Assembly Standing Committee on Local Government

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Assembly Local Government Committee hearing. I would like to remind the public that testimony will be in person for this and future hearings as we no longer use the moderated telephone service. We also accept written testimony to the position of the portal on the Committee's website.

Special issues facing California protesters have appeared at some point of our legislative hearings. Some of these people have yelled from the audience and issue threats of potential violence. These actions actually disrupted the legislative hearing and the persons who caused the disruption were removed from the hearing.

As we proceed with the witnesses and public comment, I want to make sure everyone understands that the Assembly has rules to ensure we maintain order and run an efficient and fair hearing.

We apply these rules consistently in all people who participate in our proceedings, regardless of their viewpoint they express in order to facilitate the goal of the hearing of the hearing as much as possible from the public within the limits of our time.

We will not permit conduct that disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the utterly conduct of the legislative proceedings. We will not accept disruptive behavior or behavior that incites or threatens violence. The rules for today's hearing are and they include no talking or loud noises for the audience.

Public comment may be provided only at the signated time and place and as permitted by the Chair. Public comment may relate to the subject of bills or information being discussed today. No engaging incident that disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of this hearing.

Please be aware that these violations, any violations of the rules may subject you to removal or other enforcement actions. We have only 27 bills today. Three of these are proposed for the consent calendar and they are Item 3, AB 385 by Assemblymember Ramos. Item 23, AB 1275, Assemblymember Elhawary. Item 24, AB 1276 by Assemblymember Carrillo.

All the other bills will be heard in file order except that we had a request to have Assemblymember Jackson's Bill be heard first because he will have to go to open up a Committee. His Committee. Looks like we do not have quorum at this time. Would you like to proceed, Assembly Member Jackson? And again, that's item number four, AB407.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to thank Committee staff for their work on this Bill and we'll. Be accepting the Committee's amendments today. AB407 is a Bill that broadens eligibility and expenditure options in state run loan programs, helping more small businesses access funding for environmental upgrades, seismic safety and Ada compliance.

This Bill is sponsored by our State Treasurer, Fiona Ma. And with me today is Deputy Treasurer Kaim Morton to provide technical assistance to this Committee.

Good afternoon. Khaim Morton, Deputy Treasurer, Office of State Treasurer Fiona Ma here is in support of AB407 by Assemblymember Jackson, which will help the State Treasurer's office and State Treasurer in her capacity as chair of the California Pollution Control Financing Authority, otherwise known as CPCFA, the California Capital Access Program, known as CalCap.

Within that, it helps incentivize lenders to make loans to small businesses using loan loss reserves and collateral support. The program has grown considerably from its initial single loan loss Reserve to encompass over several different variations. And through that, it helps provide a crucial buffer for to protect lenders against total financial loss resulting from borrower default.

Among those is a program to help borrowers secure funding for Ada as well as seismic requirements. AB407 will help in terms of loosening some of the restrictions so that we can better work with borrowers and their lenders so that they can more easily access the the funding to do the needed repairs. Again, we thank the Committee and the staff for their for the work.

Thank you. Anybody else in the audience that wants to add on support? Seeing none. How about any principal witnesses in opposition? Anybody in the public? See none. Committee Members, any questions or comments? No questions or comments at this time. We don't have a quorum. We're operating as a Subcommitee right now. Would you like to close? Assembly Member Jackson,

Thank you, Assemblymember Jackson. Just for the record, you did accept the Committee amendments, correct? Thank you, Assemblymember Papan. Item number two on the agenda, when you're ready.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Happy Wednesday. I'm delighted to be with you. I would like to thank the Committee for their efforts on this Bill. And I will start with AB 93, and we will accept Committee amendments, lest I not make the same mistake as my predecessor in this Chair. All righty.

So this Bill deals with data centers and in particular, their use of water. Being Chair of Water Parks and Wildlife, I felt compelled to take this on. So as we know, water is one of California's most precious resources, and data centers are thirsty. AB 93 is all about ensuring data centers operate responsibly, balancing innovation with sustainability.

So this Bill is a bipartisan, pragmatic response to the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and remote work, which have driven an unprecedented demand for data centers. While data centers offer some real great economic benefits, including tax revenue and short term construction jobs. Their long term environmental costs shouldn't be ignored in the process.

So that's kind of what this Bill seeks to address. This resource strain is felt most in water stressed areas. So a single midsize data center can use 300 gallons, 300,000 gallons of water daily, while larger facilities can use up to 5 million gallons, comparable to a town of 50,000 people and their water uses.

And as I said, this resource strain is felt most in water stress areas where companies are drawn to to cheap power while often sort of disregarding that water impact and that water part of the equation. So the availability of this much needed resource is further reduced by California's prolonged droughts, rising temps and declining snowpack.

Unlike energy, which can be supplemented by backup generators, water availability depends on environmental factors and can't be easily replaced. AB 93 tackles these challenges by requiring the Department of Water Resources develop to develop best management practices for data centers. So we're going to do it at the state level.

Mandating data centers to estimate water use when applying for business licenses. That's a local. And report actual consumption upon renewal. Directing public entities to evaluate how data center water use affects overall system costs and tasking the State Water Resources Control Board and California Energy Commission with developing best practices for emerging technologies.

This Bill empowers local governments to responsibly manage water use while supporting technological progress. We can't allow the unconstrained growth of data centers to jeopardize the future of our water supply. Trying to really seek a balance here. With me today to testify is Shaolei Ren from the University of Riverside.

He's a Professor there and Sean Bothwell, Executive Director of California Coast Keeper Alliance. So we'll start with the Professor first and you have two minutes. Is that right? Two minutes.

Good afternoon. My name is Shaolei Ren. I'm an associate Professor at UC Riverside. I'm here in my personal capacity to testify on my research and the technical aspects of water consumption by data centers. I'm not representing the University or weigh in on the policy itself.

First, as we all know, data centers are energy consuming and produces a lot of heat which must be removed to keep the servers running properly. Due to the energy efficiency. Water evaporation is often used as the main or supplementary method for data center cooling.

One tech company consumes over 20 billion liters of water each year, which is roughly the same as the direct water consumption of a major beverage company. According to one tech company's sustainability reports, about 80% of the water consumption is drinking water and water consumption is a technical term.

It's the difference between the water withdrawal and water discharge. According to one tech company's report, about 80% of the water withdrawal is evaporated and sometimes considered permanently lost. This is the key difference from other water users.

When assessing the impacts of water data centers on water infrastructure, both the annual total water usage and peak water usage are important to consider. As highlighted in my research, there's not much information available in the public. According to the estimated water usage effectiveness In 2023, California data center consumed about 5 billion liters water.

And based on the national data center growth rate projected by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab report, in 2024, the water consumption by California data center could double or even quadruple in 2028 compared to the 2023 level. In response to the congressional request, the U.S.

Government Accountability Office released a report on the environmental and human effects of generative AI. This report outlines a few potential implementations approaches for governments, including encouraging collection and reporting of data center water efficiency information. And finally, water consumption is also often needed for offset electricity generation.

According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab report, the sum of on site and offset water consumption reflects the true water cost of data centers. Some tech companies have begun to report their offset water consumption in sustainability reports. This information could be useful for assessing the impacts of data centers on regional water resources.

Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any technical questions.

Primary witnesses have three minutes. Okay, just to clarify that. Three minutes.

Good morning Chair, Sean Bothwell, Executive Director for California Coastkeeper Alliance. California is already under tremendous pressure to balance their water supply and meet the needs of Californians. Climate change is only making that pressure worse. And then you add AI data centers or data centers generally into communities and it only further stresses our water supplies.

And so it's really important. We're very strong supporters of AB 93 because AB 93 provides three very helpful ways for us to monitor and decrease the water usage of these data centers. First, makes data centers participate in our making conservation a way of life regulations.

Two, makes the data centers report their assumed usage of water to local government before a business license is issued. Which is really important because local government should know how much water is being used before issuing that business license. And then third, I think most importantly, data centers would be required to report their actual usage to cities.

And that's important because in order to do water rates appropriately, you need to know who the most heavy use water users are. Otherwise low income communities are going to be the ones on the hook subsidizing for those high water uses.

The research and the data out there is clear that just about all water rates are regressive in one way or another. But when you add high water users on to the system, it's the low income communities that pay the worst for it. And so for those reasons, we ask for your aye vote thank you.

Thank you. Anybody in the audience that wants to honor any support, please state your name, affiliation and position on the Bill.

Thank you. Chair and Members Melissa Sparks-Kranz with the League of California Cities we had a little bit of a tweener position previous in the previous Committee and we're very appreciative to the author and her office and the Committee for the amendments proposed. Thank you very much.

Anybody else, seeing none. Any primary witnesses in opposition can have a seat and you have up to three minutes. Thank you.

Good afternoon Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Kara Bunder in respectful opposition to AB 93 on behalf of the Data Center Coalition.

DCC is the National Association for the Data Center Industry and our members include leading data center owners and operators as well as companies that lease large amounts of data center capacity. We appreciate the author's engagement and look forward to our continued conversation and we also look forward to reviewing the recent amendments with our membership.

However, as written, DCC is opposed. The equipment in a data center generates a lot of heat. Without cooling solutions, equipment can overheat and fail, leading to vast and costly disruptions to critical services.

There is no one size fits all solution for cooling, and the best approach considers many factors such as water stress analysis, humidity, climate, temperature, and the availability of water, including recycled, non-potable or harvested rainwater sources. Selecting a cooling technology requires balancing energy consumption and water usage on a case by case basis for each individual site.

Given these nuances and trade-offs, we are concerned that proposed new requirements as a condition for obtaining or renewing a business license could be overly restrictive. They could be prohibitive, given the complexity involved, to retrofit existing infrastructure and modifications required for plumbing, piping and rack configurations.

Data centers prioritize water efficiency through best practices, innovative strategies, and collaboration with local authorities. In a report out of the world's largest data center market, Virginia, found that data center water usage is currently sustainable, noting that in 2023, 83% of data centers in Virginia used the same amount of water or less than the average large office building.

Finally, information about water usage and changes can be indicative of the types of technologies used or services and purposes provided by a data center. This could have implications for trade secrets or national security concerns, leaving critical infrastructure susceptible to cyber threats or industrial espionage.

California's position as a global technology leader depends on the vital infrastructure provided by data centers and underscores the need for careful consideration proposed legislation. We respectfully request a no vote. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Anybody else in the audience wants to add on your position, please state your name, affiliation and position on the Bill.

