the agenda this afternoon. Eight of these items are proposed for consent.

Item eight is AB 2117 by Assemblymember Joe Patterson. Item nine is AB 2192 by Assemblymember Juan Carrillo. Item 13 is AB 2482 by Assemblymember Papin. Item 1420 is AB 2485 by Assemblymember Juan Carrillo. Item 19 is Assembly Member I'm sorry. AB 2728 by Assembly Member Gabriel. Item 23 is AB 2939 by Assemblymember Rendon. Item 25 is AB 2962 by Assemblymember Papin. Item 29 is AB 3122 by Assembly Member Kara. We will hear all 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. Only the first item that we will take up is AB 1807 by Assemblymember Cervantes. Assemblymember, proceed when you are ready.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to present Assembly Bill 1807 today, which will make updates to the existing Riverside County Redistricting Commission. In 2022, Governor Newsom signed my Bill, AB 1307, into law, which created the Riverside County Citizens Redistricting Commission, which is empowered to redraw district boundaries for Riverside County Board of Supervisors. The introduction to AB 1307 kicked off the current wave of county redistricting commission bills that we are currently seeing.

In recent years, this Committee has approved independent redistricting commissions for Fresno, Kern, Orange, and Sacramento counties, and the Governor has signed all of those bills into law. However, AB 34 by Assembly Member Valencia and Senate Bill 314 by Senator Ashby included useful innovations that none of the previous county redistricting commission bills included, which was also signed into law by the Governor. So, this Bill 1807 would actually import many of those provisions to the Riverside County Citizens Redistricting Commission.

This includes updating the redistricting criteria to reflect changes made by the enactment of the Fair Map Act of 2023, which Assembly Member Isaac Bryan and myself authored. AB 1807 would also impose stronger prohibitions on the ability of commissioners to have communication about redistricting issues outside of the public meetings of the Commission.

It would also require the Commission to translate both on its website and many of its written material it distributes into language spoken by at least 3% of the total voting age population of residents in Riverside County. It would also impose more restrictions on the activities of commissioners. For instance, three years after being appointed to the Commission, commissioners would not be able to accept employment from a candidate for office or an elected official of Riverside County.

And finally, while serving on the Commission, commissioners would be barred from endorsing, working for, or making financial contributions to the campaign of a candidate for an elective office of Riverside County. These updates will make the redistricting process for Riverside County much more fair, accessible, and more transparent. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Do you have a witness that will be testifying? No? Okay. Are there any Members of the public here wishing to support this Bill? Anybody want to testify in opposition? Anyone here in opposition? Seeing none, you may close.

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Okay. We will take up your bill once we have a quorum. Thank you. Next up, I see Assembly Member Papan, AB 1827. You may proceed when you're ready.

Okay, great. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. So, I'm here today to present AB 1827, which will help preserve water providers' ability to fairly allocate costs, thereby protecting lower water users from higher water bills. In every community, there are water users who use more than others and water users who use less. It's just a fact of life.

Water customers who use more water than other similarly situated customers increase a water supply's overall cost of providing water service due to the higher costs associated with building, operating, and maintaining a larger water system that can meet the demands of the larger users. Prop 218 allows water suppliers to recoup the legitimate costs attributable to that higher water use from those higher water-using customers. Recent lawsuits, however, have sought to call this into question.

Trial courts have sought to impose new and increasingly granular requirements beyond those required by Prop 218 on water suppliers, who seek to justify charging higher water users for the costs associated with their higher water use. If these legal challenges are upheld by the appellate court, water suppliers would likely be required to spread the cost associated with serving these higher water use customers across all of their customers, which would force the low water user Californians to pay more for water. Are you getting the equitable picture here?

All right. AB 1828 simply reaffirms that California's water suppliers can continue to include the incrementally higher costs of water service due to the higher water users within the water rates charged to customers who drive those costs. The Bill also reaffirms that those costs can be allocated among those higher-use customers using any method that reasonably assesses the cost of serving those parcels, including by using meter size and peaking factors.

AB 1828 does not permit a water supplier to violate Prop 218, set water rates above the cost of service, or subsidize lower water users with water Bill charges placed on higher-use customers. It simply preserves Prop 218 proportionality and cost of service principles and allows water suppliers to continue using the reasonable methods they have used for decades to allocate cost among customers and set water rates.

With me today, I have Christine Compton with the Irvine Ranch Water District and Cody Phillips with the California Coast Keeper Alliance to speak further on the importance of AB 1827.

Thank you so much for allowing us to join you today. I'm Christine Compton. I'm the Director of Strategic Communications and Advocacy and the Deputy General Counsel for Irvine Ranch Water District. We're a retail water agency that serves 20% of Central Orange County. Water suppliers, as was mentioned, maintain and invest in water systems and supplies capable of meeting the maximum possible demand of their customers on any given day at any given hour.

The idea is when you turn on your tap and somebody else's, everybody should have water coming out of it. And so, when we have customers that use more water, that means we have to build a larger water system to be able to support it and to make sure that everybody has water coming out of their tap when they want it. Because of this, there are larger costs. The costs are a reality.

And so, AB 1827 is fundamentally about who should pay for those costs and what tools a water supplier can use for allocating those costs among the customers that drive them. As the Committee analysis states, local agencies do set water rates in many different ways, and we all use tools to help us appropriately allocate those costs among our customers. In fact, almost universally, we all use meter size and peaking factors in setting our rates.

AB 1827 is simply about the Legislature reaffirming that we can continue using those tools. We don't anticipate this will result in higher water rates or lead to increases in rates, because these are the tools that we all already use. It's simply about providing helpful clarification in the Water Code, and we hope that you will support it today.

Cody Phillips with California Coast Keeper Alliance so Prop 218 mandates that water rates, and the quote is, shall not exceed the proportional cost of service attributable to the parcel. And this Bill attempts to clarify what it means to attribute a cost to a parcel. And let me try to build more on why this is important for public utilities. Water rate design can take many shapes and is an important conservation and equity tool. Uniform rates, for example, are like gas prices.

You pay per gallon. Tiered rates, by comparison, you pay more the more water you use once you hit a certain threshold. In both situations, you pay more the more water you use. But with tiered rates as the example, there's a really clear signal of when you're going above and beyond and that that water is going to get more expensive.

Rate structures, when designed correctly, not only incentivize conservation and efficiency, but they also help to allocate the incremental costs of higher water use on those customers that drive the need for a system capable of meeting that higher water use. In other words, back to Prop 218, they assign to parcels the proportional cost of service attributable to those parcels.

Now, under that proportionality requirement, a perfect compliance scenario would necessarily require that you track every molecule of water and the exact time when those molecules are used to really perfectly map out the exact cost that each parcel places on the system. And that perfect scenario is really an impossible standard which is why California courts have repeatedly said that Prop 218 does not require perfection. And there's an understanding that methods that reasonably assess the cost of service attributable to a parcel comply with that proportionality requirement.

But what we've seen is that some courts have leaned more into this perfect scenario requirement where rate structures have to be justified on this really specific, almost impossible data or else water suppliers are violating Proposition 218, especially when they're trying to set water rates that are helping with this conservation and equity issues that otherwise are fine.

So, this Bill just tries to clarify that Prop 218's proportionality requirement is not so stringent and that water suppliers may use methods that reasonably, not perfectly assess the cost of service attributable to a parcel.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in support? Please state your name, organization and position.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Jason Ikerd, on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association, happy to be here in support of the good bill.

Seamus Garrity, White House Public Affairs, on behalf of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, in support.

Good afternoon. Kris Anderson, on behalf of the Association of California Water Agencies, in support.

Good afternoon. Cyrus Stevers for the, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, in support.

Good afternoon. Obed Franco, on behalf of the Contra Costa Water District, in support.

Alyssa Silhi on behalf of the Town of Hillsborough, in support. Thank you.

Moira Topp on behalf of the City of San Diego, in support

Good afternoon. Marcus Detwiler with the California Special Districts Association in support.

Good afternoon. I'm Eric Lehr with the California State Association of Counties. Apologies we did not get a letter in on time, but we're in support. Thank you.

Sarah Musiker, on behalf of the California Water Efficiency Partnership, also in support.

And Jennifer Capitolo with the California Water Association, in support.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. I am now going to bring it back to Committee Members. Are there any questions or comments from Committee Members? Which is only one. Is there any questions or comments? All right, seeing none, and we still do not have quorum. Would you like to close?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Bottom line is this Bill allows us, allows water agencies to avoid ambiguity, allows them to remain reasonably flexible in order to be as equitable as possible and still be compliant with Prop 218. Respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you, and we will take up your Bill once we have a quorum. And if there's any authors out there that need to present in Local Gov. Please make it over to Committee. We are waiting for you.

Yes, Assemblymember Kalra presented his bill and then he will also present for Assemblymember Haney, AB 3068. Yes, but you'll do item number 18, first your bill. AB 2682. Yeah, that's okay. You can go ahead and present for Assemblymember Haney, AB 3068. When you're ready.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

All right, there we go. All right. Thank you, Mister Chair and members. AB 3068, the Office to Housing Conversion Act, is a direct response to the crisis of California's empty downtown business districts and the need to convert underutilized office buildings within prime locations into new housing. Downtowns are struggling as our work culture shifted towards remote and hybrid work policies. With fewer employees working full time in the office, commercial buildings in downtowns across the state are experiencing the effects of high vacancy rates.

This shift has left downtowns in trouble and in desperate need of catalytic and innovative transformations that will create livable neighborhoods in our commercial districts. While downtowns are currently facing the devastating effects of empty office buildings and slow economic recovery, we don't need to subscribe to the idea of the urban doom loop. There are ways we can address the issue now. A study from UC Berkeley showed that cities that don't include housing in their downtowns experience significantly slower recovery from economic crises than downtowns that prioritize livability.

And while there is certainly a need for housing in our downtowns, we also have to provide some flexibility for creative mixed-use projects, which is important when we are reimagining what our cities should look like post the COVID-19 pandemic. AB 3068 will accelerate office-to-housing conversion projects by creating a pathway for the right ministerial approval of office conversion projects, ensuring more predictability and fewer barriers to an already difficult building process. It will also provide flexibility to ensure that historic buildings are more economically feasible.

Conversion for conversion, meaning we can preserve our buildings for housing while making sure the downtown's diverse characteristics are kept intact. With me in support today is Rafa Sonnenfeld from YIMBY Action and Cindy Heitzman from the California Preservation Foundation.

Please. Good afternoon, Rafa Sonnenfeld. Thank you. Chair and members, YIMBY Action in our chapters fight for better housing policies because we want to reduce poverty and homelessness, eliminate racial segregation, create jobs, and stop climate change. Converting vacant commercial space into residential housing through adaptive reuse can reduce the number of underutilized and vacant buildings that have been decreasing in value, thereby helping to stabilize the commercial real estate market and filling those spaces with more valuable tax-generating uses.

Adaptive reuse projects can also increase activity and foot traffic in neighborhoods across the state, which help local businesses and enhance the cultural life of cities and towns. Unfortunately, local discretionary approval processes and an environmental review for housing can cause years-long delays, increase risk to developments, make housing projects infeasible, and contribute to the challenges in resolving the state's housing shortage.

AB 3068, the Office Housing Conversion Act, provides a streamlined ministerial approval process for adaptive reuse of existing buildings into residential uses in infill areas in all zones. The act facilitates the conversion of underutilized space and office and other commercial and industrial buildings into residential uses if at least 50% of the converted space is used for residential, while otherwise allowing those buildings to maintain their currently allowed uses without the need for a lengthy, risky discretionary rezoning.

The act also incentivizes adaptive reuse projects by eliminating by limiting impact fees and protects historic properties, ensuring that their adaptive reuse is done in accordance with national best practices for historic preservation. Additionally, AB 3068 authorizes local municipalities to create a property tax rebate incentive program to encourage adaptive reuse projects. Thank you. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you, Chairman Carrillo and committee members; my name is Cindy Heitzman. I'm the Executive Director at the California Preservation Foundation, committed to protecting California's rich historic and cultural heritage through advocacy and education. I seek your support for AB 3068. Throughout history, communities have adapted existing buildings for new functions to meet the changing needs of society. Today, adaptive reuse of buildings to housing offices and commercial buildings to housing is a critical housing and economic development strategy.

Across California, many building types, from funeral homes to flour mills, have been repurposed into housing. The City of Los Angeles Adaptive Reuse Ordinance stimulated the development of over 12,000 housing units since its adoption in 1999. A local example in Sacramento is a Capitol park hotel located one block from here from the state capitol, which now houses 134 units of permanent housing for the homeless.

Older building stock are the most likely candidates for adaptive reuse, and what sets AB 3068 apart is its streamlined review of historic resources, incentivizing conversion of commercial spaces into housing while preserving those portions or features that convey its historic, cultural, or architectural values. The review process considers factors like the age of the building, landmark status, and utilization of federal-state historic tax credits. Furthermore, it mandates compliance with the Secretary of the Interior standards for the treatment of historic properties, ensuring that preservation standards are met.

Though historic preservation is often cast as an obstruction to the creation of housing, the facts tell a different story. AB 3068 is a catalyst for economic revitalization. Alleviating housing shortages and safeguarding the character of our historic downtowns. This bill is a blueprint for sustainable development, harmonizing economic growth with historic preservation, shaping a vibrant future while honoring our past. I thank you for your time and request your support of AB 3068.

Thank you.

Any members in the audience that want to add in support of the bill, please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Marc Vukcevich, on behalf of Streets For All, in support.

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public Affairs. On behalf of Buckeye Properties, Sandhill Properties, and SPUR in support.

Bob Mueller for Fieldstead. That's Howard Amundsen Junior, an Orange County pro-YIMBY philanthropist.

Rebecca Marcus representing Leading Age California in support.

Good afternoon. Corey Smith, on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition, in support.

Brooke Pritchard, on behalf of California YIMBY, in support.

Adam Briones, California Community Builders, in support.

Any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. How about any members in the audience in opposition of the bill? Seeing none. I take it to the committee. Any questions or comments? Assemblymember Karla, would you like to close for Assemblymember Haney?

Thank you.

Yeah. On behalf of Assemblymember Haney, respectfully, we ask for an aye vote.

Thank you.

We still don't have a quorum, right? We still don't have a quorum, but once we do, we'll proceed with the next step. Thank you. Thank you.

Assemblymember Alvarez. Whenever you're ready, sir. Oh, are you going to present your bill?

Yeah, I was hoping to. It's up to you, Mister Chair.

You're okay. Thank you, Mister Alvarez. Go ahead and proceed, Mister Kalra.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister Chair and members. AB 2682 would amend the Santa Clara Valley open space authorities, enabling actual to improve its functions and align them with similar jurisdictions. First, the bill would allow the authority to purchase lands and fee title from willing sellers in the east of the westernmost ridgeline of the Diablo Range in the same manner that it already acquires land throughout the rest of its jurisdiction.

