Senate Standing Committee on Local Government

Good morning. Thank you for joining us for the meeting of the Senate Committee on Local Government. We welcome the public in person and we are holding our Committee hearings here in the Capitol Building. I ask all Members of the Committee to be present in room 113 so we can establish a quorum and begin our hearing.

See, we will start as Committee Subcommitee or Committee or Subcommitee Subcommitee today because we don't have a quorum yet. We have 15 bills on today's agenda, three of which are on consent. File item 13 A.B. 920, file item 14, A.B. 1007 and file item 15 A.B. 1497. A little bit of housekeeping. File items number seven,

AB 671 and file item number nine A.B. 1156 by Assemblymember Wicks have been pulled from today's hearing and will be heard during our hearing on July 9th. Additionally, AB 1308 by Assemblymember Hoover was originally scheduled for today but was previously pulled and now reset for July 9th. If you can follow that. We don't have the quorum.

Can't do that. Okay, now let's hear from our first author. We have Assemblymember Ward. I know you're not the first on the okay, where's my list of okay, Good morning, Assemblymember.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Senators. First, I really want to thank our Committee staff here today for their really hard work and ongoing conversation on this bill. Happy to accept the Committee's amendments, which are outlined on page seven of your analysis.

So AB 253 is before you and it would allow homeowners and developers to hire licensed third party professionals to conduct building plan checks if it would take the local building Department longer than 30 business days to conduct that same review.

Now, under current law, local governments review building plans to ensure compliance with state building codes and local ordinances, a process which we know is prone to delay due to fluctuating workloads and resource constraints at local building departments.

Lengthy review periods at this stage hinder housing production and delay the transition from approved projects to active construction, affecting overall construction costs and housing affordability in California.

Bill AB 253 would address a lot of this administrative hurdle by ensuring timely post entitlement plan checks for small residential projects, providing an alternative mechanism for applicants to use licensed private professionals at this stage, helping to focus workloads of cities on larger projects which require a lot more thoughtful review.

This approach is consistent with some of the best practices adopted in other countries and states and is already in use electively by some local governments in California for witnesses and support I have Eduardo Mendoza, the Research Associate at California, and Andrew Slocum, the CEO of Green Development Company and I welcome your questions.

Good morning Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Eduardo Mendoza. I'm a former LA and Culver City Planner and I'm currently a policy researcher at California YIMBY and I'm here on behalf of our organization as a proud sponsor in support of AB 253.

California YIMBY is a statewide organization representing over 80,000 Members committed to making our state a more affordable and inclusive place to work, live and raise a family. As California continues to face a severe housing shortage, one of the most persistent and avoidable challenges we see is the delay in post entitlement permitting for fully approved housing projects.

In California, many housing projects face extended delays during permit plan reviews, which stalls construction, increases carrying costs and places an unnecessary burden on missing middle housing builders. The average delay for a fully entitled apartment building to receive post entitlement permits is nine months. That timeline alone can break a project's financing, especially for smaller scale housing projects.

AB253 offers a focus and practical solution. It allows licensed independent third party professionals to conduct plan reviews, but only when a local agency is unable to complete its review within 30 days. In addition, local agencies retain full authority and discretion over final approval and the issuing of the permit.

The goal of AB 253 is not to replace local review, but to serve as a capacity building tool that helps jurisdictions prevent unnecessary permitting delays. This approach gives local jurisdiction support in managing workload. It helps projects stay on schedule and reduces uncertainty for builders delivering much needed housing. It's for these reasons we respectfully request your support for AB 253.

Thank you.

Good morning Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Andrew Slocum. I am the CEO of Green Development Company and I thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee today on AB 253. I speak from my experience doing hundreds of smaller housing projects throughout the state, mostly developing infill houses and ADUs.

Every day I deal with the problem this bill aims to solve. Even though many projects will require 60 day turnaround and reviews, most jurisdictions don't get back to you for 45 days.

These cities that opt in for third party plan check review, for example Pasadena, the city where I live in, they occasionally opt in for third party plan review. Those reviews are done in five days on average, if not quicker. Five days versus 45 days. That's a factor of nine times greater.