Good afternoon. Julia hall with the Association of California Water Agencies. We look forward to seeing the amendments in print and we hope to continue to work with the author's office to clarify. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Andrea Abergel with the California Municipal Utilities Association. Agree. We'd love to see the Committee amendments in print and want to continue working with the author. We don't have a position right now. We just are looking for amendments. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no one else. Committee Members, any questions, comments? Seeing none. Would you like to close? We're still open as a Subcommitee, but if you want to close.

We're still what, what was the last part? I thank you for the opportunity to close. I think California's water supply, as we all know, is finite and every drop counts. And this is a really balanced approach to getting our arms around data centers and their use of this precious resource respective. Request an aye vote.

Well, thank you for working with the Committee on the Amendments. I did hear you say you accept the Committee amendments. We also will be supporting your Bill today. Please continue working with the Committee as the Bill progresses. We don't have a motion yet. We don't have a quorum, but we will continue when we do that.

And then you have another bill, right? I do. Item number 10 on the agenda, ABA650.

Excuse me. Sorry about that. So now we're moving on to the world of housing elements and local government. So AB650 is really designed to streamline and improve California's housing element review process, something that as part of local gov, we know that cities have really been through the ringer in this last RHNA cycle.

We also know that local governments play a central role in planning new development across the state. But to be clear, cities don't build. They are, however, required to plan for building. In doing so, each city and county is required to submit a housing element showing how well it will accommodate its RHNA numbers.

And this bill is to help good actors in their dealings with the state's Housing and Community Development, affectionately known as HCD. The current housing element process has become extremely complex and burdensome, and it's taking a real toll. Good faith cities are doing the work, but they're stuck in a cycle of revisions and resubmissions, often with moving targets.

Through no fault of their own, cities are in HCD purgatory. These delays are slowing down housing production, draining local resources, and exposing cities to penalties that they really don't deserve.

Right now, we're at the end of the planning period for the sixth cycle, and almost a quarter of California cities and counties, about 100 jurisdictions, are still waiting on final certification for their housing elements from HCD. That's 100 communities where progress is stalled, frustration is growing, and the state's broader housing goals remain out of reach.

AB650 addresses these challenges directly in two ways. Number one, it allows the RHNA process to start a bit earlier. This bill will give cities their regional housing needs allocation six months earlier, giving local governments time to engage with ACD and begin for planning for housing needs a bit Sooner.

And number two, it requires clear and actionable feedback from HCD. AB650 mandates that HCD provide clear, actionable feedback to local governments by clearly identifying the problems with a housing elimination and clearly identifying the required remedy for the specific problem.

These requirements will help cities avoid the confusion and costly delays that result from inconsistent or unclear guidance, allowing them to make informed revisions to their housing elements and hopefully speed up the process along the way. This bill represents a pragmatic, common sense approach to improving the housing element review process.

AB650 will enable cities to meet their goals on time and avoid unnecessary penalties. The result will be more transparent and a more transparent, efficient process that encourages housing production and supports California broader goals of addressing our housing crisis.

With me to testify here today is Brady Guertin on behalf of the League of Cities and Dane Hutchings on behalf of the City of San Mateo, where I happen to hail from.

Thank you. You each have three minutes. Thank you.

All right. Good afternoon everyone. Brady Guertin on behalf of the League of California Cities as proud sponsors of AB650. AB650, as the Assembly Member mentioned, does two things. It gives us more time to get our housing elements certified so we can receive technical assistance earlier and get good drafts sent to HCD.

And the second part is ensuring that we get clarity and certainty in the housing element review process during the six regional housing needs allocation cycle. A lot of cities expressed several challenges that we heard from our members.

That was high staff turnover for things that were out of their control, a lack of clarity in the guidance and feedback that they were receiving. And we want to ensure that this process is smoother for all so we can have plans cited and ready to go for housing.

This bill would ensure greater certainty in the process by providing technical details on exactly what cities will need to do to get certified, while also giving them more time to achieve this.

With me, we're excited to sponsor this bill, and we believe this is the right way forward in improving the housing element review process for all of our local cities. And we respectfully asked for an aye vote today. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair Members. Dane Hutchings here on behalf of the City of San Mateo in support of AB650. As the largest city in the county, San Mateo is committed to partnering with HCD, the state and our community to meet our regional housing needs.

While the city has obtained a certified housing element, the path to certification was exceedingly difficult. Their work began in the sixth cycle in 2020 with the first draft submittal in 2022. From that point on, the city underwent three formal revisions, two informal revisions, working with multiple HCD reviewers, offering different interpretations and sometimes new requirements.

One of the biggest challenges the city faced was complying with HCD's interpretation of the state's fair housing laws. And while we certainly support the intent, HCD could not provide context on why the revisions were needed or citations to the legal authority for their requests. This left our team trying to meet shifting expectations without clear direction.

The city spent over $2 million, both on a full team of six employees as well as four outside consulting firms to help navigate really the sheer complexity of the housing element process. This didn't include significant time from the city manager's office and the city attorney's office as well.

Well, and despite the resources the city took, it took was able to receive its certification in June of 2024, meaning they were out of compliance for 17 months. AB650 recognizes the real challenges that cities are facing.

It provides an additional six months for cities to prepare requirement for HCD to clearly identify the legal basis for their deficiencies, as well as the requirement for clear actionable guidance, which requires removes the guesswork for local agencies.

The bill is a critical step forward to allow cities like San Mateo to be effective partners with the state in setting the table for increased housing production. On behalf of the City of San Mateo, I want to thank the Assembly Woman for her leadership on this and respectfully urge an aye vote on AB650. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else wants to add on in support? State your name affiliation and position on the bill.

Thank you. Mr. Chair and Members on behalf of the cities of Belmont, Carlsbad, Corona, Eastvale, Merced and Thousand Oaks, all in strong support. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members Jared Moss on behalf of the City of Long Beach in support.

Good afternoon. Kiara Ross on behalf of the City of San Marcos in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Sylvia Solis Shaw here on behalf of the San Mateo City County Association of Governments in support and also in support on behalf of the City of Beverly Hills. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Lauren De Valencia representing the American Planning Association. Apologies for not getting a letter on time, a bill about timing, but here I am in support. Thank you.

Holly Fermin de Jesus with Lighthouse Public affairs, on behalf of SPUR. Happy announce we had removed our opposition. Are now in support. Thank you.

Ali Sapriman on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition in support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Anybody in the room wants to be adding opposition? Seeing none. Committee Members, any questions? Comments? Assembly Member Pacheco.

I want to thank the author for bringing this bill forward. This is an important bill. As a local elected, I seen the struggles that we had in the City of Downey and so I would love to be added as a co author.

You got it.

Thank you.

You got it.

Anybody else? No. You know, when you were making your comments, I went through that with the City of Desert Hot Springs working on their housing element. So I actually leave that experience. Would you like to close?

Well, and I know you're a former planner too, so I understand you're well aware of dealing with bureaucratic review of one's work. So I just, I appreciate being heard. I appreciate the support board on the committee. Cities are really trying and I think they're getting a bum wrap and this is a way of really helping them facilitate.

San Mateo is 100,000. Imagine being a smaller city and not having the sophistication and you're just stuck in this purgatory. So I appreciate the support. Respectfully, I urge an aye vote.

I appreciate your work to give cities and counties more time and more precise information as they develop their housing elements and ensure that they provide adequate size for housing in our communities. Thank you for your efforts in this bill. I will be voting aye once we get a motion and we get a forum first. Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Have a good day.

Assembly Member Macedo, Item Number 19, would you like to present? And that's AB 1044.

Good morning—I guess afternoon now. Yes, good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present Assembly Bill 1044 on behalf of my home county, Tulare County. AB 1044 establishes a new Groundwater Sustainability Agency for Tulare County after other cities and irrigation districts broke off.

AB 1044 is necessary for the region to comply with state law. In 2014, the Legislature passed a Sustainable Groundwater Management Act to manage groundwater by requiring local agencies to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies. Since SGMA's implementation, GSAs throughout the state have been making every effort to comply.

In the Central Valley, we do not have access to adequate surface water to recharge our groundwater. Many communities are without clean and reliable drinking water. This Bill helps the region comply with SGMA by providing a functional GSA.

In additional—in addition—to implementing SGMA, the new GSA will also be able to pursue projects to increase groundwater sustainability, such as obtaining more access to water. The establishment of this GSA will not delay the Thule Sub Basin's progress towards sustainability. It will help the region achieve it.

In this case, a GSA cannot be formed without this Bill, and the county is not able to serve as the GSA. The newly formed GSA will be able to refer to the previously formed Groundwater Sustainability Plan and make adjustments that applies to the new boundaries.

The county is working with the Department of Water Resources to develop a boundary that will avoid overlap or gaps. Because most of the new GSA is without a public agency, other than Tulare County, a boundary line does not exist, but rather is the undistricted area outside of existing boundaries.

I understand the concerns regarding the probationary status of the sub basin, but it is important to note that the new GSA will still be subject to probation with the remainder of the sub basin. However, this legislation will provide a viable GSA to implement SGMA and work to get the subbasin out of probation.

I respectfully ask for your support of AB 1044, and I am pleased to be joined by Tulare County Supervisor, Dennis Townsend, who will explain the need for this legislation, as well as Bob Reeb, who represents the Valley AG Water Coalition.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Thank you for taking the time today for us. My name is Dennis Townsend. I'm a Tulare County Supervisor, also the Chair of the Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency, currently.

I'm an Architect by trade, but because of water needs across the state, I'm very involved with the Rural County Representatives of California, the National Association of Counties, and the California State Association of Counties, all with water issues

In an effort to work collaboratively with and promote coordinated groundwater management, Tulare County has worked really diligently with our local public agencies to form GSAs. Tulare County has five GSAs in three critically overdrafted basin—sub basins. The Eastern Tule GSA was formed via Joint Powers Agreement and encompassed almost all of the undistricted, or what's known as the white area lands in the Thule Sub Basin.

During the probationary hearings for the ETGSA in September, the State Board chose to enact good actor provisions for two GSAs in the subdivision, allowing them to go outside of the probation.

This decision by the State Board resulted in GSA-eligible public agencies leaving the Eastern Thule JPA to become their own GSAs, in hopes of benefiting their landowners and users with the Good Actor Provision. Now, this move unintentionally resulted in Tulare County as being the only remaining member of the JPA.