Second, the bill allows the authority to authorize the general manager to bind the district to certain contracts, like other regional and open space districts are able to do. Third, the bill increases the contracting threshold for materials and equipment. Existing law in this section is a bit unclear and we're working on amendments to explicitly separate the bidding thresholds from materials and construction. Our intent here is only to shift the threshold for materials.

Fourth, the bill would enable the authority to finance facilities and issue bonds pursuant to the Mellow Rus Community Facilities Act of 1982. Lastly, AB 2682 amends the authority's uniformity clause to allow them to charge lower tax rates to seniors. This is the same ability school districts have. With these updates for their enabling act, AB 2682 will provide flexibility and greater efficiencies to the authority and help facilitate their mission to conserve the natural environment, support sustainable agriculture, and connect people to nature.

With me to testify and support is Mark Landgraf, Assistant General Manager with the Open Space Authority.

Good afternoon Mister Chair, committee members. Thank you very much. Mark Landgraf, Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, and Assemblymember Kalra pretty much said it all. This legislation, for we're very grateful to him for, would enable us to do our work to preserve natural resources, to connect people to nature, and to support agriculture much more efficiently and effectively.

I want to point out that allowing us to acquire land in fee from willing sellers in the Diablo Range would allow us to help meet state 30 by 30 goals. It's very important to us to protect habitat and wildlife connectivity corridors in that area, which would augment work that we're already doing. Also, the adjustment to general manager authority for professional services contracts allows us to work more efficiently without making any changes to the threshold for bidding for construction contracts.

So we are very grateful to the author and urge your support. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anybody else wanted to audit in support of the bill? Please state your name, affiliation, and position on the bill.

Good afternoon. Marcus Detwiler with the California Special Districts Association in support.

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public Affairs, Santa Clara Valley Water District.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Anybody in the room? Please state your name, affiliation, and position.

Thank you, Mister Chair, Members of the Committee. Jeremy Smith here on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council. We've had productive conversations with the Assembly Member about the construction part of this coming out of the Bill. He's assured us that that's his goal. He just mentioned it. We appreciate that. So, we'll keep those conversations going. We did have concerns about that part of the Bill. It sounds like we're on the right track. Thank you.

Thank you. I take it back to the Committee. Any comments, questions? No? We still don't have a quorum, but as soon as we do, we'll proceed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Chair.

Assembly Member Alvarez, item number four on the agenda. AB 1886. When you're ready.

Thank you, Mister Chair and Committee Members. Here to speak to you about Assembly Bill 1886, which aims to clarify that housing community development determines whether a local jurisdiction's housing element is in compliance with housing element law, and that if a project is submitted during this period of non-compliance, it is eligible for the Builder's Remedy regardless of whether the city reaches compliance before it is approved. So, for a little bit of context, the Builder's Remedy is a housing tool that the Legislature established three decades ago.

The Legislature envisioned that it would incentivize local government to submit their housing element that plan for enough housing at each of their cities and jurisdictions. Unfortunately, the provision didn't go used for decades, including because of the lack of clarity in the code, which provided little practical guidance. Yet another cause is simply because developers were afraid to use a tool and their fear of angering local jurisdictions, local governments that they knew they would then need their support in order to approve their future projects.

So, given the shift in support for more housing at the state level, more recently in the last several years, developers have been emboldened to dust off this forgotten code and began to submit Builders Remedy projects, as the law over 30 years ago intended to. Despite the increase in proposed projects due to the lack of clarity, many cities have used the argument that self-certifying their housing element is enough to comply with the housing elements law.

This has led to a multitude of applications not being processed or denied and various court cases that have slowed down housing development in areas that need it the most. At its core AB 1886 is a good governance bill that doesn't establish any new tools, but it fixes and clarifies an existing one that the Legislature already established decades ago. AB 1886 is written to provide certainty and clear up any ambiguity in the law.

With AB 1886, it will be clear that the Builder's Remedy can be used as intended to build more housing in cities that are not doing their part in solving the state's housing crisis. There will be no more threat of lengthy legal delays caused by those who don't want to build more housing. Appreciate your time and to testify we have Michael Lane from SPUR and Cornelious Burke from CBIA.

Mister Chair and Members Michael Lane with SPUR, a public policy think tank in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we're pleased to support this legislation. Also wanted to commend the committee staff and the analysis. It's really excellent. Gives the background on both the state of the statute and legal cases. And what we're trying to address here is just additional clarity. Obviously, the ultimate goal is for all jurisdictions to have a certified housing element by the state.

In fact, it's the only element of the general plan that the state requires that it be certified because that's how important it is to make sure that we've got adequate sites to be able to build the housing that we need for our growing population. We do see this as a good government bill. It actually provides additional clarity both for jurisdictions and for developers to know when the Builder's Remedy is in effect.

And it affirms that HCD or a court of competent jurisdiction are the ones who determine if it is substantially compliant with state housing law and that the element is indeed certified. And then that means that the sites can go forward, that the jurisdiction is not subject to the Builder's Remedy. But if they miss the deadlines and they don't have a certified housing element that's affirmed by HCD, then those applications must be received by the jurisdiction. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mister Chair and Members of the Committee. Cornelious Burke with the California Building Industry Association. We are your home builders. We are proud of co-sponsor AB 1886. I'll be brief. I just this is such a smart and a good government bill. It really clarifies when the Builder Remedy kicks in. On a personal note, I'm a planner by background. I've worked for three cities.

The tension between state and local is very tough right now, and this Bill helps to clarify those rules and regulations and make sure that cities follow the law so there's no ambiguity. Thank you so much. We support the Bill and request your aye vote.

Thank you. Anybody else in the room that wants to add in support? State your name, affiliation, and position on the Bill.

Rafa Sonnenfeld with YIMBY Action on behalf of Chapters East Bay YIMBY, Mountain View YIMBY, Northern Neighbors, Peninsula for Everyone, San Francisco YIMBY, Santa Cruz YIMBY, Santa Rosa YIMBY, SloCo YIMBY, Urban Environmentalists, Grow the Richmond, Ventura County People or Ventura County YIMBY, Streets for People, South Side Forward, Progress Noe Valley, South Bay YIMBY and Napa Solana for Everyone in support. Thank you.

Bob Naylor for Fieldstead and Company strongly supporting Mister Alvarez's excellent Bill.

Thanks. Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership in support.

Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY, in support.

Corey Smith on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition, in strong support.

Graciela Castillo-Krings on behalf of the California Housing Consortium in support.

Anya Lawler on behalf of the Public Interest Law Project and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. Really appreciate the author working with us on some technical amendments to address our concerns moving forward. And with that, we're in support.

Thank you.

Adam Briones, California Community Builders, in strong support.

Seamus Garrity, Lighthouse Public Affairs, for Civic Well, in support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Brady Guertin, on behalf of the League of California Cities, in respectful opposition to the Bill. Just wanted to commend the author's office. They've been very forthcoming about working with us and the sponsors on the Bill. So, we look forward to those continued conversations. But I did want to highlight a couple of concerns that we're seeing. I think the big issue that we need to focus on is helping our cities get into compliance with housing element law.

There's been several cities that I've talked with that are members that have expressed how long it takes for that process to get through. And I think the city, the state needs to work and partner with our city so we can do that, so we can avoid Builder's Remedy in the first place. One of the cities I talked to took up to four years to get a housing element compliance.

And the concern with this Bill, too, is if there's an actual disagreement between the state and local jurisdictions, we don't have the ability to self-certify. So, while we're waiting for a court to determine that competency, this Bill is currently written would allow the Builder's Remedy to kick in.

So even if we're doing the planning and zoning that we need to do to comply with the law, good faith actors would still be punished in their ability to not zone and do what's best for their communities. That said, we'll look forward to those continued conversations and appreciate the willingness of the author's office and look forward to that as the Bill moves forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else wanted to add in opposition of the Bill? State your name, affiliation and position, please.

Hi. Alyssa Silhi on behalf of the City of Corona in opposition, but also on behalf of the City of Rancho Cucamonga with an opposed unless amended position. They would ask that all cities not be painted with the same stroke and for pro-housing designated jurisdictions to be exempt. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no one else, take it back to the Committee. Any questions? Comments? Assembly Member Pacheco.

So, thank you, to the author, for bringing this Bill forward, but I also have the same concerns that was mentioned by opposition. Some of my cities within my Assembly District haven't had their housing element approved. It's taken them several years. The biggest city in, Downey, fortunately, they had their housing element approved.

But there are concerns, like was mentioned by opposition of like some of my cities within the Assembly District and I'm assuming throughout the State of California that have been experiencing delays in having their housing element approved. So, I really appreciate the dialogue. I appreciate that these conversations are happening, but I also just wanted to flag for you that this is occurring in my Assembly District.

Thank you, Assembly Member Pacheco. Mister Ward? With that, take it back to you. Would you like to close?

Thank you. Acknowledging, certainly. the opposition, like was stated we are having conversations. I think one of the things that has been helpful for me is to understand the entire process. And we're not touching the housing elements law here. We are only clarifying and defining the Builder's Remedy portion, which is the very small section, of course, consequential, but small section to avoid litigation and delays.

I think should this Committee and maybe even Housing Committee, and our chair is here, want to talk about the process of the housing element, that might be a worthwhile discussion. I only have the information that I have that we requested from HCD on what that process typically looks like. And as the housing elements law identifies, there is a back and forth that occurs, and there is a suggested timeframe of when to begin the conversation with HCD so that there is that exchange of information.

Acknowledging that there are cases where maybe there's a four-year situation, but we're not touching any of that. And certainly again, maybe worthwhile the conversation. We are just wanting to create the clarity on the builder's remedy. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you for presenting today. I will be voting aye when we get a quorum and proceed with the process. Thank you.

Thank you.

And do you have a second bill today?

I do, Mister Chair.

AB 2430, when you're ready.

Thank you Mr. Chair and Committee Members, we now have Assembly Bill 2430 which would exempt a local developer from paying an extra unnecessary monitoring fee on a 100% affordable project. Again, thank the staff for their work on the analysis on this bill. I think it presents the issue quite well.

Only projects that use estate incentive, known as a state density bonus law and are subject to regulatory agreements with either the tax credit allocation, CDLAC, or HCD that have provisions to monitor would be eligible for this exemption of this bill.

To ensure that the bill only targets duplicative monitoring, we have also added further safeguards that would exempt projects one, that use local density bonus program that requires deeper affordability, two, accepts a local funding source that requires different levels of affordability, and three, has funding source that obligates that local jurisdiction to monitor that project if it isn't already being monitored again by TCAC, CDLAC, or HCD. As many of you know, all affordable housing developments in California that receive state funding are subject to compliance monitoring to ensure that those units are occupied by tenants that are actually eligible to live there because of their income.

TCAC, for example, performs routine physical site inspections of units in their condition, property standards on a share of affordable units at every development, an annual file monitoring of tenant income over the 55-year span of the housing project, and physical inspections on an as-needed basis when they decide, discovers or receives to reports of problems. The fees that we are looking to exempt aren't trivial, although they can vary most of the fees charge, and it can be about $400 per unit.

That results in costs of tens of thousands of dollars a year in fees and hundreds of thousands of dollars over the lifespan of the project. So a 50-unit complex with all deed restricted for low- and very low-income that may charge dollar 400 per unit is an additional $20,000 per year over the span of 50 plus years, well over $1.0 million in additional costs.

The duplication of monitoring fees adds unnecessary costs to affordable housing developments at a time when we are hoping to bring down the cost or keep the cost down of projects. AB 2430 provides relief by removing this duplicative fee and therefore lowering affordable housing development costs. Even if it's just a bit, everything counts and trying to bring California closer to meeting our housing production goals for low-income households.

With that, I'd ask Graciela Castillo-Krings on behalf of California Housing Consortium and Natalie Spivak on behalf of Housing California as testimony.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Graciela Castillo-Krings. I am here on behalf of the California Housing Consortium, one of the sponsors of the bills. As the Assemblymember was saying, this is a critical piece of legislation for a little bit about the housing the California Housing Consortium. It is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the preservation and for the production of affordable housing for both low-income and moderate-income families.

Tackling the housing crisis will require building affordable housing at scale, but our ability to do so depends on the cost to produce additional units. As the cost to develop and maintain affordable housing increases, so does the need for additional public subsidies. Given the situation that our state budget is facing right now, the fact that we do not have a sustained funding source, ensuring that we have legislation that takes into consideration the cost of production and maintaining these units is absolutely critical.

For that reason alone and for everything that the Assemblymember has already stated, we are happy to sponsor this bill.

Good afternoon and thank you, Assemblymembers. My name is Natalie Spievack and I'm with Housing California, a statewide nonprofit advocacy organization that advocates for the production and preservation of affordable housing and ending homelessness. As Assemblymember Alvarez and Graciela have explained, AB 2430 will play an important role in tackling the affordable housing crisis by lowering development costs for affordable housing. I'd like to briefly dispel some concerns about the bill.

First, AB 2430 only applies to 100% affordable density bonus developments that a state agency is already monitoring. For example, a local government can continue to monitor affordable units produced through a local inclusionary housing ordinance if the state isn't monitoring them. Second, this bill doesn't compromise the ability of local governments to comply with monitoring activities required of them by state, regional, or federal agency.

If the required monitoring activities are not being conducted by TCAC or HCD, the local government can carry them out. Finally, some local agencies use monitoring fees to provide services unrelated to maintaining the affordability and habitability of units. We don't intend to suggest that those services are not valuable, but rather that they shouldn't be placed on the backs of affordable housing developers under the guise of monitoring fees.

If affordable housing developers are responsible for paying for anything that's good, affordable housing will not be financially feasible. At a time when it's already very difficult to make affordable housing pencil and when California is facing potential budget cuts to key affordable housing production programs, it's even more critical to eliminate duplicative costs faced by affordable housing developers. AB 2430 will play an important role toward that end. Housing California thanks Assemblymember Alvarez for authoring this important piece of legislation and respectfully requests your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody in the audience who wants to please state your name, affiliation and position?

Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership in support.

Rebecca Marcus representing Leading Age California in support.

Any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any other members of the public wants to come out in opposition? Seeing none, take it back to the Committee. Committee Members, any questions or comments? Would you like to close Assemblymember Alvarez?

With that, just respectfully ask for an aye vote when you have a quorum. Thank you.

Thank you. And next we are going to have Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo presenting agreement with Assemblymember Wicks and Assemblymember Schiavo. And that's item five on the agenda, AB 1890. No, I'm sorry, agenda item number six, AB 1950 by Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo.