So, the County doesn't have the legal ability, the capacity, or the resources to function as a standalone GSA. This legislation would give the region a viable GSA that's necessary to continue to implement SGMA. The County is a member of the Kings River East GSA, which was formed by SB 37 in 2016.

That's kind of a precedent to what we're trying to do here, what Assemblymember Macedo is trying to do here, with this Bill. That model has worked out very well since it was formed.

So, in order to form a more functioning GSA, to cover the undistricted or white areas in the Thule Sub Basin, the County is very supportive of AB 1044, and I request that you would advance this Bill and be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. Bob Reeb, on behalf of Valley AG Water Coalition. I just crossed out about half of my statement, so I want to focus on—really on two points. There's more than one path under SGMA to creating a groundwater sustainability agency. We know that this law is extremely complex.

In some locations, there's one GSA for a subdivision, but that's very rare. We often see multiple GSAs covering a subdivision or, I'm sorry, sub basin. And so, this is not unusual to what we're seeing now. I would also point out that this is not precedential, as the prior witness indicated.

The Legislature has created three similar groundwater sustainability agencies by statute, and I happen to be involved in the first one, the Kings River East GSA. Finally, there's some concern that probationary status in this area somehow renders this Bill as unnecessary or duplicative, or some other bad word. that's not true, even if you have a probationary basin.

The State Water Resources Control Board is tasked with working with the local agencies, the local GSAs, through that probation, through an interim plan, if the Board determines that to be necessary. But it's always presumed that the State Water Resources Control Board will hand off, at some point, the work of compliance with SGMA to a GSA.

So, this Bill is very essential, so that these areas that are now not covered are included in the work of sustainable groundwater management, and we really encourage an "Aye" vote.

Thank you. Anybody else in the audience wants to add on in support? Seeing none. How about any primary witnesses in opposition? No one in the room wants to add on in opposition. Committee Members, any questions? Comments? No? Would you like to close, Assemblymember Macedo?

I just want to thank you, Chairman Carrillo. It's been an honor to be in your Committee today and respectfully ask for your "Aye" vote.

Thanks for presenting. I will be voting "Aye" once we get a forum and a motion.

I understand, we're all running around. Thank you all.

Thank you. Thank you. And I want to take this opportunity to call Members to present offers on Local Government. Staff, if you see your Legislator, let them know that we are here in Local Government waiting for you to present your Bill. Thank you. We'll be taking a short recess.

[Background]

Yeah. That'll be fun. We are back. Assembly Member Irwin.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Thank you for slipping me in. I would like to begin by accepting the Committee's amendments and thanking Committee staff for their hard work.

AB523 will allow Member public agencies represented by only one Director on the Metropolitan Water District Board of Directors, the ability to designate a proxy representative for the purpose of participating in a board meeting when the Member agency's appointed representative is absent.

And I have a lot of notes here, but I also have two speakers, so I am going to go ahead and let them tell the story with me in support are Joe Mawad and Jay Lewitt.

Thank you. Yusuke. Three minutes. Great. Thank you, Assemblywoman Irwin. And good afternoon, Chair Members of the Committee. My name is Joe Mouawad. I am the General manager at Eastern Municipal Water District. Eastern is a water, wastewater and recycled water provider to nearly 1 million residents in western Riverside and northern San Diego counties.

We are one of Metropolitan's 26 Member agencies and we are serving the fastest growing region in the State of California. Metropolitan is nearly 100 years old. The communities we serve and the issues we face are vastly different than they were in 1928 when Metropolitan was established. And the way we govern also needs to evolve.

AB523 is a narrow amendment to the Metropolitan act that will address a fundamental inequity that exists within Metropolitan's governing structure by allowing a proxy for single representative agencies. As an agency with a single representative on the Board of Directors of Metropolitan, if our Metropolitan representative is unable to participate in a meeting, we lose our vote.

Our priorities, concerns and perspectives are not considered as part of the decisions made by the Metropolitan Board. This Bill would give agencies like Eastern the option to assign a proxy who would be another sitting Member of the Metropolitan Board of Directors to vote on our behalf.

This ensures that single representative agencies have every opportunity to have their votes considered at the Metropolitan Board. Throughout the development of Assembly Bill 523, we work with Assembly Member Irwin, her team, and other stakeholders.

Through these conversations, we learned that the proxy model that is before you today would be an important and beneficial improvement to the governance structure for Metropolitan and its Member agencies. With input from this Committee, we've also included additional guardrails.

By limiting how many times an agency can assign a proxy throughout the year, and by having the proxy only be valid for Board Meetings, we ensure that the provisions of this Bill cannot be abused.

We've remained committed to collaborating on this legislation with the goal of creating a policy that is Beneficial to both metropolitan and its Member agencies. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the time you're taking for us today. My name is Jay Lewitt. I'm a Director at Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in Calabasas. And we have the good fortune of being represented by Assembly person Irwin and a good friend.

And I also serve on the metropolitan water district of Southern California board of directors. And I'm chair of the legal and the communications Committee. But I'm here today not in that capacity solely as my capacity as a Director representing Las Vergines municipal water district, which is a water and wastewater facility.

Our board at Las Vergen has voted 50 unanimously to support this Bill and we're looking forward to its passage. It's about democracy and representation. As I sit on the metropolitan board, there's 38 directors and we come from all over Southern California. Small towns, big cities, coastal mountains, desert.

And it's one of the most international places on earth. And we serve a very wide, diverse group. And currently, if I can't make a meeting, my vote doesn't get placed. But more importantly, the people I represent don't have a say. And I think that's not what democracy and representation is all about.

I'm an elected person, but I'm only elected to represent my constituents. And if I can't make a meeting, my constituents don't get represented. And this to me is a very easy fix that I could trust a fellow board Member with their proxy, they could trust. I could trust them with my proxy.

So this Bill will be good for metropolitan. This Bill will be good for California. And so I appreciate you listening today.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. Beth Olhasso on behalf of Inland Empire Utilities Agency. They are a met Member agency with one representative in strong support of the Bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jason Eichert on behalf of the Rancho California Water District and song support. Really appreciate the author bringing the support and Bill forward.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Dylan Hoffman on behalf of the City of Beverly Hills in support.

Lily Mackay on behalf of Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses? None. Anybody in the room wants to add on in opposition? Seeing None. Would you like to close?

Assemblymember I. I don't know if you have a quorum yet, but at the appropriate time, respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you for your willingness to work with the Committee on the Amendments. And you will be accepting the amendments, correct?

Yes. Yes.

With those, I will be supporting your Bill once we get a quorum and a motion. Thank you. Appreciate you being here.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Assembly Member Haney, item number five, AB507.

Thank you so much. Mr. Chair and Members. AB507, the Office to Housing Conversion Act will accelerate accelerate adaptive reuse projects for historic office buildings. It's a direct response to California's empty downtown business districts and the need to convert underutilized office buildings within prime locations near jobs, transit and businesses into new housing.

Our downtowns are still struggling as our work culture has shifted toward 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 and low foot traffic.

This shift has left our cities in trouble and in desperate need of innovative transformations to help our downtowns and build more housing. This bill will create a pathway for buy right approval of office conversion projects who also provide the flexibility needed to ensure that historic buildings are economically feasible for conversion.

With me in support today is Kirsten Bladh from Streets For All and Skylar Wonnacott from the California Business Properties Association.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. My name is Kirsten Blot and I'm the Associate Director of State policy for Streets for All.

Streets for all supports AB507 because it will revive California's urban centers and historic cores, which are not only often the heart of a region's transit systems, but also where residents tend to be the least likely to rely on cars for every trip.

In other words, these places are exactly where we want more people to be living if we're serious about meeting our climate goals and increasing transit ridership. As much of our workforce has shifted to remote work, many cities are stuck with a glut of underutilized office and commercial space.

And the small businesses who depended on those office workers are left without customers. AB507 offers an obvious solution to this problem by creating a way to fill those underutilized spaces with new homes and residents, expanding the customer base of local businesses, all while preserving the architectural character of the neighborhood.

With construction costs at historic highs and continuing to rise, adaptive reuse provides an economically viable path for new infill housing At a time when many new construction projects are struggling to pencil. AB507 is therefore necessary and vital in order to make any progress towards cities housing production targets.

AB507 creates a tool for cities to modernize their land use that, unlike a costly and time consuming zoning code update, is ready to be implemented now when we need it most. For these reasons, we ask for your support of AB507.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members. Skyler Wonnacott here on behalf of the California Business Properties Association and our Members, the Building Owners and Managers Association of California and NAOP California, in proud support of AB507. We'd like to thank Assembly Member Haney for his persistent leadership in adaptive reuse proposals over the last couple of years. AB507.

By making adaptive reuse a buy right, streamlining approval and offering real incentives, this bill creates a smart, scalable path to convert underutilized, often old, commercial buildings into housing and mixed use spaces. AB507 removes barriers, sparks investment and helps meet California's housing and economic development goals. And we respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Anybody else in the audience wants to add on in support, please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Hi, Bob Naylor for Fieldstead and Company. That's Howard Amundsen Jr, Orange County, in support.

Thank you.

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of SPUR and Circulate, San Diego in support.

Good afternoon. Dylan Hoffman, on behalf of the California Arts Advocates in a supportive amended position, appreciate the conversations with the author's office. Thanks.

Scott Epstein, Abundant Housing LA, in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any primary witnesses in opposition? You have up to three minutes. Okay.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Brady Guertin on behalf of the League of California Cities in a respectful, opposed, unless amended position on this. And the reason we are concerned, for a variety of reasons, we'll start with the buy right approval process. One size fits all for every city. Not every city is viable for, you know, adaptive reuse.

A place like Los Angeles, San Francisco, they have a lot of adaptive reuse. They've adopted ordinances to do that.

But to extend it to a one size fits all for some of our more suburban areas, without regards for local planning and our state mandated, state mandated and approved housing elements, we're concerned that this would open the floodgates to development for areas that were not planned for development in the first place.

The second part of the bill, regarding the permit fees, we're concerned because as you're converting from office to residential, you have a lot of other infrastructure and services that you need to do. It only allows you to do it for the proportional representation.

But those fees are still necessary to ensure that we have the capacity and infrastructure there available. And we are concerned that as currently drafted the bill would not allow cities to provide the opportunity to get that infrastructure upgraded. So we're very concerned about those as well. That said, we've had great conversations with the author's office.

We'll look forward to continuing those. But we do have an opposed list amended with regarding this bill at this time. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else in the audience wants to order an opposition? Please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Mr. Chair, Members Kobe Pizzai, on behalf of the City of Thousand Oaks, in respectful opposition. Sorry.

Seeing no one else. Committee Members, questions, comments on this bill? Assembly Member Pacheco.

I had a question to the opposition. So there's a way to make this bill better so that League of California cities, and maybe from what I see in contract cities as well, to get them either to a neutral position or to a support position. Is there a method or have amendments been provided as well?

Yeah, so we had some. I'll have to look back because we had conversations last year when 3068 was going on. You know, I think the big thing with the buy right stuff is our main concern. So if it remained that would be a big concern for us.

You know, we just think that at the local level, a one size fits all for everyone just isn't viable. But I think that there could be a route forward. You know, but we want to. We'll look at what our discussions were last year and provide those.

And I need to confirm if it's similar to what we had discussed last year.

Okay. And I know the author extremely well and I know he's committed to working with opposition. So I'm looking forward to seeing the final outcome and seeing what we have before us on the assembly floor.

I will be supporting the bill today, and again, I look forward to continued conversations as well, because I was a Council Member at the local level and I remember saying exactly what you said about one size fits all legislation. So thank you to the author for being such a champion in this. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Pacheco. Anybody else? Assembly Member Ward.

Thank you. I want to thank the author for bringing this issue back.

He's been incredibly steadfast on working to be able to help a lot of the opportunity sites that we have specifically in our downtown neighborhoods and be able to, you know, bring them into maybe a new era that matches the both the need we have here today, but also potential new for a community framework, community design that we see for the vision and the future of our respective downtowns.

I know he worked really hard on this bill last year as well. And I see a lot of improvements here as well as you've introduced this here today. So I'll be happy to support this here today.

I know as you go through every step in the legislative process there can be a lot more factors that come in and righteously deserve to enter into that conversation.

I just can hope that you can stay really close to all of the interested chairs and other legislators as well that are interested in trying to be able to get this right because it's a very delicate balance across all these issue areas that you know any last minute poison ideas will help to upset that balance. Right.

But I hope that we're going to get this done right because you've worked so hard on it and certainly your communities design deserve it and happy to support it today.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you Assembly Member Stefani

Thank you Chair. And I just want to thank the author, my counterpart in San Francisco. This is so necessary for our city and I'd like to be added as a co-author if you'll have me.

Thank you.

See no one else. Would you like to close the summary? I respectfully asked you for your aye vote.

Thank you. And we'll definitely continue the conversation. We, I know had a number of conversations last year, a very similar version of the bill, but I look forward to talking moving forward on this version.

Thank you Assembly Member Haney, for your work on this issue. I will be supporting the bill today once we get a quorum and a motion. Otherwise, thank you for presenting the bill today. Thank you. Thank you.

I have a second one. Do you want.

You have a second one? Go ahead.

All right. My second Bill is AB 1294, which would establish a universal application for home building. As we all know, California is in a severe housing crisis, made worse by unnecessary red tape and inconsistent processes.

Right now we have a situation where folks who want to build homes have to navigate a patchwork of wildly different application forms and requirements when applying to build housing across the state, sometimes adding months or even years to a project timeline.

Study recently came out this month that California is the most expensive state for multifamily housing development, in part due to the long time it takes to go from application to an improved project. This is part of the fast track housing package. It addresses the very first hurdle that developers encounter when trying to build housing.

I was also part of the Speaker's recently announced housing affordability package. And it also ensures that local governments cannot impose unnecessary hurdles like costly pre application studies or extra meetings which can make it a lot more difficult and more time consuming even just to apply for the first step of home building.

It will speed up housing approvals, lower development costs and get homes built faster. And it passed in the Housing Committee unanimously with strong bipartisan support. Since then we've worked with folks to take amendments and give a bit more flexibility and here to testify with me today is Scott Epstein, Scott Policy and Research Director for Abundant Housing La.

Thank you so much Chair Carillo and Committee Members. My name is Scott Epstein. I'm the Director of Policy and Research with Abundant Housing La. We are a nonprofit membership driven organization focused on building a more affordable LA County in California and we're proud to sponsor AB 1294.

As Assemblymember Haney said, AB 1294 is part of the Fast Track housing package which seeks to to create a consistent, rational and efficient approvals process to expedite the housing we so badly need in California. The Fast Track package covers the entire length of the approvals process.

Our Bill focuses on the first step, in particular the criteria for a housing development application to be deemed complete. With 89 jurisdictions across LA County, we have seen firsthand how variable application requirements are and how excessive requirements early in the process can slow things down and worse yet dissuade developers from investing in new housing altogether.

AB 1294 would limit application requirements to a defined list. Jurisdictions could use an HCD created form or their own if that form doesn't have any additional requirements.

The key here is that jurisdictions would not be able to require expensive and time consuming requirements such as noise studies or outreach meetings at the beginning of the process when those types of studies are not necessary.

With cities across California behind on their housing targets, we need to do everything in our power to create a culture of yes in our state. We see AB 1294 as a key element in that shift and we're appreciative of the leadership of Assemblymember Haney and the unanimous support of the Housing Committee.

We respectfully ask for your support today. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anybody in the audience that wants to honor any support, please state your name, affiliation and position on the Bill.

Skyler Wannacott on behalf of the California Business Properties Association and our Members, the Building Owners Managers Association of California, NAEP California in Strong Support,

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public affairs on behalf of the Council of Infill Builders, Habitat for Humanity of California, Spur Fieldstead and Circulate San Diego in strong support

Dr. Joshua Bruxen, South Pasadena Residents for Responsible Growth and strong support

Marina Espinosa with The California Housing Consortium and support.

Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California Yimby in support.

Bob Naylor on behalf of fieldstead, Howard Amundsen Jr. In support.

Natalie Spivak with Housing California in support.

Thank you. Are there any primary witnesses in opposition? See no primary witnesses. Anybody in the audience, please come. State your name, affiliation and position on the Bill for opposition.

Apologies, Mr. Chair and Members. Lauren De Valencia representing the American Planning Association. We actually just had a concern, some concerns with the Bill. We issued a letter reflective of that. But we really want to thank the author.

Essentially we just wanted to make sure we can collect enough information to determine the scope of the project and the path that it will take. So we appreciate those amendments. I would like to flag though, regarding the APA process, another APA acronym.

We do think that there's a benefit to everybody, all the stakeholders that will use this application to have a process where we can all engage and weigh in on what we're all going to be working from. So we would really love some consideration for that. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Good afternoon, Chairmembers. Brady Guertin, on behalf of the League of California Cities opposing unless amended as well reflecting the comments that APA had. So we'll look forward to the changes. Thank you.

Thank you. Committee Members. Questions? Comments on what's in front of us? Seeing none. Would you like to close?

Happy to engage on those issues. We did take some amendments that I think provided for some flexibility and but input into what should be included makes sense and we'll engage on that and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Haney, for your work on this issue. I will be supporting your Bill once we get a quorum and a motion. Were still operating as a Subcommitee. Thank you.

We are going to go to item number 21. Assembly Member Wallis, you ready? Yeah. Before you proceed, Assemblymember Wallis have a announcement.

AB647 Gonzalez agenda item number eight as pulled as has been pulled by the author Again, AB 647 agenda item number eight will not be heard today as it's been pulled by the author. When you're ready.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. I have before you today AB 1112. This Bill simply strikes Section 98F4 from the Revenue and Taxation Code. That provision requires the Riverside County Auditor to reduce the property tax revenue distributed to the City of Rancho Mirage below the 7% minimum that other qualifying cities receive.

I want to stop for a moment to thank the Committee for the Excellent analysis. It's been difficult for all of us to unravel the issues surrounding this Bill. This provision was added to statute in 1997. That was back when I was riding my bicycle to elementary school.

We're not sure why it was done, but we think Rancho Mirage was under the mistaken belief it would benefit the city. Instead, it has forever enshrined an inequity in property tax distribution. As the Committee analysis points out, anytime you reallocate property tax, one locale gets more at the expense of another.

In this case, that other locale is County of Riverside. The city and county are in conversations about the property tax shift and it is our intention that the issue be worked out between them. We believe that this subdivision is obsolete and should be deleted.

As the conversations continue and the Bill moves forward, I will keep the Committee apprised. I have with me today Isaiah Hagerman, the City Manager for Rancho Mirage, who is also riding his bike to elementary school when this provision was enacted.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. My name is Isaiah Hagerman and I'm the City Manager for Rancho Mirage. I appreciate the opportunity to to speak in strong support of AB 1112 and want to thank Assembly Member Greg Wallis for authoring this important Bill.

AB 1112 addresses a narrow and outdated section of state law, Revenue and Taxation code, section 98F4 that uniquely penalizes Rancho Mirage. This provision permanently excludes certain property tax revenues from the tax equity allocation TEA formula, making us the only qualifying no low property tax city in California that doesn't receive the program's 7% minimum.

The TEA program was created in response to Proposition 13 to ensure equity among cities with little or no property tax. Rancher Mirage meets that definition, but due to the decades old carve out, we've been left behind. The original exclusion was enacted in coordination with Riverside County back when the city took on fire and library services.

But the financial conditions that prompted that agreement no longer exist. Redevelopment has ended, yet this outdated exclusion remains. AB 1112 is a modest and fair fix. We are not asking for special treatment, just equal treatment under a program meant to ensure fairness for no low qualifying cities like Rancho Mirage.

As the Committee analysis rightly notes, the reallocation of property taxes is a zero sum game. We recognize that reality and Rancho Mirage is committed to working collaboratively with Riverside County to evaluate and manage any fiscal impact. This Bill isn't about creating winners and losers. It's about restoring equity.

It will help us provide essential services, police, fire, parks and infrastructure. For these reasons, we respectfully ask your I Vote for Assembly Bill 1112. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Before we proceed with the second witness, which is Rich. Quorum, would you. Secretary, please call the roll for quorum?

[Roll Call]

We have a quorum. Just a comment. When you were riding your bicycle in 1997. I already had a couple of years driving a car. Your second witness. I'm good. You're good. Committee Members, any questions? Comments? We have a first and a second. Would you like to close? But you accept the Committee amendments, correct?

Yeah, absolutely. And just respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you for accepting the amendments and I will be supporting your Bill today. We have a first and a second. The motion is to pass this amendment, the appropriations. I'm gonna go back. I got so excited to you. I had already a couple of driving years of experience. Is there any opposition? Primary witnesses? In opposition.