Great. Thank you Mr. Chair and Members, I am proud to present AB 2986 which establishes a dedicated task force under the Local Agency Formation Commission for the County of Los Angeles to study the feasibility of incorporating East Los Angeles into becoming a special district with local elected representation that works in collaboration with the county or possibly its own municipality. East Los Angeles has the largest population of any unincorporated area in LA County and would be the 10th largest city in the county.

East LA is California's most populated census-designated area, with over 118,000 residents, 95.5 of which are Latino Members. I am proud to be from East LA and proud to be a product of East Los Angeles. East Los Angeles is the heart of California's Latino community, whose culture has influenced the world and cultivated generations of political leaders, entertainers, activists, and scholars. Yet this vibrant community is without a city council or a mayor, leaving residents without a local voice in government.

East LA residents are represented by a county supervisor whom represents 2 million people, the state assembly, and the state senate. East LA is an island surrounded by the City of Monterey Park, the City of Commerce, Montebello, Maywood, Vernon, and, of course, the City of Los Angeles, to name a few. Unlike our neighbors in the City of Los Angeles, which has established neighborhood councils with city-approved budgets for community events or meetings related to projects in those neighborhoods, East LA does not have the equivalent.

What it does have are great community leaders, two of whom you will hear from today, who volunteer their time to try to have a better civic engagement with the county and address the concerns of many residents today. You will also hear from our witnesses related to the challenges residents in East Los Angeles face and you will hear the opposition as to why all the reasons East Los Angeles cannot sustain itself. Over the years, we have seen resources be stripped away from East Los Angeles.

In previous redistricting, East Los Angeles College became a part of Monterey Park. Yet the housing projects right next to the college were left in East LA, our famous Whittier Boulevard, where East LA residences, shops, and large retailers on Whittier Boulevard were then designated to the City of Commerce. I want to be clear in saying that AB 2996 is a feasibility study on what is possible for East Los Angeles.

The study does not create a mandate for cityhood nor special districts, and it, of course, is not to discredit the work that has been done by the County Board of Supervisors. Constituents that I represent have asked me to carry this policy so that East LA stakeholders and actual residents have a better relationship with the county. They want transparency and accountability, and they want to know where their tax dollars are being used. The community of East LA wants a stronger voice.

Yesterday I just want to clear up some things that were said in the board of supervisors. It was discussed that the county budget has a very important relationship with the state. That would be us, the state partners. Yet in the same meeting, the supervisor said that AB 2996 was a gut and amend bill done in the dark of night and implied that I was hiding something. Let me be clear, I am not hiding anything.

The legislative process includes the introduction of what we know, our spot bills, which then our very dedicated staff worked with ledge counsel to then include that policy into amendment into the bill, which are then put into rules committee and then distributed to the various committees in the legislature. Understanding the process is important. So, the notion that this bill was a gut amendment done in secret is simply not true.

And I would urge the board of supervisors to avoid unintended consequences of misinforming the public, which would then create just simply a distrust in government. Secondly, a press release done by Supervisor Solis of the first district yesterday said AB 2986 places the needs of East Los Angeles's vulnerable and low-income population who rely on LA County's safety net for resources in the hands of special interests.

The bill looks to create a task force made up of stakeholders to aim to drown out the voices of residents posing a significant risk of gentrification and displacement in the area. This is absolutely not true. Section Two of Section 56387 of the policy reads as follows.

LAFCO shall establish the East Los Angeles Task Force for the purpose of identifying and evaluating the potential impacts of incorporation or establishment of special districts within East Los Angeles and would require the task force to be composed of 11 Members appointed by LAFCO in consultation with the County of Los Angeles. This bill requires the task force to meet quarterly, incorporating robust community engagement, to discuss the potential impacts of incorporation or establishing a special district in East LA as specified. Thirdly, LAFCO in LA County. The Board of Supervisors suggest that there is no money to cover the cost of this policy or the study. However, the bill very firmly states that this policy is upon appropriation of the legislature. And on this point, I will finally say that the County Board of Supervisors in Los Angeles voted to oppose AB 2986 because it would be costly, it's unfeasible, there's no tax revenue.

Yet at the same time, simultaneously approve directing the Chief Executive Officer of LA County to actually do the very study, or a similar version of it that is due within 120 days, to study the feasibility of a special district or potential municipality for the City of East Los Angeles. And so, members, I've distributed. I've asked the sergeants to distribute letters of support that came in just a couple days ago and within the last few days to this committee.

And I want to be very clear in saying this is simply a study bill that looks to see the future of East Los Angeles. And I think misinforming the public and trying to engage in practices that are untrue about the policy is how we lose credit within our communities and how we discredit the role of government. So again, this is simply a study bill.

Here to testify in support is Kristie Hernandez, Chair of the Maravilla Community Advisory Committee, and Isaias Hernandez, on behalf of the Eastmont Community Center. Thank you.

Before we proceed with your witnesses, I want to correct an error on my part. You said you were presenting AB 1950, but indeed, this is item number 26 on the agenda. AB 2986. Just wanted to make that correction. We also achieve quorum now, so we're going to call the royal for quorum, and then we'll proceed with your witnesses. Okay, Madam Chair, please.

[Roll Call]

We have a quorum. Please proceed with your first witness.

Thank you. Good afternoon, committee members. My name is Kristie Hernandez, and as we say at Garfield High School, I was homegrown in East Los Angeles. I'm a third-generation homeowner and unincorporated East Los Angeles, and I'm also the chairperson, as mentioned, of the Maribia Community Advisory Committee, MCAC. Here, we convene meetings between East LA residents and community stakeholders. I do this on a volunteer basis, as does our whole MCAC board.

We are a full time, we work full time and we do this on our free time because we care about the quality of life for our local residents and want to increase civic engagement. You see, as residents of unincorporated area, we have no mayor, no city council, or governing board. Our most local elected official is our LA County board supervisor, who, as mentioned, represents 2 million people. Even with the supervisor doing their best, it's a large district to cover.

Our community alone is made up of nearly 120,000 residents. East LA lacks a local voice solely representing our community's interests, needs and priorities, and that is why I am here in support of AB 2986. This bill would require a financial study to be conducted for California's largest unincorporated community to determine our fiscal health and, for the first time, consider the prospect of East LA becoming a special district.

The last time LAFCO conducted a fiscal study for East LA, we were recovering from the great Recession of 2008. I was involved in that effort and those numbers are still being referred today, referenced today, and that's economic data from 16 years ago. The supervisor during that time promised the East LA community annual updates, which was never fulfilled. We need consistency and want to be guaranteed annual fiscal updates. Regardless of who is lacking who the LA County supervisor is.

We need a legacy for future generations to come. As taxpayers, we deserve to know where and how our tax dollars are being spent, and as a community, we currently do not and have not had access to that information, let alone a direct vote or counsel to influence the matter. Without an official governing body or any elected representative for East LA, we will continue to be excluded from critical decisions over county ordinances, including those related to housing and transportation planning and economic development.

I ask for your support to conduct this study to examine the fiscal health of East LA and what opportunities are available to create a dedicated entity or local municipality made up of resident stakeholders to represent the best interests and priorities of the community. And before I forget, happy birthday, Mom. Thank you.

That was very nice of you.

Good afternoon and thank you for your time and attention. My name is Isaias Hernandez. I am the Executive Director of Eastmont Community Center, a community-based nonprofit organization established in East LA since 1968. Since its inception, Eastmont Community center has provided direct social services to East Los Angeles residents and the surrounding communities. This year, the organization distributed over half a million pounds of food to families experiencing food insecurity.

We've distributed over $200,000 in direct financial payments to assist with utility and rental assistance, and we've retrieved over 1.5 million in federal and state refunds by way of our low-income tax preparation program. As you hear, Eastmont has been deeply entrenched in the unincorporated East Los Angeles community for 56 years. We are at the forefront. We are the boots on the ground, providing essential of services to our residents.

We are also those same boots on the ground who see the potential of East Los Angeles self determination afforded by AB 2986. Have you heard our roads lead to Rome? We say our roads lead to East Los Angeles. With five highways traversing our community, East Los Angeles is surrounded and cut through by an extensive freeway system. Unlike anywhere else in Los Angeles County, the community has paid the highest price, both economically, socially and with our health.

I focus on the freeways because this legacy has been left to us due to the lack of local control. East Los Angeles is a vibrant community with economic drivers requiring strategic economic development policies that could only be realized with long-running local control. Control of our revenues means control of public policy, investment in infrastructure, land use, public services, and public safety. How can East Los Angeles build substantial and diversified revenue sources if it cannot make economic development decisions for itself?

A decade ago, when LAFCO rejected the incorporation of East Los Angeles, they nor LA County provided a path forward to the community to ever become financially stable, a community left without direction or consideration. Not only do we support AB 2986, but we also would like to let the record reflect that we call for a feasibility study to be conducted by an independent third party under the direction of the East Los Angeles Task Force and a robust community engagement from the residents of East Los Angeles.

Lastly, although Eastmont has fomented a very close relationship with the LA County first district supervisors over the last few decades, we understand the limitations to this. Elected officials come and go, but residents are the ones that remain. We need a layer of government solely invested in East Los Angeles. It's time.

Thank you. Anybody else in the room wants to add in support? Please state your name, affiliation and position.

Seamus Garrity, Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition?

You can stay.

Good afternoon, honorable Committee Members. My name is Tami Omoto-Frias and I am the Senior Budget Deputy for Supervisor Hilda Solis of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. On behalf of Supervisor Solis, I am here to oppose AB 2986 which seeks to establish a task force to determine the feasibility of incorporating East Los Angeles.

Yesterday, as the author mentioned, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Supervisor Solis' motion, a legislative action to oppose AB 2986 and direct the county to engage LAFCO, our labor partners, and all of the East Los Angeles community and develop an analysis on the fiscal viability of East Los Angeles incorporation. And finally, the motion directed the county to look into forming a municipal advisory council or town council to further expand the longstanding community advisory councils.

Over 22 residents attended the meeting in person to testify in support of Supervisor Solis' motion, with 16 more calling in and two support letters received. And now although AB 2986 is being amended to provide reimbursement to LAFCO, there are still fundamental concerns with what the task force is being instructed to do. The Bill requires the task force, not LAFCO, to conduct the analysis and report back to the Legislature.

The Bill does not describe any role or engagement for LAFCO or the county other than establishing the members of the task force. We believe this was the intent of the Bill and why it was not shared with LAFCO, the county, or Supervisor Solis, who is the governing body of East LA. Any analysis to incorporate or create a special district should be led by LAFCO and include community stakeholder input, not the other way around.

LAFCO was established by the state to vet these types of jurisdictional proposals and as per LAFCO's Executive Director, Paul Novak, AB 2986 puts LAFCO in the position of proposing formation, making LAFCO both an applicant and the approving authority and the county must be included in the analysis since it is the county that collects the taxes and provides the services and if we have any discussion about municipal services, our labor partners must also be at the table because this would have significant impact on our workforce and throughout the process, our community stakeholders should be engaged, encouraged to participate, heard and kept updated.

But as stated in the Committee analysis, LAFCO's recent study most recent study in 2012 showed that East LA does not generate sufficient tax revenue to sustain statehood as required by state law. This would mean East LA residents and businesses would need to either increase taxes or reduce service levels which would be detrimental to the most vulnerable low-income residents living in the community. A city could also consider outsourcing these services to private industry.

However, we would consider that a reduction in the quality of services since they would no longer be provided by the county workforce. And for these reasons, Supervisor Solis stands with LAFCO, the County Board of Supervisors, our labor partners, CAPE SEIU 721, Local 1014, and ALADS and AFSCME, as well as several east of Los Angeles Committee Members. And together we oppose AB 2986.

Thank you. Second witness.

Mister Members, Member of the Committee, my name is Willie Pelot and I'm here representing my client, AFSCME Local 685, Deputy Probation Office of LA County. And we were opposed to the Bill as well, based on what my colleague have stated, based on that's happening in Los Angeles County. What I'm concerned is, is that when we take a look at what has taken place over the years, there's been at least two times that the voters have said no to this.

We believe strongly that if that's not enough, why should the Legislature get involved in the first place? Why should we bring it to Sacramento? And even knowing that the tax base is not there to support a city, and then having Los Angeles County, making sure that those services, which are the Members that I represent and live in East LA, those are our jobs.

We prepare to make sure that the streets, the road, the bridges, the schools, the parks, the libraries, all of that, those services are available to the 119,000 members in East LA, which are my members as well. And so, I've joined with 721 to come here today to say that we're opposed. We don't think that the State of California needs to get involved in this, because. Leave it to the voters. Take it back to the voters. They've already said no twice.

Let them make the choice if they want to incorporate into a city and then if they need to, because if that happens, they may need to raise revenues in order to make sure that those services that are now being provided by the County of Los Angeles are being provided underneath this new incorporated city. We have to take those things into consideration.

When you take a look at it, I have sympathy with everything that I've heard here from the proponents, but I think at the end of the day, it should be the voters that get to decide if they want to. And so let take it back to them again. Let them decide if they want to put it on the ballot and have a vote of the people that live there, the residents there, that include working families.

You know, oftentimes when these type of things happen, what happens is pretty soon we have a city come in that can't then generate the revenues. What happened to my workers? Contracting out, privatization, outsourcing. They live there. We don't need to do this because the voters should have the final say. And let's just let, if they want to put it on the ballot, let them put it on the ballot. Based on that, we are opposed to the Bill.

Thank you. Anybody else in the room that wants to add on in opposition? Please state your name, affiliation, and position on the Bill.

Good afternoon. Mark Isidro on behalf of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Kira Barnett, Assistant Deputy Director representing Director Mark Pestrella with LA County Public Works. Under the leadership of Supervisor Solis, we've enhanced central services in unincorporated communities, including East Los Angeles. And on behalf of LA County, I oppose the Bill.

Thank you. Seeing no one else. Committee Members, questions? Comments?Assembly Member, Kalra.

Thank you. And clearly, this is an issue that's not in my physical jurisdiction, but I certainly am always one that both cares about work and workers and the ability for services we provided, but also deeply care about residents being empowered in their own community. And I just want to, I noticed you were shaking your head when there was comments about it being put up for a vote. So, it's been put up for a vote a couple times in the past.

So, there have been five different attempts. I was really involved in the last, trying to find out more about what cityhood could look like in 2012.

But 2012 was the last time?

2012 was the last, was the last effort. It never got as far as to get onto the ballot. So, for them to say that it went to the voters, that's not true, because LAFCO, the Commission, was voted down. There was only one person who voted in favor. So, it stopped there, and it never went forward to the ballot so that the residents could make that determination.

Okay. And to the author, it seems like this is asking LAFCO to establish this task force to identify and evaluate potential impacts from corporate. So, t's basically like they'll do the deep dive and come out with a report that may or may not have recommendations, and then LAFCO, the board, supervisors, the local community, can look at that and then make a judgment as to whether, of what they want to do, if anything, after that. Is that correct?