How about anybody in the room that wants to go on the record in opposition? Seeing none. And now, Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

6. 0. The Bill is. I will leave the roll open for others to add on any questions? Thank you, Assembly Member Alvarez. And that's item number seven on the agenda. AB600.

Good afternoon. How is everybody doing today? It's good to see you all. It's been a busy day for everybody. I am here to thank you, Mr. Chair, Committee Members for allowing me to present Assembly Bill 610, Fair Housing Practices Act.

I want to thank the Committee for their Analysis on this and I'm sure we'll get into some of the details identified in the analysis. Happy to further discuss some of the points that were raised here.

I'm certainly committed to continuing to work with the Committee to address specific concerns that were analyzed and happy to answer and be more specific during your questions. I want to start off by acknowledging the work that has been happening in our Assembly primarily, particularly on the housing reform package of bills. You just heard one from Mr.

Haney, not two authors ago. This is another bill that is one of the pieces of the housing reform package in order to build the much needed housing we need in California.

It does so by strengthening the compliance with housing element laws, which is basically the guide for how we are going to be what we're going to be building and where in our cities. It mandates a thorough analysis of governmental constraints and requires transparency and communicating regulations to the Department of HCD when they submit their housing element.

It prohibits local governments from imposing new or stricter constraints once HCD has accepted and certified their element unless those new or stricter constraints were disclosed and analyzed in their housing element. As we know, California is in the middle of a deepening housing crisis. More than 2/3 of low income renters are rent burdened. You've heard all the statistics.

The root of the crisis lies in the massive shortage of affordable housing, both rental and affordable housing.

Otherwise, with nearly 2 million extremely and very low income households competing with only 750,000 affordable units across the entire state, one barrier to housing production has been local government's constraints and things like new fees, new zoning restrictions or added procedural burdens that change once they submit their housing elements and say that they are going to use that as their guiding documents which makes it harder to build affordable housing and housing in general.

That is where AB610 comes in. The bill increases transparency by requiring cities to disclose new or more stringent housing constraints in that local housing plan. AB610 also prevents local governments from adding new barriers like like limiting density, increasing fees or restricting affordable housing incentives for three years after their housing element is certified unless they meet strict conditions.

This pause gives state and local governments some time again three years to implement their housing plan that they approved and deliver the homes to Californians desperately need without backtracking through new red tape that they create.

In order to testify today on this issue, we have Vanessa Chavez with the Building Industry Association and Ali Sapirman with Housing Action Coalition.

Good afternoon Chair and Members. Vanessa Chavez with the California Building Industry Association here today as a proud co-sponsor of the measure. AB610 seeks to provide housing providers with more certainty that will allow them to better understand their costs throughout the development process.

As our state Legislature continues to search for dynamic solutions to meet the housing needs of Californians, it is vitally important that local jurisdictions are transparent with their requirements associated with developing in their community.

This measure is a part of a collective effort, the fast track housing package, which seeks to bring solutions to help address the state's housing crisis.

We must ensure that we bring all options to the table as we see a downward trend of housing permits declining due to excessive red tape that continues to plague the construction of much needed housing units. AB610 seeks to offer a solution by providing confidence to builders on the requirements imposed in the jurisdictions they seek to develop in.

AB610 is simply another tool to help us address our state's housing needs. This measure simply seeks to bolster the housing element process to ensure that the millions of dollars committed to this process carry weight and meaning and most importantly, that housing can actually get built. Thank you. And we respectfully ask for an aye vote.

I'm also joined today by my colleague Nick Camarota for any technical questions. Thank you.

Good afternoon Chair and Committee Members. My name is Ali Sapirman. I'm the advocacy and policy manager for the Housing Action Coalition, HACC for short. HACC is a member supported statewide organization that advocates for building more infill homes at all levels of affordability. Our Members span across the building industry. We are a proud sponsor of AB610.

As you heard, a critical piece of the fast track housing package that addresses a fundamental issue, accountability and transparency and local housing planning. The premise of this bill is simple.

Once jurisdictions have received certification of their housing element from HCD, they should be focused on 1 any required rezonings which much which must happen within three years 2 implementation of housing programs committed to in the housing element and 3 removal of any existing governmental constraints to the housing element identified before considering adoption of new governmental constraints that were not reviewed during the certification process.

As you know, the housing element is the only part of a city's general plan that must be certified by the state. That's because the state takes housing seriously and so do we. Public and private stakeholders spend years and millions of dollars working through the arena and housing element process to create meaningful housing strategies.

But for this process to work, local governments must participate in good faith. That means disclosing all known and potential barriers to housing and not waiting until after their housing element is certified to introduce new constraints. Unfortunately, that's exactly what some jurisdictions are doing. We've had the opportunity to work on housing elements all across the state.

And we have a few examples of the problem our housing providers face. In the first example, a city received its housing element certification in December of 2003. Less than a year later, they adopted a new public art fee on housing projects up to 1% of the total project value.

This exaction was never disclosed to HCD during the housing element review. A second example of this problem where a city went through three rounds of review with HCD but failed to mention plans to restrict the state density bonus law by limiting the ability of developers to waive underground utility requirements even though their housing elements said otherwise.

These kinds of post certification changes violate the spirit and arguably the letter of the law. They create uncertainty for housing providers and ultimately delay or deter housing that communities desperately need. AB610 simply says if you're considering a policy that will make it harder to build housing, you must disclose it before your housing element is approved.

That's transparency and that's fair and that's good planning. We urge you to support 8610 to help restore trust in a system that but only works when everyone plays by the same rules. Thank you. And I respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you. Anybody in the audience wants to add on in support, please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Bob Naylor representing Fieldstead. That's Howard Amundsen Jr. Of Orange County in support.

Skyler Wonnacott on behalf of the California Business Properties Association. Our Members, the Building Owners Managers Association of, California, NAOP California in strong support.

Seamus Garrity with Lighthouse Public affairs on behalf of SPUR Fieldstead and Circulate San Diego in strong support.

Dr. Joshua Bruxon with South Pasadena Residents for Responsible Growth. Great bill, strong support. Thank you.

Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY in support.

Scott Epstein on behalf of Abundant Housing LA in support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition, please come forward. You each have up to three minutes? You want to go from. You want to go from up there?

I'll go first. Okay. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair Members. Anya Lawler with the Public Interest Law Project and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation here with an opposed unless amended position. We don't disagree that local government should not be taking actions post adoption of their housing element that are contrary to the promises they made in that housing element.

In fact, existing law already prohibits that. We understand from talking to the sponsors that they feel like the existing scheme in law is not strong enough to sort of stop all of the actions they believe are impeding housing development post adoption.

And we're happy to work with them on a different approach, but we think this one is really deeply flawed. As we noted in our letter, the housing process requires local governments to analyze potential and actual governmental constraints, but it doesn't require. A,

You don't necessarily find that everything that is a potential constraint is a constraint, and it also doesn't require the removal of all constraints. For example, an open space requirement might have a chilling effect on housing production in open space, but that's for a good reason. And so we do allow some constraints in some cases.

This defines certain things, among them inclusionary housing requirements, which are critical to getting affordable housing in market rate production. And as a constraint, and for three years, unless you knew ahead of time that you were potentially going to consider an inclusion requirement in the first three years of the planning period, you can't adopt that requirement.

That has a chilling effect on advocacy. Most inclusionary requirements come about because of advocacy by representatives of low income communities, not necessarily because the City Council wanted to do that.

And so that really has a chilling effect on those sorts of things and other sorts of policies that may come into play for the benefit of low income communities.

And so for those reasons, we're really concerned about the bill, but we're happy to continue to work because we do agree, I think, with the central thesis, but we just think there's got to be a better way to get there that doesn't really flip the current constraints analysis on its head and define things as constraints without any analysis at all.

Thank you.

Yeah. Good afternoon, Chair Members. Brady Guertin, on behalf of the League of California Cities in a respectful, opposed unless amended position. I just wanted to flag a couple things. The big thing is regarding the fees. I know it's a three year limit.

The problem is we continuously get mandates from the state that we have to charge fees at the local level to implement those policies. So for example, we have a bunch of general plan updates that we have to do by 2028. We need fees to backfill our services to ensure that we are providing those opportunities.

So yes, we may have an idea, but it's really hard and challenging for local governments to determine what that looks like. Our fee studies are really complex. We have to go into details and show why it's going to happen. There's a different time frame that we have to work with for fees. So that's really important.

The second thing is the housing element process, as we all know and we discussed earlier today, is very complex. This bill would require us to get our crystal balls out and guess what we're going to do in the next eight years that could potentially constrain housing development.

That would be like telling the Legislature, you have to tell us what you're going to legislate a year before, but you introduce a bill. So how is the planning staff at the local level to guess what the City Council or the mayor, if there's a change in leadership, is going to do?

That could be a constraint on housing. The other thing is, when we adopt constraints, it's not because we're trying to stop development. It's responding to our community.

Maybe we have a new demographic where families move in and they want a little league stadium or a park, and now we need to look at fees for new construction six years from now. So the challenges.

How can a local government account for everything locally that we need to account for what our community wants and how to respond for that in a housing element that is planning and siting for zoning, we are, we are doing our darnest at the local level to site for and plan for housing. We support affordable housing.

We have a lot of programs. I think to. To the other testimony that's an important challenge, inclusionary zoning and these other policies, there's other constraints that can be really hard to guess eight years before they become a thing. So that's why we remain concerned and have an opposed unless amended and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody in the audience that wants to own opposition, please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Mr. Chair, Members Coby Pizzotti, on behalf of. The City of Carlsbad, in respectful opposition.

Thank you. Seeing no one else. Committee Members, Questions? Comments on this measure? Seeing none. Assemblyman Ransom,

I would just love if the witnesses can respond to the opposition that we just heard.

Any responses?

Sure. One of the things I would say, and many of you, if not all of you, served at the local level, as did I, certainty is critical for any development. If there is uncertainty, that really makes it more challenging to plan accordingly to build.

This is about creating the certainty which again, through the housing element, discussions of oftentimes years, definitely months worth of conversations and public hearings, all the things that a city wants to put forward as limitations, constraints, or how they want to build get discussed through that process. And so this is an attempt to create some certainty.

Initially, this was for the eight years that that's how long a housing element is supposed to last for. This is now narrowed down to just three years. I believe that with a three year limitation, I don't know about some of your cities, but it takes a really long time to implement almost any changes.

Fees, you have to go through public hearings. It can take up to three years to approve new fees. And so that still gives them the ability to do so. But let's say they can.

You have a more efficient city than I do in San Diego and you can actually do this quicker than three years, then so long as when you present your housing element, you identify that you might be doing fees, you're still allowed to do new fees.

And to the other point of the opposition, that what if there's a state mandate as it relates to any particular new mandate that comes down the pipe that I believe the language currently covers that and any fees that are associated with the state mandate can be implemented at the local level. These are just fees.

If you as a city or you as a county just decide all of a sudden you want to add new fees, you would not be able to do that unless you said we are considering doing new fees with this housing element in the next three years.

We also had language where in the. State of an emergency, you can introduce new fees.

Any other Committee Member with questions or comments, Is there a motion, motion to move the Bill? Is there a second? No. Second Assembly Member Works made a second Ransom did Assembly Member Alvarez. Would you like to close?

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do want to acknowledge the concerns that, you know, some of the opposition has raised and that your analysis again, well, outlines. And we want to limit the.

The fee issue just to Cities and counties understanding that there are other reasons other other districts, special districts and others that may want to and would be allowed to actually, regardless of this Bill or not, adopt their fees. And so if there's more clarification needed, certainly we're willing to do more work to clarify that.

I want to thank Assemblymember Alvarez for presenting this Bill today with the concerns that have been raised by the opposition. Fees and exactions are important tools for city or county to be able to provide needed infrastructure and services to their communities.

Existing law provides guardrails to racing or changing fees and that are there are established pathways to contest a fee or exactions. I understand the appetite for giving developers more flexibility. Just last year, this Committee passed SB937 winner which provided more flexibility for certain types of projects that generally included affordable housing.

This Bill provides additional limitations on when local governments are able to collect fees. And I am concerned about striking the right balance between addressing the need for housing and preserving local government's role in providing services, infrastructure and affordable housing to the community.

Ensuring that local governments have the tools and resources to provide affordable housing should be a top priority for all of us. The state has spent years encouraging, requiring, even demanding the local governments build more affordable units. I am concerned that this Bill takes some of those tools out of the toolbox.

I have significant concerns with this Bill, but I will be supported today with your commitment and to work with a Committee to address those concerns as you move forward. And we have your commitment to do that? Yes. Thank you. The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

7-0 the most the Bill is out. We'll leave the roll open for the Members to add on. Thank you, Assembly Member Alvarez. Assemblymember Wicks, you have two items on the agenda. AB698 is the first one on the agenda.

Great. Let's go with, only I could read the handwriting.

698.

698.

And 1021.

698. Yeah. Okay. Good afternoon, Chair and members. I'd like to thank the committee staff for working with us on this and we will gladly accept the amendments. I'm here to present AB 698.

This bill requires that before a transfer tax can be adopted by a legislative body, it must be analyzed for its potential impacts on affordable housing, market rate housing, and property taxes. A transfer tax is a tax on the transfer of ownership from one individual or entity to another.

Currently, 24 charter cities in California have transfer taxes, including five in my own district, Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Oakland, and Piedmont. Some of these taxes were passed via local ordinance and some via ballot measure, most in the past 10 years.

The size of transfer taxes varies widely by city, from an additional 0.2% in cities like Santa Rosa and Riverside to 6% in Los Angeles and San Francisco for larger transactions. The use of the transfer tax also varies by jurisdiction. Some go back into the city's general fund.

Others are designated for specific purposes like affordable housing and social programs. Transfer taxes can be an important source of local revenue, and there's a lot I like about transfer taxes and I think crafted the right way can be an incredibly important source of revenue for cities, and I know that they are struggling for revenue, especially these days.

However, that revenue is also not free. Higher taxes inevitably lead to increased cost and decreased consumption of the thing that is taxed. For transfer taxes, that means a reduction in the amount of real estate transactions that occur. One effect of this is that transfer taxes can negatively impact new construction. New construction often relies on two property transfers.

The first from an existing owner to a real estate developer. The second from a real estate developer to the entity that holds that property long term, be it an individual owner or an investor. By making projects less profitable, the transfer tax will reduce the amount of new construction that occurs.

This will result in less housing construction as well as less commercial development construction. Because transfer taxes reduce housing development, they can also reduce the development of affordable housing. This is because many market rate housing projects include a share of units that are deed restricted to be affordable to lower income households.

When those market rate projects do not get built, those inclusionary affordable units do not get built either. Finally, the reduction in real estate transfer can have a negative impact on property taxes. This is because Proposition 13 establishes that property taxes can only be reassessed when properties are sold or substantially improved.

So when there are less sales, there are less reassessments. Recognizing the potential downside of transfer taxes, AB 698 requires that before a local government moves forward with the adoption of a transfer tax, it must publish a study that analyzes the effects of that tax.

Specifically, it must study the potential effect on the tax on the production of market rate housing, affordable housing, and property taxes. By requiring this analysis, decision makers can better understand the potential negative consequences of proposed transfer taxes and design their proposals accordingly.

Here to testify in support of this Bill is Corey Smith, Executive Director of Housing Action Coalition.

Thank you, Assembly Member. Good afternoon, Chair and members, Corey Smith with the Housing Action Coalition. We are a member funded organization that supports the construction of more housing at all income levels across the State of California and a supporter of Assembly Bill 698.

And we represent both market rate builders who are often the ones paying these taxes, as well as the 100% affordable housing builders who need a lot more money to build the low income housing that our state desperately needs.

And I want to thank the Assembly Member for laying out the facts about how transfer taxes work and frankly, the impact of all taxes and impact fees on the production of new housing. Is HACC's policy goal to have builders pay the maximum amount of money in taxes and fees while ensuring that the project does not become infeasible.

And unfortunately, that's not the case for many multifamily builders across the State of California. The fundamental problem I'm hearing right now from builders is it costs more to build the housing, i.e., the cost of construction, than the housing is worth once it's completed. It's the revenue. It's a basic math problem.

And for builders, housing is at the end of the day, a math problem. I talked to a builder yesterday and was told that the current financing gap in my hometown of San Francisco is anywhere between 20 and 30% on mixed income projects. So it costs 20 to 30% more to build it than it's worth when it's done. And in San Francisco, the transfer tax represents a 6% increase on cost.

So when we're adding taxes to something that the state has made it very clear we want more of, housing, we're also creating a financial disincentive to be building. And similar to how tariffs work, when we're not collecting the money we want, it's because we are stopping the homes from getting built.

And so having that data is key for both the shared goal of maximizing the production of housing and collecting the maximum amount of money from a transfer tax. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody in the room that wants to honor in support, please state your name, affiliation, and position on the bill, only.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Amy Garrett on behalf of California Association of Realtors, very much in support of this bill and any bill really, which. provides voters with additional information when considering a real estate tax. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Shant Apekian on behalf of Elevate California and the California Downtown Association in support.

Good Afternoon. Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY in support.

Good afternoon. Raymond Contreras, I'm with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of Sperm Fields in support. Thank you.

Scott Epstein on behalf of Abundant Housing LA in support.

Good afternoon, Chair, members. Skyler Wonnacott, California Business Property Association, BOMA California, NAAAP California. We don't have an official position right now. We support the effort and have been working with the author and thank the author and look forward to the conversation.

Mr. Chairman, Oracio Gonzalez, on behalf of California's Business Roundtable. We're a tweener. We support the bill in concept and appreciate the inclusion of that comprehensive study. But ultimately want to see the bill expanded to ensure that these taxes no longer hinder development or the creation of housing.

Thank you.

Dr. Josh Bruxen with South Pasadena Residents for Responsible Growth. We're in support if amended, this is a good concept, but this has already been studied. UCLA Price did a study on Measure ULA in Los Angeles. It showed that market that all housing dropped off a cliff. The second it was enacted and 10 years from now the money brought in by ULA will be less than the property taxes lost.

Thank you.

Holly Fraumeni de Jesus, the Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of the Council of Infill Builders also in support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition, please come to the table. Thank you. Have up to three minutes. Thank you.

Good afternoon, My name is Joe Donlin, Director of the United to House LA. Coalition. We are a diverse network that brought together over 240 organizations to pass the biggest affordable housing and revenue measures in LA's history.

One of which is a real estate transfer tax voters passed in 2022 known as Measure ULA which has already kept 11,000 people housed and accelerated the development of 800 affordable homes in its first year of implementation. We appreciate Assembly Member Wick's well known track record on affordable housing and we share her goals to dramatically improve housing affordability.

However, along with the 57 organizations who joined our opposed letter including some of the state's largest labor unions, we have significant concerns with AB 698 as currently written. First, it undermines local government's authority to raise revenue as they see the need.

Second, it tilts the scale towards well resourced developers and corporations who have far greater means to Fund a study aim to further their interest to pay fewer taxes. Of course more information can be valuable for policymakers, but requiring local governments to complete speculative studies will provide little valuable information and fuel opposition by giving weight to hypothetical harms.

Even more worrisome are amendments the author's office has told us they are considering adding to this bill that would impose significant exemptions on existing transfer taxes, including ULA. These amendments would slash LA's biggest source of funds to build homes, create jobs, and protect tenants.

Also, the amendments would overrule the will of voters in LA and 23 other jurisdictions around the state that have already passed transfer taxes. This discussion of exemptions comes amidst reports that attempt to blame ULA for slower development. We have numerous concerns with the methodology employed by those studies, which we'd be happy to go deeper into.

In closing, ULA is already showing outstanding impact in LA and is just getting started. We believe the conversation should remain at the local level without unnecessary interventions by this bill. We thank you and the author for the discussion of the bill, but urge your no vote today. Available to answer any questions.

Thank you. Anybody in the audience wants to add on a position, please state your name, affiliation, and position of the bill.

Yes, Good afternoon Chair and members, as Mr. Donlin said, well, first of all, Dani Kando-Kaiser on behalf of have United to House Los Angeles. As Mr. Donlin said, about 57 organizations that signed on with concerns.

Just wanted to list a couple of the main ones Koreatown Immigrant Worker Alliance, Brotherhood Crusade, LA Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council, Public Council, IBEW Local 11 LA, Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing, LA County Federation of Labor, Move LA United Teachers Los Angeles, Unite Here Local 49 and Housing Now Coalition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Monica Madrid with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, CHIRLA, in respectful opposition to this bill.