Yes. Thank you. Assembly Member. That is correct. We're asking LAFCO to look at a feasibility study to determine two things. The opportunity for East Los Angeles to become a special district, which is a very different process than its own municipality, while at the same time studying if it even has the ability to become a municipality. We're asking for financial data. So one of the challenges and some of the, the obstacles that have been said is that East Los Angeles does not have it's a large tax base.

However, there are a lot of county buildings that are taxed exempt in East Los Angeles. So that also contributes to the reality that we're not generating any revenue or additional revenue and taxes. And in several redistricting efforts, areas that would generate a tax base for East Los Angeles have been given to other cities that are already incorporated. So, we are seeing the community of East Los Angeles slowly be chipped away of its potential tax revenue.

We want a study that says here's what's possible, not a study that says here's all the reasons why you can't do it. Why don't you work with the residents and say, here's how it's possible. Here's how we can potentially increase economic development, workforce development, add additional tax basis work with the residents, who, by the way, that 11 per se task force is in collaboration with LAFCO, appointed by LAFCO, in collaboration with LA County.

So, we're not trying to, you know, not work with the already existing governing body. We simply are saying the people, the residents of East Los Angeles, deserve to have a seat at the table to establish economic opportunity, additional tax revenues, and see a financial transparent report annually, as was promised, and has never been fulfilled, for the people of the community to be able to make their own decision, their own determination, and finally put it on the ballot. Mister Pelote, I 100% agree with you.

I think we all agree with you. Let the voters decide. But if the voters don't have the information, the data, the study, how will it ever get to the voters?

And it's actually an interesting point on the tax base because I know that's an argument used against statehood for DC, is that they don't have enough of the tax base because there's so many federal buildings there that they don't get property tax or other kinds of taxes from. And a report out, or a task force study with the report out could show that maybe there isn't enough tax base and that could be used as an argument against about initiative too.

So, it's not like the results from this are necessarily going to lead to incorporating as its own municipality. It could very well give other information how you can like, like revitalize the economy of the local community there while it remains, while it doesn't get incorporated. Like there's a lot of options here, I presume, that that could be the outcome. And I just want to give the author the opportunity to continue to have conversations on this.

I know that there's obviously, you know, we all work with the County of Los Angeles as an important part, and they're not just for, for those in LA, but for the state. So, this is not a matter of choosing sides.

I think it's more of a matter of like, you know, allowing the opportunity for you to, in my opinion, move this forward, have more vetting, have more opposition critiques of it, which is not always a bad thing, but at least allows the opportunity for those that live there that would like to see this happen be heard as well. And so, I'll certainly support it today to allow you that opportunity, and we'll go ahead and move the Bill.

Assembly Member Ward.

Thank you. So, one thing that is important, to just make sure that we're asking the subject area that we're talking about within East Los Angeles communities, is that wholly within your assembly district, or does that cross boundaries to any other colleague?

Great question, assemblymember. It's only within my assembly district. It does not impact anyone else.

Or are they in an area of influence, say, like, you know, maybe, is it right on the border? Are there other colleagues? I know you're the only author to date on this. Just want to make sure that there might be some kind of like, regional awareness, maybe, or at least no opposition that you're aware of.

I'm sorry.

Have you consulted any colleagues that, like, might be, might, might find this of interest, given that it's a very hyper-local, longstanding issue.

From the conversations that I have had with colleagues, one, there has been a surprise reaction that East LA is not a city, that East LA, too is not part of the City of Los Angeles, that East LA has no local representation outside of the Supervisor, the State Assembly and the State Senate. So overall, there's been a general awareness campaign.

And even within the residents of East Los Angeles, some think that they are a part of the City of Los Angeles, because oftentimes we have other elected leaders from within the City of LA come to East LA to ask for support, to get the vote out, to get Latino voter engagement, since we are very hyper, hyper-local Latino community with a lot of historical political background.

And so sometimes there is confusion even within East LA residents that they are a part of the City of Los Angeles. And then there's a big surprise when no, you don't have a City Council Member and no, you're not voting for mayor.

Certainly, a study, and that's all this does, helps to provide that information. Ultimately, any decision on incorporating would have to go before voters. So that can be helpful just to know what we're talking about here, because clearly, this is a conversation that's been going on for more than a decade. And I'm wondering to those that are here in testimony, residents, sort of, what are you hoping to maybe achieve that you're not feeling that you're getting right now?

Like, why this longstanding sort of stalemate and this drive to incorporate?

Thank you. So, I've been, like I mentioned, longtime resident, and I think one of the most important aspects is that there are a number of community advocates, but there's no centralized local municipality where we can come together and say, hey, this is what we don't have a community plan in place, for example, community plan that says, hey, economic development. Speaking of tax base, we're seeing a number of affordable housing and just development in General, which we know are subsidized. We have no say in that.

A number of the ordinances that are passed through LA County, they're making decisions for all unincorporated areas, because, again, we don't have a city council or a mayor. And many times, we do try and make our voice heard and let them know that we are in support or opposition or in opposition of a certain ordinance. And we feel like our voices are sort of drowned out because we just feel marginalized. And that's been happening for decades.

I talked to other folks on our board, and it just seems to be a very common sentiment. So, we want to make sure that there is engagement, civic engagement. As we mentioned, it's not about how well the supervisors are doing, but it's the fact that they represent 2 million people. We're 120,000 residents. There are other cities with much less smaller populations that are cities. And it's about being able to come together and, you know, the other folks are making decisions for us on our behalf.

And I think it's only right that we as residents are involved in part of those conversations, and that's not always the case. And, you know, even if I'm being honest, that, you know, we've had our MCAT meetings and we've asked Supervisor to attend our meetings and we've asked the staff, and we still haven't seen her in the last four years. So, things of that nature, we want that direct access to have conversations. But our, our residents, homeowners, business owners feel like voiceless and powerless.

And that's one of the worst feelings you could ever feel that you cannot go to your local body and entity and feel like you're being heard when our quality of life is being impacted on a daily basis.

Well, and I just, again, all this can certainly come from discussion that's based on information that such a study would produce. But being careful what you wish for, sometimes it's a little bit more difficult to fully have everything within, maybe coming down to a tax base issue as opposed to what county services can otherwise provide.

I'm thinking in my county, for example, a lot of our unincorporated communities have great libraries, have great partnerships with the sheriff's outposts, I guess, or different substations versus trying to the tax base to be able to provide it for yourself. But again, all that comes through, I think, you know, the information that this could provide.

And we understand that too. And we feel, you know, it's. Sorry.

I would encourage the author to just continue to make sure there's, you know, kind of growing support locally for the need to be able to see the study all the way through, to maybe give other colleagues and subsequent votes, you know, more confidence that this is worthy to get behind because of that local power. For that reason, I want to be supportive of you today as well, to sort of see where this goes. And you'd mentioned, one other question.

You mentioned that possibly an outcome of the study could be a special district, very different outcome there. What? A special district for what? For utilities, for health care?

Sure. There is a Special District Association, actually, that is here testifying on other bills. It's a secondary way of having local elected representation that can also work with the county without the area becoming its own city if it's too far-fetched based on tax revenue.

That's a very different outcome. We have a special district for a very particular purpose with a very narrow mission as opposed to forming a municipality. But I'll look forward to sort of seeing where this conversation goes, and happy to support you today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member. Sorry

So, I find this very interesting. It's not within, it's near my assembly district, but I don't border this area. What I always found interesting is East LA is unincorporated, yet you have Oil Heights, which is part of City of LA. So, I always found that very interesting. And I know a lot of people have been confused about that, but I'm curious to know. The last time this was tried was in 2012. It never actually went before the voters.

Prior to that, did it go before the voters the first time around? If you recollect, because two times were mentioned.

There's been five times, from my understanding, that it's been proposed for incorporation. But only one time, I think in 1963 is when it was actually rejected by voters. That was the only time from its history. All the other times it hasn't gone up for vote. And then just to reiterate some comments earlier from the last fiscal study, I think this is. I think Assemblymember Ward made a perfect point. We want to see the financial revenue and expenses.

It's safe to say that east unincorporated East Los Angeles could be paying a higher proportion of fees for contract services than any other city cities are allowed to contract and negotiate that. Does an incorporated east delay have that opportunity? We don't know. So we are just asking for a fiscal analysis that is fair. I'm personally requesting an independent fiscal analysis that allows East LA residents to review and discuss some of those receipts with, unfortunately, LAFCO. So. But yes, from my understanding, it's only gone up once.

And in conversation were conversations held with Supervisor Solis prior to the introduction of this Bill.

Stakeholders have been attempting to speak to the supervisors for many years. Part of the stakeholders that are in support of this policy asked her to do it five years ago and there was no additional traction done to that. I spoke with those same stakeholders at a East LA Chamber breakfast, which we should all attend in our community, that's who we represent, and I was asked to consider it.

I was a volunteer in 2012 alongside with Kristie and several, Isaias, and several others to gather the signatures in 2012 to see the financial study and feasibility for East Los Angeles. I've connected with the Supervisor in person and we have not had the conversation. I've reached out to her multiple times, left her voicemails. She has not returned my call.

And I'm just curious from the opposition. So you're against having this study done at all or.

It's not the study, it's who is doing the study and what the study is actually looking at. It's not that LAFCO is in the Bill to do the study. The task force is the one that's responsible for doing the analysis or somehow doing the analysis and reporting it to the Legislature.

The people that need to be at the table when we do the analysis is the county, because the county has all the data and LAFCO, who is actually responsible and established by the state to do the vetting of these type of proposals. But the way that this has come forward, where a task force is going to be driving all of it, it makes it problematic because it doesn't ensure that the appropriate people are at the table when we're looking at this data.

The study that comes to the Legislature is only as good as the data that they receive. And that's why we think it's really important that it not be led by the task force, but that the task force does have a role. We definitely want to hear from the community. That is not the case. I would also like to address the question earlier about how many times it was voted down. This is the fifth attempt.

The first two, there were two attempts that were voted down by the voters. One did not have sufficient signatures and did not move forward. And the last one was determined by LAFCO to not have sufficient funding base, a revenue base, just to make the record clear.

And then, so the two times it supposedly went to the voters, but one of them, it didn't have enough signatures.

Bot times it was voted down, one time it didn't go to the voters because it didn't have enough signatures. And the most recent time, in 2012, LAFCO determined there was not a sufficient tax base.

Was there ever something on the ballot where actually voters voted for it?

Yes, twice. It was voted down twice.

But so it was on the ballot twice.

It was voted. And this is from the 1960s and through the decades ahead. Right?

The most recent time that this came up was in 2012 with LAFCO, and it did not come to the voters because LAFCO determined that there was insufficient funding. Also, I just want to make it clear that the stakeholder process is very important to Supervisor Solis always. And so no matter what the process were, which would be with a county study, and we will go, go forward with the county study, we will always include the stakeholders. It's important that we hear from our residents.

So, I just want to also acknowledge one of the other questions, which was whether or not the author had approached our office and the author had not at that time when the Bill was introduced or when the Bill was amended, not the LAFCO or the county or the Supervisor's Office had been addressed or had been, had shared the Bill ahead of time.

And I'm curious to know, if the appropriate people are at the table, would the county be okay with having this study done?

Well, we are. We are. The Supervisor did a motion to do the study, to do a study and analysis. So, we will be at the table, obviously, and LAFCO. So that is something that we are doing separate and apart from the Bill.

So, this is something that was decided at the last night's meeting?

At the board meeting, at this Board of Supervisors meeting. Yes.

And maybe I want to hear from the author, since you watched the board meeting last night, I know you mentioned that this Bill was opposed and that there was going to be a study, if I'm correct.

That is correct, assemblymember. So let me just clarify the record. LAFCO and LA County have been involved with our office in conversations since the introduction of this policy. We can show you the emails, we can show you the receipts, whether that information was shared with the appropriate channels, that, you know, the way that Sacramento works with LA County, that's a whole other conversation. Whether, you know, the supervisor does not want to engage in conversation at this point, that's another conversation as well.

Yesterday's Board of Supervisors' motion, Supervisor Solis made a motion to oppose this policy while at the same time working on her own policy, which I read in my earlier remarks that actually does a portion of the Bill. And we're actually thankful that the supervisor is listening to the voices of residents that want to see the feasibility study. We're grateful for that, and I think that's a good direction.

But she's directing the Chief Office, the Chief Executive Office, municipal and unincorporated area services to engage LAFC, labor partners, and relevant county departments to report within 120 days, in writing, the county and consultant costs related to the past two LA incorporation studies with estimated projected costs in 2024, impacts and diversions to other resources under LAFCO purview, impacts on resources, studies, programs, and county purview summary of findings, et cetera. So, there is a portion of the Bill that the county is moving forward with.

However, the voices of residents in this process is still missing. It is still a top-down structure that does not allow the incorporation of local residents to be a part of the process. Residents are asking and have been begging the county to have a voice and a seat at the table. Every governing body deserves to have that. Every democratic process deserves to have that.

What I'm hearing the county say is that they're bothered or frustrated that potentially it appears that LAFCO is not part of the process. That to me, sounds like a possible amendment to work on the Bill. But we have not had any conversations on what's possible, only complete objection. And that's not how we represent our community.

So if there's a possibility for us to figure it out, I'm more than happy to meet with any stakeholder to move the process to hear the voices of unincorporated East LA residents to be a part of the table. If the task force, we haven't decided there's nothing in the Bill that says who needs to be on the 11-person task force. I welcome labor to be a part of that task force.

Welcome business owners to be a part of the task force, homeowners to be a part of the task force. Definitely, LA County staff and LAFCO staff to be a part of the table to finally really have a real conversation about economic development in East Los Angeles, increasing tax revenue, and having a local voice in self-determination for East Los Angeles.

And the efforts from the 1960s to the 2012 showcase that there is a constant need for residents of East LA that have been fighting the county for a local voice. That's all we're asking for.

Thank you. And I do think that conversation needs to be had, and hopefully, both sides can meet and have these conversations. I just realized or found out that there's 119,000 residents in East LA, which I was not aware of. There are cities within my assembly district that have far less residents than that. And they don't have their own police departments, they don't have their own fire departments. They contract out with the sheriffs, they contract out with LA County fire, and they're able to do it.

Some of the cities that I have, like Cudahy and Bell, probably have around maybe 20,000 or less residents, and they have a City Council that represents them. And of course, they also rely on the county. So the county's board of supervisors, for me and my assembly district, it would be Supervisor Han. That's a great ally to my assembly district and to the cities that I represent.

So, it's not to say that the county is not supportive of the cities, but I also believe that conversations obviously need to be held here. And I'm hoping that we get to a place where maybe everybody feels heard and dialogue is had. And so, I will be supporting this Bill today just to have those conversations, because it is essential. I would recommend maybe reaching out, like Assembly Member Ward had mentioned, maybe reaching out to Assembly Member Miguel Santiago so that way he's aware.