Judy Yee with the State Buildings and Construction Trades Council in respectful opposition.

Thank you.

Matt Broad on behalf of UNITE HERE International Union in respectful opposition.

Martin Vindale on behalf of the California State Association of Electrical Workers in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Ben Trivot, League of California Cities. We had a tweener position on this bill but want to thank the author's office and her staff for working with us. The amendments proposed in the analysis, they address most of our concerns with the bill. So thank you.

Andres Ramos on behalf of Public Advocates in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Committee members, questions, comments? Assembly Member Ward.

Thank the author as well for bringing this bill forward. I would recognize, I think maybe a variation I think what opposition has kind of stated there more information certainly is helpful in the context of a reality situation that we have here. People brought up ULA, but we hear evidence that ULA has timing production.

We hear evidence that it is doing what is intended and it's catalyzing more affordable housing development as well too. And so the requirement that we have a study being performed on these metrics I think is helpful information. But I would question who is performing that study.

You know, if you're just authorizing or directing a legislative body to be able to do that, how can we be ensured that we're getting unbiased analysis?

Right. And in the current form of the bill, it's left up to the local entity to determine that.

Yeah. And I mean like for example, a major city like ours, we have an independent budget analyst in the City of San Diego, the equivalent of the LAO appeared or something that we all recognize is designed to be that impartial arbiter all information where you can maybe have a lot of information flowing into such an analysis for them to reconcile and give you the best information as a legislator. I'd love to be able to see it move forward, but it may be difficult for a way to be able to prescribe this in legislation.

I just think it's a point that's worth raising to be able to vet as you're thinking about your future steps just to make sure that the end product is something that is as best as can be produced, unbiased.

Right. No, that makes sense. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll move the bill.

Any, no other comments?

Yes.

Assembly Member Ransom.

So thank you. So for clarification, I was looking at a Los Angeles Times article that mentioned, that was speaking about Measure ULA and it's my understanding this bill is not specifically about Measure ULA. There's also, you know, mixed information in regards to that.

I was looking at the Los Angeles Times article about whether that measure has worked out as intended. And ultimately I think what my concern would be is when we are asking voters to make the decision, make these decisions, if these are voter decisions, that we're able to give them as much information as possible.

But also I'm concerned about like, I don't see. Can you confirm, like who will be the people that are going to be doing the analysis and like how do, how are they being vetted? I guess is the question.

Yeah, so it's up for so and this is for, this isn't for local measures that voters are voting on and that was per the committee amendments. And this is for ordinances that are being voted on by councils. So that's a little bit different.

That was a change with the committee amendments and it's up to the local city, the local government to determine who is to run the analysis. And so if you're on a local council. They are the ones who are empowered to determine that.

But there's no longer.

Sorry. And one other quick thing, sorry. This is forward looking, this isn't retrospective. So this is not pertaining to ULA specifically. This is forward looking. If cities are going to be doing this because we're seeing more and more cities do this and it can be an incredibly important revenue stream and especially cities are really struggling with.

I mean, we got rid of redevelopment, we have all these challenges around funding affordable housing. And so I think that's an important tool. We also want to make sure we're not having any negative unintended consequences by actually depressing our new construction.

So that's what we're trying to do is have some additional analysis in that as these decisions are being made at the local level.

Okay, thank you for that. So I do want clarification. So first of all, yeah, I'm equally concerned about unintended consequences. That's something that we see over and over again in the decisions that we make. So to be clear, this is not, I know it's not the large scale ballot measures that would be citizen orchestrated.

But is this sometimes if this, if the city is putting this on their ballot. This isn't if like the City Council votes to put it on their ballot. Correct.

It's if a City Council is voting on ordinance for transfer tax. Yeah.

Okay. So even if it never goes to a ballot, they decide that they have the majority to do it and they do their, okay, I understand that. And then I do thank you for clarifying because reading the opposition letters, it does sound like it's going to go retroactive to places such as the ULA.

So we are looking forward, we're not looking back. We just want to make sure that when municipalities are doing things, because quite honestly, you know, when you're running a local government, you want to try to find all the fees you possibly can to try to, you know, make up for things that we just don't have anymore.

Inflation impacts government as well. So I understand that that's what folks want to do, but I do, I do want to make sure that people are making decisions not based on a sound bite, but with all of the details they possibly can. So thank you for answering my concerns. That helps me as we move forward.

Thank you.

I have a question for the opposition with AB 698, as it was explained with this conversation is looking forward. How do you see this affecting ULA? The measure that was passed in LA, since it's not retroactive and it's only moving forward.

Thank you for that question. And we understand how bills can evolve over time. And so we did want to register the concern if changes should be made in the future that would impose any changes to existing transfer taxes. So that's why we are raising those concerns.

You know, as mentioned, you know, ULA is a critical source for affordable housing and homelessness prevention programs in Los Angeles. We've seen the benefit already. You know, we think other cities that haven't yet pursued that would want to benefit from that.

You know, within LA County, we want to see more cities being able to do that, you know, so that it has the spillover effect into the City of LA and all throughout the region. And so there are impacts that we are concerned about in terms of the bill in its current form as well.

And to the Assembly Member and the witness, how do you see this moving forward? Will it affect measure ULA since, again, it's moving forward?

I'll be super blunt. One, this bill is about future taxes and transfer taxes.

Right, get that.

Two, there's a separate ongoing conversation around ULA that, frankly, I think that has to come from Los Angeles. Like, I'm a member from Oakland. I don't represent Los Angeles, many colleagues that do, as well as other stakeholders, affordable housing groups, labor unions, et cetera.

And, you know, obviously there was research that came out within the last couple of weeks that are raising some of these questions, and that, that is for them to determine what they want to do with their. It's their prerogative. Right?

This bill is about future taxes, for transfer taxes and making sure that we are, I think, being thoughtful around some of the potential unintended consequences that could come from this. I care a lot about housing production and concern when we start to see things that could negatively impact that production.

Our priority is the production of affordable housing. That's the most important thing in all of this. And so how do we get that.

As it is for a lot of us? So thank you for the clarification on both sides. Seeing no other comments or questions from committee members, I believe we have a motion. A second? Do we have one? Stephanie? First and the second. Okay. Would you like to close? Assembly Member Wicks.

Appreciate the conversation and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you for working with the committee on the amendments with us. I will be supporting your bill that requires cities to conduct an analysis on the potential impact a tax may have on housing developments. We do have a first and a second. The motion is due, pass as amended. Secretary, please call the roll.

[ROLL CALL]

7-0. The bill is out, congratulations. And you have a second item?

I do.

Item number 18. AB 1021.

Yes.

Great. Well, thank you for allowing me to present AB 1021. I'd first like to thank the chair and the Committee for working with us. And I gladly accept the proposed amendments. This Bill will make it easier for school districts and other local education agencies to build housing for their employees.

The lack of affordable housing has long been a challenge to the recruitment and retention of school district employees, including teachers and all the other administrative, technical and support staff that make our schools function. The cost of housing has skyrocketed since the Great Recession, far outpacing the ability of teachers and classified staff to keep up.

As a result, these staff are moving further and further away from their schools they serve or are leaving the workforce altogether. In Oakland, actually, there's. The realtors say drive till you qualify. Just keep. Keep going east until you can qualify to afford a home.

And subsequently, we have teachers at Oakland Unified School District who are living in Stockton and Tracy and beyond Suisun City. Exactly. You know, commuting four hours round trip. Because they grew up in Oakland, that's where they want to teach. And so we see it in my district.

The result is there's chronic staff shortages across the state, including rural, urban and suburban districts. So we are building on the good work of Summit Member Richard blooms efforts in 2022, AB 2295, to make it easier to build workforce housing on our school campuses.

So this will help clean up some of that good work that he did and streamline the process. With me here to testify in support, Professor Dana Cuff, UCLA City Lab, and Andrew Lee, board of the Jefferson Union High School District, which is the most recent success story on the education workforce housing.

Hi, Mr. Chair and Members, thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today on this important measure. My name is Andy Lee and I'm a school board Member for the Jefferson Union High School District, which serves over 3,700 students from the communities of Daly City, Pacifica, Brisbane and Coleman, the Bay Area.

I'm here to speak in support of AB 1021 on behalf of the California School Boards Association, which is a co sponsor.

It's a much needed measure to help build upon the Good work established by AB 2295 from 2022, which helped put in place a process school districts and county offices of education can use to build workforce housing for their staff.

Maybe 1021 will help to further existing policy to help streamline and remove barriers to make it easier for more school districts to offer educator workforce housing for their staff.

In San Mateo county, my district, Jefferson Union, it is the lowest funded High School District there and prior to the development of our workforce housing, we were experiencing an annual turnover of 25%.

In the staff survey that back in 201735% of staff indicated they would leave the school district over the next five years due to the cost of housing. With that data, we began work on our educator workforce housing that year.

Five years later, in April 2022, we opened 705 Ceremony our educator housing complex comprised of 122 units that houses 25% of our teachers and classified staff. Rents are targeted at 50% below market rates starting at 1400 per month. For one bedroom units, we house teachers, counselors, maintenance workers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, professionals and more.

Resident Mitch is approximately 60% certificated staff and 40% classified staff, all non management staff. And we currently have a wait list of 31 staff and the building is 100% occupied. The benefits are clear. In both the fall of 2022 and the fall of 2023, we had no vacancies district wide.

On the first day of school for the first time in years, staff commutes shrunk from one hour each way to 10 minutes. Recruiting vastly improved and we were able to attract, hire and retain highly qualified teachers and classified staff. And most importantly, our educators have housing security.

Our educators cannot give their best to our students if they are struggling with housing insecurity. Although it took us five years to complete the project, the statewide average for completion is about seven years. And that's too long.

As you know, too much can happen during that time, causing delays, increasing costs and other factors that can impede the development of this tool for our for our staff. Although AB 2295 and Now AB 1021 preceded our work, these bills would have helped cut down the time it would have taken.

Go from inspiration, the groundbreaking to the ribbon cutting on our educator workforce housing, AB 1021 will help many other school districts that are in the process of pursuing their own workforce housing. In today's climate, where we both have a housing and a public educator shortage above, it's imperative we continue to support the development of educator workforce housing.

It's a critical tool that school districts like mine have at our disposal to meet the needs of our teachers and classified staff, and most importantly, to improve the educational outcome of all of our students. I urge you to support AB 1021. Thank you for your time.

Hello and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Dana Cuff, I'm a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA and I'm proud to say I'm 100% product of California public schools. From kindergarten in Orange County to college at Berkeley, I've been studying education workforce housing for the past seven years.

This research has convinced me that building workforce housing for our state's educators, from teachers to janitors and school secretaries, is an essential, impactful strategy for delivering the best education to California's next generation. AB 1021, based on this research, will empower more districts to build more housing more efficiently.

These claims are backed by these years of academic study conducted by City Lab UCLA, the design Research center that I founded, and direct research in concert with our partners at UC Berkeley and the California School Boards Association.

In the years since we partnered with Assemblyman Bloom on AB 2295, we've worked directly to train and collaborate with 19 urban and rural districts interested in building education workforce housing to help them advance their projects. We've also recently evaluated the successes and challenges of the 7 operating education workforce housing projects across the state.

I should mention that, like Andy said, all seven in fact have long wait lists full of educators seeking an apartment. AB 201021 specifically addresses the roadblocks uncovered by this new research, and I can highlight just two of many examples.

First, almost half of the state's smaller and rural districts interested in building housing have parcels they want to develop that are ineligible for the benefits of AB 2295. As currently written, AB 201021 fixes that. Second, every district we've engaged with wants more development certainty, and many want to collaborate with local public sector partners.

AB 1021 achieves both goals. In summary, this law is evidence based and tailored to solve the real challenge challenges facing districts today. I'd like to close with some particularly powerful Data. Back in 2019, we found that 46 districts were interested in building education workforce housing.

Today, six years later, the number of interested districts has quadrupled to 175, a testament to our work and to champions like Andy Lee who continue to share the benefits from the forefront of what has become a bona fide movement. But there's a rub.

Less than 8% of the interested districts have been able to transform that interest into physical housing developments. And this is at a time when California needs affordable housing more than ever. That's why we need 1021. I strongly urge you to support this Bill and in turn support one of California's most precious resources, its educators. Thank you.

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

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Chris Reef, on behalf of the California School Boards Association, as stated by our. Colleague Annie Lee, as well as on. Behalf of the Oakland Fund for Public Innovation, crowds co sponsors of the Bill. And its support, thank you.

Hello. Carlos Lopez with the California School Employees Association in support.

Thank you. Chair. Members Sasha Horowitz, Los Angeles Unified School District, in support.

Afternoon. Mark Newberger, California State Association Counties in support.

Thank you. Anybody that is in primary opposition, seeing none. Anybody wants to be adding opposition, seeing none. Committee Members, any question? Assemblymember Rubio, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much for this Bill.

I know that in my district we've closed a number of schools and you know, aside from the emotional distress that our communities and now we have to go to these schools and just see them empty and what we used to have as kids laughing and playing are no longer there.

And I've always bragged about the affordable housing that's being created in Northern California. And I've been suggesting and pleading with a lot of the superintendents in my district to follow those models, to make use of the beautiful properties and huge, huge properties. So I want to thank you for bringing this. It's been kind of an education day.

I saw some of our folks here in education Committee, but it is what we need right now. And I think that making it easier for these districts to do something with those properties is so much needed. And again, it serves the community, it serves the teachers.

I remember the program, the teacher next door, the police officer next door, which encouraged all of these folks to work where they. To live where they worked. And now we're making it possible. We can't just say it and not help them do this.

So thank you for the Bill and if you wouldn't mind, I would love to be added as a co author.

Would love to have you. Thank you.

Any other Committee Member.

Assemblymember Stephanie thank you, Chair, and thank you to the author for this Bill. And it's good to see you. I have spoken at length with the.

Jefferson in Union High School District and the elementary school district in Assembly District 19, and I'm so excited about the prospects of teacher housing and anything we can do to help move that forward. I am on board. So again thank you to the author for all your work in this area.

Thank you. Seeing no one else would you like.

To close Just respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you Assembly Member Weeks for your work in this issue. We share a desire to help employers provide provide more workforce housing and Our K through 12 teachers and staff deserve a home that is affordable and within reasonable commute. Do we have a motion or second?

Second we do have a motion A second thank you for accepting the Committee's technical amendments and I will be voting aye. The motion is do pass as amended to the Appropriations Committee Secretary please call the roll.

AB 1021 do pass as amended to appropriation Carrillo Aye Carrillo I T. Hoover Pacheco Pacheco I. Ramos Ransom Rubio Rubio I. Stephanie Stephanie I. Ward Ward I. Wilson Wilson I66 here.

The motion side we thank you very much for others to add on thank you Assembly Member Shabur going on the agenda order Assembly Member Suburb Agenda item number nine AB 648.

Good afternoon Mr. Chair Members. First of all I would like to thank the Committee staff for their work on this Bill and I'll be accepting the Committee amendments. I'm very grateful for your work and for the Chair's personal engagement on the Bill to help us refine it and so thank you.

I'm proud to present AB 648 which will combat housing insecurity and homelessness among community college students, staff and faculty while also addressing California's broader housing crisis. California community colleges are an integral part of our higher education system.

With over 2 million students attending one of California's 116 community colleges, the community college system has become a critical pathway allowing Californians from all backgrounds to access higher education and economic mobility. Unfortunately, community college students office often face uncertainty about whether they will be able to find they will be able to provide for their basic needs.

Last year the Legislative Analyst Office found that roughly 60% of community college students face housing insecurity and almost 25% have experienced homelessness. Let me say that again. Almost 25% of our community college students have experienced homelessness.

The state has taken multiple actions in recent years to increase student housing at community colleges and allow students to focus on their work instead of worrying about where they will sleep at night. AB648 will address the housing crisis and recognize the integral role of the California community colleges in our higher education system.

Specifically, this Bill will allow and with the amendments, this Bill will allow students and staff housing to be built on property that is owned or leased by a community college district and located within a half mile of a main campus or an EX or an existing satellite campus.

Regardless of how the lot is zoned, community colleges will be required to comply with CEQA to consult with their local planning Department and follow other relevant regulations.

Not only will this provide housing security for countless community college students, staff and faculty, but it will also make available housing units around community college campuses, which will increase the housing supply for community Members who aren't students or affiliated with the college community.

I ask for your aye vote at the appropriate time and with me today in support of the Bill are Donald Girard, Senior Director of Governmental Relations and Institutional Communications at Santa Monica College, and Scott Epstein, Policy and Research Director for Abundant Housing, Los Angeles, Louisiana.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. My name is Don Gerard and I'm here on behalf of Santa Monica College, often referred to as smc. Our community extends far beyond Santa Monica. We have around 25,000 students and offer more than 100 fields of study.

Housing insecurity is a crisis for California's community college students, and we've seen this firsthand at SMC. We are proud to have led the state for 34 consecutive years in the number of community college students who transferred to the ucs.

However, this academic success comes in spite of the large number of our students who face either homelessness or housing insecurity. AB 648 is a necessary and urgent solution to this problem.

By allowing community colleges to build student and staff housing on property they own or lease without facing lengthy and expensive delays due to local zoning, this Bill removes a major hurdle standing in the way of desperately needed housing. Schools like SMC are ready to Fund and build housing to support our students. This is more than just words.

In 2022 Santa Monica residents voted to. Allocate $375 million to SMC for a. Bond measure that explicitly included provide affordable housing in the ballot title. Our residents stand with us and we're ready to begin addressing the community college student housing crisis by building housing. We, along with our co sponsors, including. The Los Angeles Community College District and.

The many colleges and supportive parties that have added their name to this Bill, see this Bill as a necessary step to help ensure that community colleges are. Able to fully support our students. Thank you. We respectfully ask for your aye vote we support the amendment and we thank you very much for your engagement and refinement.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. Scott Epstein with Abundant Housing. Ladies, we're proud to be Co sponsoring AB 648 which will facilitate the production of housing on community college land. Over 1% of our population in California is served by this system. And those students experience a shocking level of housing insecurity.

Just want to underline the study that the Assembly Member spoke to. Something on the order of 500,000 students in our state are telling us they have experienced homelessness. That is a moral failure. Our students should be focused on the test the next day, not on where they're going to sleep that night.

And I think it's important to note that community college districts which are run by locally elected boards want to be a part of the solution. As evidenced by the support of community college districts all across the state for this Bill.

But they face a major obstacle when it comes to building on the land that they own and lease on and near their campuses. Local zoning regulations also the UC and CSU systems have this privilege already. But the CCC system has a much higher needs population when it comes to housing insecurity. So this is a parity Bill.

Adding student and staff housing on and near community colleges not only addresses student housing insecurity but also will take pressure off of the housing stock and surrounding communities.

Will reduce carbon emissions because more students and staffs will live within walking distance of their campuses and will enhance students ability to to engage in life on campus and meeting the basic needs of students will increase retention, student achievement and labor market outcomes. We respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Anybody else in the room wants to add on in support? Please state your name, affiliation and position on the Bill only. Good afternoon. Andrew Martinez, Community College League of California in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Sylvia Solis Shaw here on behalf of the City of Santa Monica and strong support.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Maria Velos, Los Angeles Community College District in strong support and co sponsor.

Thank you. Chair Members Mark Mcdonald on behalf of. The Los Rios and San Diego Community college districts and support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Mr. Chair Members David Nevin on behalf of. The Cerritos El Camino and Allen Hancock community colleges in support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Mr. Chair Members Raymond Contreras with Lighthouse Public affairs on behalf of SPUR and Circulate. San Diego and support.

Hi. Kate Rogers on behalf of the Student Homes Coalition Proud support as a co sponsor. Hello.

Good afternoon. Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California Yimby. And Power California Action and support.

Thank you. Is there any primary witness in opposition? Please come forward.

Mark Newberger, California State Association of Counties I'll make my comments brief. Appreciate the author for bringing the Bill and as well as the Committee for reviewing it. We have an opposing list amended position on the Bill for the past version of it. But we're also taking a look at the Committee's suggested amendments and reevaluating.

Thank you Brady. On behalf of the League of California Cities opposed and must amended as well reflecting CSAC's conversations. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no one else Committee Members questions Comments Assemblymember Wilson thank you to the author.

Let me move my chair over. Thank you to the author for bringing this forward. I definitely understand the intent and allowed you for that for this direction. I think that community colleges are vitally important.

They're affordable way to go to college and you can't always assume that it's the person who is working, you know and going on the side or that there's a lot of students who are fresh out of high school who are going to community college and still need housing. And then there are those who are reinventing their career.