Maybe Mike Fong, because they represent areas that are surrounding this district. And I don't know if you've had conversations with them as well because they're in close proximity, but hopefully everyone just sits down, has conversations, maybe figure this out. I will be supporting this Bill and I'll see how it goes once it gets to the, the Floor and I'll reserve my vote for then. But I appreciate all of you for being here.

To the residents from East LA, thank you for being here and being so civically engaged.

Thank you. I've seen no other Committee Members wanting to comment and you've accepted the amendments. Assembly Member Wendy Carillo, would you like to close?

Thank you, Mister Chair. East Los Angeles residents want transparency and accountability as to how their tax dollars are being spent and how they can be more involved and engaged in infrastructure projects, economic development, small business improvement, workforce development and overall betterment of county services. East Los Angeles residents, myself included, are simply tired of being called a disenfranchised community. We want to see prosperity. We want to thrive. We want local autonomy to be able to be at the table to make decisions.

And I really look forward to actually having a conversation with the supervisor as well as our labor partners as to what this could potentially look like and really establish a way in which we say, yes, it's possible. Yes, we can do economic development. Yes, we can increase our tax base. Yes, we can do all these things. And we are grateful for all the services that the county has provided. But it is time.

It is time for local representation in East Los Angeles, and all of the previous efforts should showcase that there is a desire for it. 2012 is a very different year than 2023. Let's see the study, let's see what happens and really give voice to the people of East Los Angeles. And with that, I respectfully request an aye vote.

I believe we have a motion by Assembly Member Kalra. Is there a second? There's a second by Assembly Member Pacheco, I will be supporting this and I'll tell you why. Some of you may know that I'm a city planner by profession for about 20 years. I actually process annexations for the City of Palmdale. Those annexations in the city were sometimes initiated by residents because they feel that they lack the services that they need from the county.

Some other times they're initiated by cities, in this case, the City of Palmdale. And knowing that incorporating a new city takes a lot of tax base, a lot of services that have to be provided, police, fire, healthcare, all of those things that independent cities provide. Some cities have to contract for those services, but there has to be a tax base of interest to the county not to want to let that portion of the county go.

Typically, residential areas don't provide a tax base necessary for the economics of the city. In this case, I do believe with the comments made by my colleagues that it is a feasibility study. It's going to be a choice. The feasibility study may show that it's still not possible. However, it may show that now there is enough tax space, sales tax space, and other resources that the area could provide for its area to be independent, to be a new city.

I believe it was 1991, the last city that incorporated in LA County. I think that was the City of Malibu. They did that in 1991. Much smaller city, different circumstances, obviously. But again, having that experience in processing annexations, knowing the reasons why cities want to do that, and knowing why other cities do not want to give up the tax base that they have. But again, going back to what the Bill will do is just a feasibility study.

And again, if it shows that it's still not feasible for East LA to incorporate, that may still be the case, but very well, it may be the opposite this time. That now the tax base exists for this to be incorporated so that the residents have a voice and that they can have the services that cities, independent cities can provide. So, with that, my recommendation is an aye. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll call]

The motion is to pass to Appropriations. It is 4-0 right now. We still have other Members that need to add on and we'll leave the roll open. Thank you. Will be passed as amended to Appropriations. Is Schiavo okay? Yeah, but she has to do this one because.

We're going to be fast.

Agenda item number two, AB 1820, by Assemblymember Schiavo. When you're ready.

Thank you so much, Mister Chair and members; I appreciate the opportunity to present AB 1820. I will be accepting the committee amendments today. AB 1820, which passed out of the Housing Committee with bipartisan support, is a simple transparency measure that allows housing developers to have knowledge of development fees prior to committing shovels to the ground.

Hi. A 2021 study conducted by the Turner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley found inconsistent compliance with AB 1483 from 2019, which required cities and counties to post these fees and schedules on their websites. Many jurisdictions had incomplete, unreliable fees or hard-to-find information. Knowledge of these fees are critical because many of these fees add up to 20% of the cost of a home, which is the tipping point for many people having access to affordable housing.

AB 1820 provides guard rails for affordable housing developers to have predictability. My measure takes the surprise out of unknown exorbitant fees that could potentially threaten an affordable housing development. I want to thank the committee consultant for working on this measure. She's been working hard on amendments up to the last minute and after hours, and there was a lot of back and forth, and so we appreciate that work from the staff and stakeholders.

I know that we have some additional fine-tuning to work on, and we'll continue that dialogue with committee consultants as the measure moves forward. And here to testify and support, I have sponsor Michael Lane from the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, or SPUR, and maybe West Stage Watcher Walker. We don't know. He left. Okay, never mind. So we got, we got Michael, though, which is great.

Glad to be here, Mister Chair and members. Michael, I am from SPUR public policy think tank in the San Francisco Bay Area. As mentioned, I'm calling this kind of a no surprises bill. The idea is if we can have the developers engage early with the local jurisdictions, they can get a sense of what those fees are because they can be millions of dollars, and it can really make a difference in terms of the feasibility of the project.

And we don't touch how those fees are determined or the formulas used, et cetera. Nexus studies. We don't touch any of that in the bill. We just want more clarity earlier in the process so we can actually catch errors or there are discrepancies and avoid the potential for litigation. We've been working with local governments and pleased to do so, and we've gotten to a really good place.

We've demonstrated, I think, with these amendments that the author is accepting the intent of the bill, which is really to clarify and get the information out there. But it does not touch vesting rights, for example, under SB 330 for housing projects. But the idea is just to make sure that we've got the transparency needed to make housing development as feasible as possible. Thank you very much. Appreciate your support.

Thank you. Anybody in the room that wants to add in support, please state your name, affiliation, and position.

Good afternoon. Rafa Sonnenfeld with YIMBY Action. In the interest of brevity, I won't list the nearly two dozen local chapters across California that support this bill. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Chairman and members of the committee, Cornelius Burke with the California Building Industry Association, proud co-sponsor of the bill, and strong support. It's a good government bill. Thank you.

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public Affairs, on behalf of SPUR, Habitat for Humanity of California, and Sandhill Properties.

Corey Smith, on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition and support. Thank you.

Bob Naylor, on behalf of Fieldsted, in support.

Natalie Spievack with Housing California, in support.

Adam Briones, California Community Builders, in support.

Brooke Pritchard, on behalf of California YIMBY, as the other co-spend sponsor.

Nico Molina, on behalf of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and support. Thank you.

Vanessa Chavez with the California Association of Realtors in support. Apologize for not getting our letter and on time. Thank you.

Any of the witnesses in opposition? Primary witnesses?

Mark Neuberger, on behalf of the California State Association of Counties and Rural County Representatives of California. We're really close on amendments from this one. There's just kind of just some very minor tweaks to make on the disclaimer language on this one, but I believe we're really close. I want to thank the author and the sponsors in the Committee for working with us on this bill.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Author proponents Anthony Tannehill with California Special Districts Association, also with portfolio today for California Association of Recon Park Districts. I, too, feel that we're a little close. Just a couple of tweaks regarding the disclaimer language, the timing of the final peace schedule, and clarification on exactly what developments they do involve. And I really appreciate the movement on this getting very close; really good conversations with the proponents today. Appreciate the grace from the author and staff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The rest of the speakers, please state your name, affiliation and position.

Obed Franco. On behalf of the California Fire Chiefs Association and the California, sorry, the Fire Districts of California in currently opposition, but we are working with the author's office. We've had some productive and positive conversations that we hope will remedy our concerns.

Thank you, Obed.

Good afternoon, Chairman and members. Brady Guertin, on behalf of the League of California Cities, respectfully opposed unless amended, but have appreciated the hard work and look forward to continuing those conversations. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Chair and members. Jason Ikerd, on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association, extremely quickly, with the amendments taken earlier this month, we're happy to be moving to a neutral position on the bill. Appreciate the author's hard work with us and the remaining opponents.

Thank you, committee members. Any questions, comments on what's in front of us? Seeing none. Assemblymember Schiavo, would you like to close?

Respectfully request an aye vote. Thank you, Senator, very much.

And you did take the amendments?

Yes.

Thank you for presenting this bill today. With the amendments, I will be voting aye. The motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations Committee. Secretary, please call the roll. Oh, I'm sorry, is there now? We have a first and a second. Thank you. Please call the roll. Yes, as amended; do-pass as amended to the Appropriations Committee.

[Roll Call]

4-0. We leave the roll open for other members, too. Thank you, Assemblymember Schiavo. With that, we move on to agenda item number five, AB, 1893 by Assemblymember Wicks. Thank you for being patient.

Hello. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hi.

A couple bills in front of you today, we'll start with AB 1893. This is a bill to modernize builder's remedy. First, I'd like to thank staff for working with us on this. I'm accepting all of the amendments today, and I'd like to thank the Chair and staff to continue working with us on some of these tricky city planning issues that remain. I have no doubt, Mr. Chair, you'll be very invaluable as the bill moves forward, even out of your Committee.

So thank you for all your help. Let me start off by describing what the builder's remedy is. Then I can share why it needs modernizing, and then I'll finish with a description of how we're planning on modernizing it.

The builder's remedy is part of a housing element law that says if a city or county does not have a housing element that is compliant with state law, that city or county cannot deny a housing project merely because it does not comply with a local general plan or zoning. Essentially, in jurisdictions without a compliant housing element, it allows a developer to propose a project that can be of any size, anywhere in the jurisdiction.

If that sounds scary, that's on purpose because it's meant to compel cities and counties to complete their housing elements, which we really, really want cities and counties to do. We want cities and counties to have compliant housing element. Why? Because we have a massive housing crisis, and the housing element is the contract between the local government and the state. That shows how the local government is going to help solve our housing crisis.

It shows how they're going to zone to allow housing at all levels of affordability, it shows how they are removing constraints from the housing approval process, and it shows how they are going to affirmatively further fair housing. When a city or county has a compliant housing element, that means that the state thinks it is doing its part to address a collective societal problem. Unfortunately, we have over 200 jurisdictions, 40% of the total in the state, that are out of compliance with housing element law today.

Those jurisdictions are essentially saying that solving the housing crisis is not their problem, but it is in fact their neighbor's problem. This is where the builder's remedy comes into play. Theoretically, in a noncompliant city and county, we'd be seeing lots of builder's remedy projects that result in lots of housing. So that ignoring state law did not mean an end housing production. Unfortunately, the builder's remedy has not functioned in that way.

Yes, there are now at least 100 builders remedies, projects proposed in the state, and we appreciate the efforts of those developers to get housing built in these jurisdictions, but not one has yet to be approved. We've observed that those projects have a hard time getting to the finish line because the law includes enough ambiguities that make the projects difficult to process and easy to delay. This riskiness is also a turn-off to a lot of developers that otherwise would like to build in these cities.

The law also includes an affordability requirement of 20%, which sounds noble and lofty, but actually makes most housing projects economically infeasible. The result is that the current builder's remedy isn't enough of a credible threat to get those 200-plus jurisdictions into compliance with state law, which is why we need to modernize the law.

Working with our sponsor, Attorney General Rob Bonta, we have crafted a bill that removes any ambiguity about where the builder's remedy would apply, how much density would be allowed, and what objective standards would apply. It also enhances feasibility by reducing the affordability requirement of something that does not render projects infeasible. Now, I know there are those who don't like the reduction in required affordability, and to that I say 20% of nothing is nothing.

We need something that is feasible and that will result in actual affordable units in noncompliant jurisdictions. We also know that there are cities and counties who might be concerned that this bill overrides their zoning to facilitate too much housing. To that I say, please complete your housing element. But I'll add, I know that the 6th cycle was very challenging and I'm committed to working with the cities and HCD to make a better process for all.

We want 100% of cities and counties to have compliant housing element and to be doing their part to address the housing crisis. But cities and counties, if you refuse to comply with state law, there should be a consequence, and I can think of no better consequence to stopping housing than to allowing a lot of housing. Here to speak on behalf of the bill are Jana Staniford, representing the Department of Justice, and Adam Briones, Executive Director of the California Community Builders.

We are also joined by Adam Fish, special assistant Attorney General, who can help answer questions.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. I'm Jana Staniford with the Attorney General's Office as a legislative advocate, and I have with me Alex Fish, here to answer questions. On behalf of Attorney General Rob Bonta, I want to first start by thanking the author for bringing this important bill. The builder's remedy has been on the book since 1990.

It was intended to serve as a compliance tool to encourage local governments to adopt their housing elements and to provide a path for housing development even when local governments fail to do so. Unfortunately, the lack of clarity in the existing builder's remedy statute has led to local disputes and litigation, which is delaying housing projects. AB 1893 would clarify the builder's remedy and bring it into the 21st century. A lot has happened since 1990.

This bill would align the builder's remedy with a plethora of other state laws that have been passed since the builder's remedy went on the books 30-plus years ago. Like AB 2011, SB 35 and 423, and recent revisions to the Housing Accountability Act and density bonus law.

The bill also aligns the builders remedy with other state priorities that have emerged since the builders remedy was adopted, like sustainable community strategies promoting housing development and urban infill and near transit centers, and environmental justice considerations like keeping residential housing away from industrial uses. We want cities to plan for the future, but if they won't, the builder's remedy should promote housing development in places where it makes sense to do so by modern-day standards.

AB 1893 would also recognize that housing affordability has spiraled out of control. Hardworking Californians at all income levels are struggling to find and afford housing. We need more affordable and mixed-income housing to be built, and we need many more small projects to be built. Like townhomes, which tend to have lower price points than single-family homes.

AB 1893 would make the builder's remedy work better, would provide clarity for developers, city planners, and courts, and would unlock additional opportunities to build housing to meet the needs of hard-working Californians. We respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Adam Briones and I'm CEO of California Community Builders, a nonprofit working to close the racial wealth gap, focusing on housing and home ownership. I'm here today in strong support of AB 1893, which will modernize and strengthen the Housing Accountability Act. California Community Builders believes that AB 1893 is essential common-sense legislation to address an issue that, frankly, should not even exist.

Cities that don't follow the rules when it comes to planning for housing, which means they don't follow the rules when it comes to ensuring that all families have a place to live. When the act was first passed, the median home cost five times the average annual salary. By 2020, that same home cost nine times the average salary. And over the past 20 years, moderate-income Californians have shrunk as a portion of the population by a whopping 35%.

In short, AB 1893 will bring the Housing Accountability Act into the 21st century. I'd also like to highlight the fact that a modernized act would incentivize the construction of small developments up to 10 units by making these projects more feasible. These small, multifamily projects, like duplexes and townhomes, are more affordable than similarly located single-family homes and serve the needs of more economically diverse households. This is important because smaller developers from the community, especially small developers of color, are unlikely to build large residential towers.

But projects of under 10 units are feasible for builders that don't have deep pockets and do one project in one community at a time. California Community Builders looks forward to a future where housing unaffordability and the racial wealth gap have been left in the past. But until then, we need legislation like AB 1893 to ensure that when cities don't follow the rules, there are clear, consistent, and reasonable consequences. Thank you for your consideration of this important measure, and I respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you. Any other members in the room that want to add in support, please state your name, affiliation, and position.

Good afternoon again. Corey Smith on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition in support.

Bob Mueller for Fuel Stead in support.

Keith Coolidge on behalf of AARP California in support.

Matthew Benji with Inner City Law Center, Skid Row pro-bono legal provider in strong support.

Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY in support.

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of Habitat for Humanity of California, Sandhill Build, CASA, Buckeye Properties, SPUR, and United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

Thank you. Rafa Sonnenfeld on behalf of YIMBY Action and YIMBY Law. We currently have no position. We appreciate conversations with the author and sponsor and look forward to continuing this conversation. Thank you.

Angie Manetti with California Apartment Association in support thank you.

Thank you.

Graciela Castillo-Krings, on behalf of the California Housing Consortium in support.

Good afternoon Chair and Members of the Committee Cornelius Burke with the California Building Industry Association. We don't have a formal position, but we had a great conversation with the author, the rockstar housing champion author, and we look forward to those conversations. Thank you.

Thank you.

Rebecca Marcus on behalf of Leading Age California in support.

Thank you. Are there any principal witnesses in opposition.

Good afternoon again, Chair and Members. Brady Guertin on behalf of the League of California Cities. Good to see everyone. It's been a busy afternoon, but wanted to say we, first, appreciate the conversations we've had with Assembly Member Wicks. It's been very productive, and we also appreciate the approach of putting guardrails on the builder's remedy. We think that's a positive situation. That said, we do still have an opposed unless amended position. We believe that this is an opportunity to help our cities get into compliance with housing element law.

But I think we need to specify how we can do that. You know, one of the issues that we hear from our cities has been HCD doesn't tell us exactly what we need to do get in compliance or it varies by reviewer. And whether that's staffing resources or something else, I think the state and cities really need to work together on finding ways to do that so we can avoid things like the builder's remedy first. And this is a good ramp to do that. So we'll look forward to those continued conversations and appreciate all the conversations we've had. And for that, I'm happy to answer any other questions. Thank you.

Anybody else in the room that wants to add in opposition to the bill? Seeing none. Committee Members, any questions, comments? Assembly Member Kalra.

Thank you. I certainly support the premise of this bill, especially because we're finding far too many jurisdictions, as we see, even like with state litigation occurring on a pretty regular basis, especially with cities that just refuse to be part of the solution when it comes to our housing crisis. A couple questions. One, I know we had discussed in the last committee was kind of like having some minimum density. Are those conversations occurring?

Yeah, as we discussed last week, we're having those conversations, and we'll continue...

It's only been a week, so I don't expect...

Yeah, so we don't have amendments on that yet, but I'm open to it. And obviously, I know you and Assembly Member Lee both flagged that in Housing Committee.

Yeah. The thing is that, through the builder's remedy, it's a win win in the sense that it's a win for the need to build more housing, but it's also a win for developers. I mean, they're getting the opportunity to build in a situation where otherwise they may not be able to build. And so we want to make sure that opportunities maximize for the public benefit. And in terms of getting the amount of housing, as much housing as we can, within reason.

And the other thing is that I know that under density bonus law, developers get to, with a 35% increase in density, they build it 20% affordable. And I know there's a reduction in affordable here with some, I assume, presumption that they can't pencil out 20%. And I just, I find that hard to believe because, again, just like, to your point, you know, 20% of nothing is zero. Well, if they're getting 80%, you know, 80% of nothing is zero as well.

And without this, they wouldn't be getting that either. Right. And so it kind of goes both ways. And so I just, you know, I'm so... I'm certainly supportive. Gonna vote for it. There's no way I wouldn't, but... Especially with you leading the effort. But I just, you know, I'm just curious as to why we feel that we can't push more on affordable.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's born out of data that we've, you know, Terner Center and others have opined on this. And this is always, I think, with inclusionary zoning, the rub of, like, how much can you include and still have it pencil out and make it work? And I think that's always the balancing act we're really struggling with on this.

One of the things we did in Housing Committee was, when we did the reduction from 20 to 10, make the 10% very low income, because I think those are the folks that are, that we need to make sure we're helping the most. Right. Our very low income folks who are either experiencing housing insecurity, on the brink of experiencing housing insecurity, to make sure we're really targeting that population. So that was one of the amendments that we made.

I know there was discussions that Chair and I had around seeing if we could increase. The reality where I'm at is I want to make sure that this is an actual credible threat. You know, I might say threat, but... Or consequence, rather, for cities that aren't, you know, doing their work. And again, if your city or county is adhering to a housing element is intact and it's approved by HCD, this bill does not apply to your city or county. And it is, and it is my hope that this never applies because everyone's doing their part. So I'm happy to continue the conversations on the inclusionary piece of it.

On kind of mixing the two kind of questions together. If there is some kind of spectrum of density that's allowed, if we can get some kind of floor through your conversations, that may be, like, the lower they are in the spectrum on the number of units, the higher the percentage of affordable, and the more they build, they can reduce that. You know what I'm saying? So it gives them more incentive to build more.

And you're still getting a lot of affordable out of it, even if that percentage kind of drops on a sliding scale the more units they build. So you're kind of getting, again, another win win type situation. Just, you know.

And we'll certainly be making more amendments on the bill. So I appreciate that. And as I mentioned last week, I want to make sure you and Assembly Member Lee are part of those conversations.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Assembly Member Pacheco.

May I add something? I'm sorry. From an enforcement angle. Alex Fisch from the Attorney General's Office. Is it important? Is that me? Well, welcome.

It's construction. Yeah.

This is an enforcement provision, so it's not meant to be a construction provision. The Density Bonus Law makes sense to tweak it and you have the ability to come back and get it just right. The question from my perspective, what we like is that the builder's remedy is not something that we have to litigate typically. We don't have to go to a city that hasn't complied, hasn't prepared a housing element, and do builders remedy. It's self enforcing and it's sort of the, it's crowd sourced enforcement.

So the question you kind of have to ask yourself as a policymaking body, I think, is do we want years in down markets where there won't be any effective... This entire component, our most powerful incentive to get housing element compliance, do you want it to not work? Because if the projects don't pencil, cities know that it's not a credible remedy.

Assembly Member Pacheco.

To the author, thank you for bringing multiple bills regarding housing forward. I know this is your space. But I do want to mention that I know there's bad actors, but there's also cities that try to comply with their housing element, and they can't. So I just want to reiterate what I had said before because of the cities, more specifically within my Assembly District. I have a couple of cities that they submit their plans to HCD, and they get rejected.

They get comments, they comply, they submit again, they get rejected again, and maybe a staff shortage, but it's not through their fault. They're not bad actors. They're trying their best. They reach out to my office. They're seeking for help. So I just wanted us to be mindful of those cities that are trying to comply and aren't able to. But I know you're going to be working with opposition and hopefully Cal Cities will get to a neutral position. So I'm really optimistic, especially knowing you. You always work with opposition. But I did want to mention that.

Yeah. And some of my cities aren't compliant either in my district. So I, and I've heard some of those concerns as well around just the challenges with HCD, which is definitely something that we have to fix for sure.

And then you have some cities that like, you know, we're three years into this process and they have no intention of, you know. And so I think it's figuring out how do you ensure that the cities that are really trying to get there and trying to do the right thing and are genuinely trying to work towards being in compliance are able to do so in a way that's productive.

And I know also local governments are constrained in terms of staff resources and all the other kind of challenges that our local communities are faced with. But I'm happy to continue the conversation to see if there's ways that we can help fix that.

Seeing no one else want to have comments or questions. Would you like to close?

Just respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. And you stated that you accept the amendments. Thank you, your staff, for working with us in the Committee. I want to say that you are truly a champion in this challenge that we have. I mentioned that, when I first got elected, first came in last year, coming from local government, being a city planner, knowing the challenges of going through the entitlement process and not actually seen those projects being built because of the lack of funding. I do believe still, and I will say it again, that we need to start thinking of some form of redevelopment in the housing spectrum so that we can incentivize those developers that want to be partners with cities and the state in building the housing units that we need.

And I also think that we also need to start looking at CEQA reform. Those are conversations that are tough to have, but I believe that if we don't have those conversations, that would be very difficult for us to be able to build housing units that we need. I look forward to continue working with you. You're a true champion, on this issue. With that, I will... Do we have a motion? First and a second. Thank you. With that, I recommend an aye vote. Thank you.

The motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

It is 3-0. We'll leave the roll open for other Members to add on. And you have another bill, agenda item number 11, AB 2343.

When you're ready. Thank you, Mister Chair and members, I'm here to present AB 2243 a bill to clarify and expand AB 2011. AB 2011, also known as the Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act of 2022, was a bill I authored in 2022. It allows the development of multifamily infill housing in areas zoned for parking, retail and office. In return for making these housing developments by right, developers need to provide affordable housing on site and ensure that construction workers are paid the prevailing wage.

Since the enactment of AB 2011, there have been substantial changes to the economy, including the collapse of demand for office space, the reduced demand for brick-and-mortar retail, and an increase in interest rates. Those changes have created both the demand and opportunity to open up sites where housing might be economically feasible. Additionally, since AB 2011's enactment, housing developers and local governments have identified aspects of the law's language that are subject to and open to interpretation.

The subjectivity has led to project delays and dissuaded utilization of the law. It has also led to inconsistent application across jurisdiction and created the potential for unnecessary lawsuits. AB 2243 would address both of these issues by expanding AB 2011's geographic applicability and clarifying aspects of the law that are subject to interpretation. In terms of geographic expansion, AB 2243 would apply AB 2011 to the following types of projects.

One, the conversion of office to housing even if the site is not along a major commercial corridor; two, regional malls that exceed 20 acres in size; three, sites within 500ft of freeways and 3200ft of oil extractions, as long as those projects are required use required air filtration and number four to existing high rise districts, even if the site is not along a commercial corridor. Essentially, we're expanding the land where the where the projects can be built in terms of the land.

In terms of removing subjectivity, AB 2243 includes a series of clarifications, including one, clarifying that all aspects of AB 2011 projects are ministerial and not subject to CEQA. Two, clarifying how AB 2011 intersects with density bonus law, and three, specifying that any site remediation needs to occur after project approval but before the site can be occupied.

Importantly, AB 2243 doesn't touch AB 2011's labor standards or affordable housing standards, which is why it's still supported by 2011's diverse coalition of construction, labor, SEIU, CSEA, affordable market-rate developers, and other pro-housing organizations. AB 2011 has only been around for 20 months.

During this period, high-interest rates have dampened the whole housing construction market, and while the use of AB 2011 hasn't gone as gangbusters as we would have liked at this point, we now have enough evidence from projects that are using AB 2011, or would like to use AB 2011 to know some fixes are necessary to align the language of the bill with its intent. And my goal here with this bill is to ensure that with certainty that AB 2011 can be used.

And, you know, I said this last week, and Mister Kalra heard me say this, you know, I'm now legislatively middle-aged, right? I'm on my 6th year, if I'm here for 12 years. And so I've got a little bit of wisdom about just enough to be dangerous about this process and how it works. And often, we pass all these bills, and then they go off into the wild, and we have no idea what happens. Right?

But from my perspective, really understanding, especially these big marquee bills, like, is it working? What's working, what's not working? How do we make it work the best? How do we really track the implementation to make it effective? I have scars from this bill, you know, so you really want to make it worth it that everything you went through is actually materializing in the housing that we want? Because that is the true victory. It's not passing the bill; it's accomplishing the goal. It's the output.

That's what we should be measured on as legislators. So with that, my witnesses here to testify are Corey Smith, Executive Director of the Housing Action Coalition, and good old Danny Curtin from the Carpenters.

I'm past my middle age.

Yeah, daddy's a Boomer.

Thank you Assemblymember. Good afternoon Chair and committee members: Corey Smith, Executive Director of the Housing Action Coalition. We are a home-building industry-funded nonprofit that advocates for building more homes for residents at all income levels across the State of California. And we're proud co sponsor of Assembly Bill 2243 because we understand the importance of importance of creating more homes for Californians. And this bill does exactly that.

The passage of the landmark bill, AB 2011, has been critical in expediting housing production at all income levels across the state, and we have members who are using the bill. However, there are opportunities to strengthen the bill to deliver more housing, and that's where 2243 comes into place. The clarifications will improve the law as written to allow for additional sites to be developed for, for more housing.

Sites that were previously ineligible for streamlining will now work and this will expand production throughout the state, especially looking at infill housing locations. In a time since AB 2011 was proposed, we've had a number of members who have wanted to use the law, but they were unable to due to its eligibility criteria. So these clarifications, as the Assemblymember said, will add additional sites to be eligible, clearing the way for much-needed housing in really key locations with amenities, near jobs, near service, and near transit.

And we thank the Assemblymember again for her visionary support on this and happy to answer any questions as well.

Pleasure to see you, Mister Chairman, again. Members, Danny Curtin, California Conference of Carpenters. First thing I want to do is thank the author for keeping her foot on the gas pedal here. And also I want to say welcome to the iterative process of legislation, which can go on for quite some time. Hopefully, this is the first or 20112.0, and that's what we're going to need to get it done. I'm going to keep it very brief. You've been through all the conversations on 2011.

There are people who didn't like that, who are finding ways to keep it from going into place, and there are people who did like it who are having difficulty getting these issues, these projects built. This bill will do a lot in moving both of those barriers out of the way, and I can only say thank you again for kicking this into gear.

From our perspective, the labor issues involved in this bill have the potential to change the landscape in the housing construction world, bringing a very low wage construction workforce into a blue-collar, middle-class workforce, which is good for all of us. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there anybody in the room that wants to add in support of the bill?

Bob Naylor for Fieldstead. We supported the first bill. We love this bill, too. Thank you.

Rafa Sonnenfeld with YIMBY Action and strong support.

Xong Lor with the California School Employees Association in support.

Chairman and members: James Thuerwachter with the California State Council of Laborers in support.

Mister Chairman, for a second. Yes, the Carpenters heard that Buffy was presenting a bill here today, and they don't - whe doesn't go anywhere without Carpenter's support.

Eugene Morris, Carpenter's Local 152, representing Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Merced, Mariposa, Tuolumne, Calaveras, Amador, and Contra Costa in support.

Matthew Beeston, Norcal Carpenters Union, Sacramento County, and strong support.

Marco Faro, Carpenters Local 180, Vallejo, in support.

Alexander Hampton, Local 46, Gulf Grout Carpenters, Sacramento County, strong support.

Armando Murillo, Local 405, Santa Clara County, strong support.

Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY and strong support.

Graciela Castillo Krings on behalf of the California Housing Consortium in support.

Jose Martinez, Carpenters Local 152, San Joaquin County in support.

Jeff Sanders, Carpenters Local 152, in support: Stanislaus County.

Giovanni Adelini, proud member of Local 9109, out of Sacramento County. I strongly support.

You notice they stopped.

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of SPUR, Sandhill Properties, Buckeye Properties, and Fieldstead in support.

Angie Manetti on behalf of the California Apartment Association and support.

Cornelius Burke with the California Building Industry Association. No formal position, but we appreciate providing feedback and thought leadership to off and her staff.

Thank you.

Matthew Menji with Inner City Law Center in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in opposition? Primary witnesses in opposition.

If you guys didn't know me, my name is Brady Guertin, and I'm with the League of California Cities. We have a respectful, opposed position on this one. Appreciate the author's intent with the bill. Our concern is that 2011 was just implemented, and our cities are still working through that process in addition to updating their housing elements accordingly. And we just feel like we need some time to implement the laws on the books before we start expanding it to other geographical scopes.

And we'll look forward to those continued conversations on this one. But that's our major concern with this bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else in opposition? Seeing nobody else. Committee members, any questions? Comments? Assemblymember Pacheco.

So I know Cal City is opposed because they feel like they need to adapt to the previous bill. Is that true?

I mean, I would ask them, but I think that's what they are saying. And I think we're learning as we with implementation, sort of like what has happened. And we did a little bit of a delayed implementation on the bill to begin with to give cities time. It went into effect last July. But we've also noticed that there have been instances where certain actors have used their own rationales to how to oppose 2011 projects.

And so we want to make sure that we have clarity on that, you know, so this bill, I think, provides more crystal clear clarity on where it can be used in addition to expanding some of the footprint of, like, for instance, you know, large malls that are essentially vacant, using AB 2011 on projects like that, or places like downtown San Francisco, right, where maybe the width of the streets didn't match up with the original bill in terms of where it can be used.

So allowing it to be used on more places, more footprints to expand its scope.

And then I notice it's an opposed unless amended. So that means there's a way to like, get to.

We are happy to keep chatting. Yes, for sure. You know, and we had very productive conversations the first time around with this bill, and we'll continue to do so. And also, just want to say I think the analysis was incorrect. On the opposition, it listed other organizations. The only opposition is the League of Cities, which is. Sorry, unless amended. Yeah. The other ones aren't opposed that are on the announcement.

Fire chiefs?

No, it's a typo.

Oh, okay. Good to know. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. We need a first and a second before Mister Kalra leaves. You did, second? Okay. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. I'll just take a minute on seeing all the members coming to the mic in support. Took me back to 2019 at the City Council in Palmdale, where we had a proposal to build 312 units multifamily going through that process. And it goes back to my previous comments, where it takes a long time to go through the entitlement process. And that's one of the projects that didn't get built. There may be many reasons why.

Again, one of those, I believe, is the lack of funding mechanisms. It was late at night, and we went to 01:00 a.m. A lot of work was put into it, and the project just never got billed. Anyway, I just want to take a minute to say that what it took me back to, and based on your comments being a middle-aged legislator, I think I'm a baby legislator. I look forward to continuing the work with you. The motion is do-pass to Appropriations Committee. Madam Secretary.

Do-pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call].

Bill is on call. Thank you.

Thank you. This one, I think will be my last one.

My last one. Yeah. And it should be quick. Famous last words, but I swear it should be quick. I think we have no opposition on file, so. Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Thank you for allowing me to present my third bill in front of your Committee today, AB 2580. The purpose of AB 2580 is to increase accountability at the intersection of housing policy and historic preservation.

Historic districts and buildings designated as historically significant receive special protections that subject new developments, building renovations, and design changes to a more rigorous and thorough review process to protect the integrity of historic elements. These protections are essential to preserving our state's rich physical and cultural heritage. However, the historic preservation process can encourage abuse by those who weaponize it against housing production, particularly in wealthy single-family neighborhoods that are not willing to accept gentle increases in density from duplexes and ADUs.

This abuse of the historic designation process impedes or blocks urgently needed housing without protecting our important resources. There are currently no measures in place to ensure local governments review all new historic designations within their jurisdiction and balancing the legitimate needs to preserve historic properties and neighborhoods against the potential impacts on the community's ability to meet its housing needs. AB 2580 seeks to address the deficiency in two very simple ways.

One, it will require local governments to discuss in their housing elements how historic preservation policies and practices could constrain new housing developments. And two, it also requires local governments to list all new historic designations in their annual progress report to the Department of Housing and Community Development. Together, these changes would increase transparency and accountability at the intersection of housing policy and historic preservation. We have no known opposition on file, a lot of supporters, and with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. You don't have any witnesses in support? How about anybody in the audience that wants to add in support?

Seamus Garrity from White House Public Affairs on behalf of SPUR in support.

Rafa Sonnenfeld with YIMBY Action in support

Corey Smith, Housing Action Coalition in support.

Chair and Members of the Committee, Jordan Panama Carbajal, legislative advocate for California YIMBY here as a proud sponsor of the bill. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition? See none. Anybody in the room that wants to add on in opposition? Seeing none. Do you have any questions, comments, Pacheco? No. Would you like to close Assemblymember?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you for presenting this bill today. I will be supporting it, an aye. Please call the roll. Oh, you move the bill, so I'll do second.

It's only two of you.

I'm doing the second. Yes.

The motion is do pass to Appropriation. [Roll Call]

The bill is on call. Thank you.

Thank you.

Agenda item number seven, AB 19... AB 2023, Sharon Quirk-Silva. When you're ready.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and colleagues. Assembly Bill 2023 creates parity in the housing element review process. Current law requires cities and counties to update their housing elements every eight years for larger populations and every five years for smaller populations. The housing element must be timely and reflect the community's plan to address their share of the region's housing needs. Upon the Department of Housing and Community Development's confirmation of compliance with state law, a local housing element is granted a presumption of validity in legal challenges.

This means that HCD's finding of compliance receives deference in court, and any party challenging the validity of the element has a high bar to meet to prove that HCD was incorrect. However, there is no equivalent if a city or county does not meet the requirements set by HCD or does not take any action regarding its adopted housing element. This loophole allows certain cities to disregard HCD's experts' findings and bypass recommendations aimed at strengthening their housing elements to achieve compliance.

This oversight undermines the state's efforts to ensure that all, underscore all, jurisdictions adopt and enforce robust, legally compliant housing elements. While the majority of California jurisdictions do adopt housing elements that HCD deems compliant, there are exceptions. And again, I do want to highlight that we have some very good actors across the State of California doing their best to meet HCD's housing compliant efforts.

And so we know there's a small part of bad actors and these are the outliers, and we want to make sure that these outliers should not be subjected to a lower legal standard than those in compliance. I believe we all need to take a role in our addressing our state's housing crisis. And with me today to provide testimony testimony is Anya Lawler, Legislative Advocate for the Public Interest Law Project, and Rafa Sonnenfeld, Policy Director with YIMBY Action.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Anya Lawler on behalf of the Public Interest Law Project. PILP is a nonprofit public interest law firm that, for the last 30 years, has been advocating on behalf of the housing needs of lower income Californians. They have filed over 100 or so housing element cases to ensure that cities and counties are taking seriously their obligations to plan for the housing needs of lower income people and to advance fair housing goals.

This bill addresses real issues that have come up in their work and we think will ensure that more cities get in compliance in a timely manner so that we can do the important work of making sure that lower income Californians have homes. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Rafa Sonnenfeld representing co-sponsors YIMBY Law. YIMBY Law is the legal arm of the nationwide pro-housing movement and affiliate of YIMBY Action and also impact litigant in numerous housing element law enforcement efforts here in California. I'm available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody in the room that wants to add in support, please state your name, affiliation, and position.

Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership.

Natalie Spievack with Housing California in support.

Thank you.

Mahdi Manji with Inner City Law Center in support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Brady Guertin on behalf of the League of California Cities. First, wanted to apologize. We didn't get a letter in. We've been working diligently internally on providing amendments to the bill and are working, and the author's office has been very open to discussing our concerns. So we are just working internally on fine tuning what we want to present to remove our, move our opposition. So that's why it's a little delayed. So we apologize and appreciate those conversations and look forward to it. So thank you.

You have been working hard. I've seen you at so many committees.

Too many bills, Assembly Member. Too many bills.

Thank you. Anybody else in the room that wants to add on opposition? Seeing none. Assembly Member Pacheco, any questions, comments? No. Would you like to close?

Just would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Is there a motion? I'll second that motion. Please call the roll.

The motion is do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

We'll leave the roll open for others to add on. Thank you.

Thank you.

Assembly Member Wendy Carillo, agenda item number six, AB 1950.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. I would like to begin by accepting the proposed Committee amendments, and I thank the Chair and the Committee staff for their work on this bill. Today, I am proud to present AB 1950, the Chavez Ravine Accountability Act. This bill acknowledges the historical displacement of the communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop, known today as Chavez Ravine. Sponsored by the California Department of Insurance and our Insurance Commissioner, Ricardo Lara.

We have been in communication with our constituents related to the importance of this policy. AB 1950 is a critical step forward and aims to correct an injustice that displaced families and has lingered in the shadows of Los Angeles East Side history for far too long. Amid the 1950s, the vibrant communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop, home to mostly Mexican American families as well as Italian American and Chinese American, saw an upheaval as families were uprooted and displaced in in the name of progress.

Families were promised a return to better housing, but instead they were left destitute. During this time, the City of Los Angeles employed various tactics to pressure homeowners to sell their properties, including the use of eminent domain. Specifically, AB 1950 would result in historical accountability by creating a public and searchable database detailing events surrounding the land acquisition and will foster transparency and education about this pivotal moment in our community's history.

It would bring about reparative measures by proposing various forms of compensation, including offering city owned real estate comparable to the original Chavez Ravine landowners or providing fair market value compensation adjusted for inflation. And lastly, it would establish a permanent memorial. This would require the construction of a memorial on Chavez Ravine or adjoining property to honor the displaced residents of those three communities and their legacy.

For generations, Chavez Ravine stood as the beacon of hope and resilience, embodying the dreams and aspirations of families who built their lives within its embrace. With this legislation, we are addressing the past, giving voice to this injustice, and acknowledging the pain of those displaced, offering compensation measures and ensuring that we honor the legacy of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop, commonly referred to as Chavez Ravine.

As we move forward, I urge to lend your support to establish the healing of the descendants who still live within our communities and who have come to really learn to understand the trauma related to being forcibly displaced within our community. This bill has no opposition, and I respectfully request your aye vote today. To testify is Josephine Figueroa, Deputy Commissioner for Policy and Legislation at the California Department of Insurance.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. Josephine Figueroa, Deputy Commissioner and Legislative Director for the Department of Insurance, under the leadership of Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. First, I'd like to thank, on behalf of Insurance Commissioner Lara, Assembly Member Carrillo, for carrying this important piece of legislation. Throughout Insurance Commissioner Lara's career in public service, his focus has been on serving those who have been underserved, from health care to all, for promoting environmental justice as part of a fight against climate change.

His goal has always been, and continues to be, to confront historical injustices, to build a fairer society for us all. What we seek to address with AB 1950 is knowledge, understanding, and healing. The Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles stood as some of the few areas accessible to historically marginalized populations seeking housing security in the face of systematic discrimination. Why are we doing this now?

Because it is past time for the families who have not forgotten the trauma of being displaced to be acknowledged and redress this injustice. The longstanding residents of these communities were never adequately compensated for their property. Both landowners and tenants, some of who have lived there for decades, were never given a choice about leaving their homes. And while many resisted, eventually all were forced to relocate. We have an opportunity to address this, and we should.

We believe this legislation would not only provide long overdue compensation for residents of these three communities, but would also provide a vehicle for reconciliation and healing for all. AB 1950 paves the way for a more equitable Los Angeles by addressing past wrongs and promoting reconciliation. It will help educate Angelinos about what we now call Chavez Ravine's true history, fostering transparency and understanding. Nothing can bring back what they once had, but we understand their anger and frustration.

AB 1950 is the next step in this journey of finding some measure of justice for these families. The only way to get there is to listen to all voices and listen with compassion and understanding. We aim to address the erasure of their homes, their identity from the land, and write a new chapter in the history of Los Angeles, one that acknowledges this injustice and remembers their legacy with a memorial on the land that they once called home. On behalf of Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, I ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Anybody else in the room that wants to add in support? Seeing none. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any other member in the room that wants to add in opposition? Seeing none. Assembly Member Pacheco, any comments? Questions? No. Would you like to close, Assembly Member Wendy Carrillo?

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. I'd like to close by sharing a story of a 79 year old former resident of the La Loma neighborhood. Ms. Irene Murillo is 79 years old now, and she was seven years old when her family was forcibly relocated, and they lost everything. She now works in our local community helping other families, and she is excited to see that this history is finally being told and recognized by the State of California. And she is looking forward to how we move this policy and really recognize the historical injustice that happened within her community in the City of Los Angeles for a promise of housing that was never fulfilled.

She called our district office to thank us for this bill, and I know that she is watching, as are others, and are hoping that the Legislature does the right thing by these families to help acknowledge the people and families that have been affected for far too many decades to this history that occurred. So with that, I respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you. Is there a motion? I'll second that motion. Thank you, Assembly Member Carrillo, for bringing this issue forward and starting this discussion in the Legislature. I appreciate you taking the Committee's technical amendments, which you agreed to take, and I really want to thank you for bringing this up. Moments in history that I cannot imagine going through that experience for those kids. I will be supporting the bill today. The motion is do pass as amended to the Appropriations Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

Motion is do pass as amended to Appropriation. [Roll call]. Bill is on call.

The Bill is on call. And with that, we move to the second page of the agenda. I see Assembly Member Lowenthal? No, she already. Oh, I apologize. I thought you only had two. Please. Sorry, Assembly Member Lowenthal. She has one more. When you're ready. That's agenda item number 30, AB 3177. Go ahead. Here. There we go.

Check, check. One, two. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. I am proud to present AB 3177, placing guidelines on spot widening, a practice in which developers cede a portion of their land adjacent to the roadway to widen out compensation. I believe that the Assembly Sergeants had given some documents to the Committee Members as well for additional information.

This practice is done in a handful of jurisdictions throughout California, often resulting in roads that essentially zigzag parcel by parcel, failing to meet the intended purpose to traffic mitigation and frequently inducing faster and more dangerous driveway along the roadways. Spot widening requires significantly increasing housing costs, adding somewhere between $10,000 to $50,000 per housing unit in Los Angeles alone, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars per project. This additional cost translates directly into higher rents and undercutting housing affordability.

Moreover, these requirements reduce the amount of land available for housing, reducing the number of feasible units on a property. Likewise, the demands imposed by spot widening can make many potential housing developments unfeasible and was the case with a permanent supportive housing project in LA that fought for almost two years to receive a waiver.

This bill limits the practice of stop widening by prohibiting a local government from imposing a land dedication requirement for a roadway widening on a housing development in a transit priority area or for developments with street frontage of less than 500ft. This bill provides the local governments may still impose a land dedication requirement on housing development for street whiting if the local agency makes specific findings that the dedication is necessary to preserve the health, safety, and welfare of the public, providing the local government with flexibility.

Additionally, AB 3177 replaces the reference to transit station with transit priority areas within the Mitigation Fee Act, providing reduced mitigation fees for housing near bus stops and planned transit stops not covered under the limited definition of transit stations. The provisions of this bill are well aligned with the state's goals and prioritizes the incentive for new housing development and climate smart places.

This bill is sponsored by Streets for All and supported by a coalition of housing organizations that advocate for both market rate and affordable housing, as well as environmental and street safety organizations. Most importantly, the bill has no opposition and has bipartisan support. To testify in support of AB 3177 is Marc Vukcevich, Director of State Policy for Streets for All, and UCLA Professor Michael Manville. With that, I respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you, everybody. My name is Michael Manville. I am the, I'm a Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA and the Chair of UCLA's Urban Planning Department. I appreciate the opportunity to speak in favor of this bill. I have studied the origins and outcomes of the laws this bill targets. I am the author of the paper that's been distributed to, I guess, and I can say that these regulations are among the most unusual and least efficient regulations I've ever encountered. They have very few benefits.

They do not. Their nominal goal is to reduce congestion, which they do not do. And in many instances, they exacerbate congestion by creating bottlenecks and irregular street alignments. And they do exacerbate the housing crisis because the cost of these widenings removes land for housing development and makes our affordability crisis worse. A further point is that these laws, once put in place, experience shows us that they are very difficult to reform or remove. And so I'll just very quickly describe the problem with the law.

The nominal goal here is to reduce congestion by widening the streets. And decades of research overwhelmingly suggests that that won't work, that wider streets do not make vehicles move faster at peak hours. But that's not even the problem with this rule. The problem with this rule is that you actually never get a wider street because you never widen the whole street. You just widen it one sort of piecemeal incremental parcel at a time.

And what that does is it actually creates bottlenecks by giving sort of just these little incremental bump outs in the street. It creates bottlenecks, it creates safety problems, it creates drainage problems, maintenance problems, and so on. On the other side of it, even though adding road space incrementally doesn't reduce congestion, taking space incrementally from land for housing does impinge affordability. Right.

Because that space is actually very important to the feasibility of a market rate or an affordable development. And so at best, the costs of this widening make it so that the developer cannot build as many units as they would prefer. And at worst, it makes the redevelopment of a parcel completely impossible.

And when the redevelopment is completely impossible, not only do you lose housing, but it also guarantees that the law is never actually going to do what it's supposed to do, which is widen an entire street. So even on its own terms, the law becomes self defeating. So I think a fair question is why, if this law doesn't work very well at all, local governments can't simply stop doing it themselves. I actually don't know the answer to that, but experience shows they can't.

Los Angeles has had a law like this for 60 years. My conversations with people who work with this law suggest that, over time, it has just become like a plane flying very quietly on autopilot. The law is buried in the housing approval process. Its authority over it is dispersed over multiple agencies. If you talk to people in those agencies, they all sort of acknowledge there are problems with it, but none of them really feel like they're the people to solve that problem.

And so what you have is a situation where decisions made a long time ago are creating a dilemma for local officials today. And because they don't feel like they can solve it, they're probably going to push that dilemma forward onto local officials in the future. And so I think one of the advantages of this bill, it would step in and short circuit this process and end a law that is sort of quietly making both the transportation and housing systems more dysfunctional.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Marc Vukcevich, Streets for All, sponsor of the bill. Well said by Professor Manville, so I'll be briefer. This practice takes private land without compensation from housing to public roads on a per project basis that will have to be maintained in perpetuity. It does not achieve its purported goals. Spot widening is based on the antiquated and disproven idea that we can widen our way out of traffic congestion on a project by project, a parcel by parcel, oftentimes, basis.

And oftentimes what this does on the streets sprawl end is it makes the street less livable and more dangerous, frankly, because it does the opposite of kind of tightening certain areas, it widens in certain areas that lets people really speed in front of this brand new housing where kids and parents are living now. Oftentimes this also rips up sidewalks and even mature street trees, which are, we have a dearth of in Los Angeles. Road winding typically achieves nothing more than just widening the existing lanes.

Rarely, but sometimes, does add additional lane capacity, but usually it's just widening existing lanes. So on the housing side, one project in Los Angeles lost over 6000 road widening, which means they lost the ability to build over 30 dwelling units because of the FAR and additional other reasons on top of that. Another project consisting of 100% homeless housing by a nonprofit developer was delayed for almost two years when they appealed this requirement, as their project would not pencil otherwise.

And in the time it took for the developer to get the waiver, an additional 12,000 people fell into homelessness in California. And some good governance people support our bill because of our growing pavement maintenance index and the backlog that is bankrupting rural and suburban cities. Environmentalists support this because spot widening rips up mature trees, induces more car trips, worsens the urban heat island effect. Market rate and affordable developers support this policy because it makes their projects cheaper to finance and pencil. And lastly, street safety groups like us are the sponsors because this sort of widening just induces dangerous speeding through wider lanes next to brand new housing. I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody in the room that wants to add in support, please state your name, affiliation, and position.

Seamus Garrity from Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of CivicWell in support.

Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership in support.

Catherine Charles here with Housing Action Coalition in support.

Rebecca Marcus on behalf of LeadingAge California in support.

Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY In support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Anybody in the room that wants to go on the record in opposition? Seeing none. Committee Members, any questions? Comments? No. You'd like to close? And you did say that you accept the amendments? Thank you. Would you like to close?

Yes. Happy to accept the Committee amendments and respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you for working with the Committee on amendments with us. I will be supporting your bill. The motion. A motion. Do I need a motion? A first and a second. The motion is do pass as amended to the Appropriations Committee. Please call the roll.

The motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

The bill is on call.

We move on to agenda item number 10, AB 2235 by Assemblymember Lowenthal.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members. I hope everybody's surviving. I think my lunch is still waiting for me on my desk. Hope to have it before dinner. I want to start off by accepting the Committee amendments as suggested in the analysis. And thanks and appreciation to the Committee staff for their patience and willingness to work with us. Port of Long beach is embarking on an ambitious plan to build the largest off-wind turbine facility at any US port.

This facility will help California meet its goal of producing 25 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2045 and help lower the national cost of offshore wind power by 70% by 2035. Offshore wind will play a critical role in California's renewable energy portfolio, helping California achieve its SB 100 goals while delivering the renewable energy to support decarbonization across multiple sectors, including the Port of Long Beach's transition to zero emissions.

AB 2235 provides for an expressibility for the City of Long Beach to procure contracts specifically relating to the Pier Wind Project and describes the project delivery methods by which those contracts can be procured. AB 2235 also provides specific requirements for business entities entering into contracts for the peer wind project relating to bonding a skilled and trained workforce and insurance. Time is of the essence to develop a port infrastructure needed to enable offshore wind and tackle the climate crisis.

Due to the complexity and aggressive delivery schedule of pure wind needed to meet California's offshore wind energy goals, it would be expedient to pass AB 2235 to provide an express ability for the City of Long Beach to procure contracts using a plethora of project delivery methods relating to the Pier Wind Project, the Port of Long Beach is exceptionally placed. It is the center of the state supply chain with an established infrastructure and workforce.

It would be key to the success of our states and even our nation's long term offshore wind goals. This project is also vital to the local economy and in the transitioning of the local workforce to good, high paying green jobs. With me today to testify is Noel Hasegawa, Chief Operating Officer of the Port of Long Beach, and Gary Herrera, President of the ILWU Local 13.

Thank you. Good afternoon Chair Carrillo, Vice Chair Waldron and Members of the Committee. My name is Noel Hasegawa. I'm the Chief Operating Officer for the Port of Long Beach, which is the premier us gateway for Trans-Pacific trade, and a trailblazer in innovative goods, movement, safety, environmental stewardship, and sustainability. Nearly 40% of the container cargo entering the US comes through the Port of Long Beach and our neighbor, the Port of Los Angeles.

Working in alignment with the state's goals of developing 25 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2045, the Port of Long Beach developed a conceptual plan for what we call peer wind that's the nation's largest facility, specifically designed to assemble offshore wind turbines. Once assembled, these turbines would be tolled by sea from the port of Long Beach to wind lease areas in central and Northern California that will generate reliable renewable power for the grid.

In addition to putting California and the United States at the forefront of floating offshore wind technology and development, pure wind would also help the state meet climate goals while creating jobs and economic opportunities for local communities, as well as establishing a new green energy industry that would aid in the just transition to the green economy.

Currently, the port is required to utilize design, bid, build project delivery methods for its public works infrastructure projects but because of the complexity of the proposed project and the aggressive delivery schedule needed to support California's offshore wind goals, the port is seeking enabling legislation for the construction of the terminal that would allow the port to employ alternative project delivery models and to consider multiple options to design and build pure wind.

Time is of the essence to develop the port infrastructure needed to enable offshore wind and tackle the climate crisis. Without this legislation, the pure wind project would be delayed at least one year, with costs for the $5 billion project increasing by another $250 million. For this reason, we urge the Committee to pass AB 2235 to provide an express ability for the City of Long Beach to procure contracts using a plethora of project delivery methods relating to the Pier Wind Project.

The Port of Long Beach is proud to serve as a sponsor for this Bill. I would also like to thank Assemblymember Lowenthal for carrying this important piece of legislation and for being a constant champion of the Port of Long Beach. I appreciate the opportunity to speak before you today. Thank you for your attention, and I would be happy to entertain any questions.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee. I want to say thank you for having us here today. I'm here in support of Assembly Bill 2235. I'm here to speak on behalf o ILWU, the men and women of Locals 13, 63, and 94 in support of this, this Bill that we work together with other labor organizations to prove that this is a historic measure for clean green jobs. We want to be on the forefront of working together.

We want to help this process move along, and we're ready for this movement, for this clean green environment in which we're trying to achieve not only for our workers, but for the whole State of California, possibly the United States, even worldwide. So I just wanted to show our support, let you know that the men and women of the ILW are here to support and work with any type of legislation, any amendments, and move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anybody in the room that wants to add in support? State your name, affiliation and position.

Marvin Pineda, on behalf of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in support.

Sean Farley, Chair of the Offshore Wind Committee for the International Executive Order Committee itself and we are in strong support. Thank you.

Tim Campbell, President, Local 18. We're in strong support.

David Gonzalez, ILWU Local 34 in San Francisco we're in strong support. And I'd like you to know that this wind they're talking about is going to be so much better than this cold wind you got blown in here.

Melvin Mckay, Local 10 out of San Francisco. I support this as well.

Jadine Trujillo, Local 34, San Francisco Marine Clerks, I speak in support.

Cassie Edwards, Local 18, in support.

Danielle Schaefer, Local 18, in support.

Baylor Rod Local 18, just showing full support.

Tanya Lopez Local 18, I support the Bill.

David Lopez Local 18, I support the Bill.

Stephanie Flores, ILWU Local 54 I support the Bill.

Troy Langen, Local 18 in support.

Danny Offer with the California Association of Port Authorities in support.

Yeah. Mike Carranza, International Longshore Warehouse Union Local 63 Marine Clerks, we strongly support this Bill. Thank you.

Danny Belisitch, President, ILWU Local 63 we're in support of the Bill.

Anthony Pilata, Local 18, full support. Thank you.

Ashley McCarthy, Local 18, full support.

Haley Powell, Local 18, in support.

Good afternoon. Emily Peterson ILWU Local 18 in support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition?

Thank you, Mister Chair and Members of the Committee, Jeremy Smith, you're on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California. In respectful opposition today. First, like to apologize to you and staff and Members of the Committee for missing the letter deadline by, I believe, eight minutes on Friday. We did get a letter in, though we are opposed, let me tell you what we are in favor of.

We are in favor of the parts of the Bill that deal with project delivery methods being expanded to the port of Long Beach. We are tremendous supporters of this offshore wind industry, this nascent industry that's coming in. We support September Lowenthal's efforts. We have a project labor agreement on an offshore wind project up in Humboldt County, Humboldt Bay. So we stand ready to help with that and help the port of Long Beach as well. But this is really two bills in one.

The second part of the Bill was amended on April 15. It went in print April 15, and it deals with some jurisdictional issues between the ILWU and the state building Trades council and the local building trades, particularly at Section 22190 the definition of construction that was added to the Bill on that day, to my knowledge, that was not shared with me or Members of the building trades before it was put into the Bill.

And secondarily 22194 Section 22194, dealing with project labor agreements and what a project labor agreement should cover, that was not shared with us either. So we saw that for the first time on the 15th, we had our first staff-level meeting. I refer to myself as staff non-principal meeting.

Chris Hannon was not there, for example, on Friday with the Committee, your Committee convened that, along with Assemblymember Lowenthal staff, and we had a nice conversation in the hallway with Assemblymember Lowenthal earlier, he has assured me that we are going to continue talking about this, working through these issues we support as the labor movement.

Of course, our brothers and sisters in the ILWU, as they attempt to actually work together with us to figure out this nascent industry as it starts to expand out here, making sure this industry takes care of workers, both the ILWS workers and our members who are going to be building a lot of these structures. So we look forward to working with the Assembly Member. He's assured me he's going to keep working with us as well as the port in the ILWU. But today we unfortunately have to be in respect of opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody in the room that wants to be added in opposition, see none. Committee Members, any questions? Comments? No. Assemblymember Lowenthal, or would you like. Oh, yeah, please close. Yes. No Comments sir?

Okay. You know, I just want to say how appreciative and grateful I am to have the house of labor here speaking on behalf of this Bill. The brothers and sisters in the ILWU and the building trades are both going to be heavily involved in this project, and we are committed, everyone is committed to the win win situation. If I could use a baseball analogy, this Bill is in the second or third inning.

We still have a ways to go, and we will get there together. We will land this plane together to everybody's benefit. And everybody has assured me of the same thing. So with your I vote today, we will continue to have the discussion on this Bill and move it forward. Thank you.

Thank you. I want to thank you and your sponsor for working with Committee amendments which you do accept. Yep. The Pier Wind Project is an exciting opportunity to help us achieve our GHG reduction goals for the entire state and spur economic development in and around the port. Please support this project and your Bill. Do we have a motion? A second. First and a second. The motion is due. Pass this amendment to the Appropriations Committee. Please call the roll.

Motion is due pass as amended to Appropriation. [Roll Call]