In receiving comments back, the vast majority don't actually actually approve or deny projects within that 60 day period. And it doesn't matter if there's corrections required or not. Why is this? There's two main reasons. A structure of limited resources and the government hiring structure.

For example, Altadena area before the Eaton Canyon fire, they only had two plan checkers for the entire LA County area that they're in charge of. While they have ramped up, most jurisdictions don't have the capacity. South Pasadena only had one plan checker for the entire city. All projects of any size.

Artesia contracts with LA County and they have a plan checker that comes in one day every week for all projects. How many plans are you getting through when you're only working one day a week? Larger jurisdictions also have their fair share of staffing issues.

They have a high turnover rate which leads to educating people on state housing laws. Stockton's planning Department only had maybe a half dozen people working in it. A City of 3,000 plus folks with a staff of five people to manage every application that comes in the door.

Considering that the plan check process volume ebbs and flows, the demand is not always constant, but due to civil service hiring requirements and it's impossible to have on demand employees such as the private industry does to meet demand as it comes in. Yeah.

In closing, the state law does have a deemed approved clause, but the AB 253 is a remedy for this. Yep.

Anyone else in support of AB 253? If you want to come up and introduce yourselves.

Yeah. Good morning, Madam Chair Member. Silvio Ferrari, on behalf of Nv5 in support.

Madam Chair, Members. Pat Moran, with Aaron Reed and associates representing the Southern California Rental Housing Association in support. Thank you.

Thank you,

Thank you. Anyone else in support? Seeing none. Is there anyone here in opposition? If you'd like to. Do you want to take. Yeah, can someone just. Yes. Thank you very much. Go ahead. You'll have two minutes.

Mark Newberger, on behalf of the California State Association of Counties, we do have an opposed unless amended to the current version of the bill. We do want to thank the author stakeholder as well as the Committee staff for all their hard work on this bill and the potential amendments to the analysis. I'm going to.

I will definitely agree that all of these suggested amendments go a long way in addressing many of our concerns.

But we still have remaining concerns essentially on the continued kind of outsourcing of a lot of the responsibilities that local government currently performs as a disinterested central third party, ensuring that state and local building code and ordinances and most importantly safety of these residential buildings is still observed.

That kind of the pendulum swinging away from disinterested local government oversight to a more kind of motivated where time is of the essence. So we got to get these things up as fast as possible. Continues to concern CSAC and many other local governments. And that's essentially where our comments lie today and concerns.

But we do appreciate the work as well as the suggested amendments. But still those larger concerns remain.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Members. Julie Navoris, on behalf of the League of California Cities, we echo CSAC's comments.

Did you want to.

Oh, it's okay. Appreciate the author and the Committee's thoughtful analysis. We are opposed and submitted, but we are looking at the amendments and hopefully to look forward to working with the author as it continues to move but can still have remaining concerns. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Claire Sullivan, on behalf of the cities of Carlsbad and Merced in opposition and on behalf of the cities of Rancho Cucamonga and Belmont in opposing unless amended positions echoing the concerns already heard. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Tracy Ryan, with the Royal County representatives of California also amended. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Raymond Contreras, with Lighthouse Public affairs. Apologize for my tardiness, but SPUR, of Habitat for Humanity California and Abundant Housing Los Angeles all in strong support. Thank you. Thank you.

Chair. Committee Members. Brian Mayor Montes, American Federation of State County Municipal Employees. Just want to be clear, we don't oppose at this point. We just want to raise some concerns that we have.

We do represent over 300,000 workers across all levels of government at the local level, including the plan checkers, including the permit technicians, all the individuals responsibility for reviewing these plans.

And just want to be clear that we do agree with the author's intent here and that there is a really clear problem in processing these app, these permanents and these applications. And we do want to help solve it. However, we are concerned with tying permit processing times to what is essentially privatization of these functions. And we.

With that said, we do agree that local government should actually absolutely be held accountable. With that said, we do appreciate the author's collaborative approach to the issue and look forward to working through amendments that create accountability for both local governments while also maintaining public responsibility for these services. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in opposition saying none. I bring the questions and comments from the dais. Senator Seyarto, thank you.

All right. I know what you're trying to do. It's a point of angst for a lot of developers when they're trying to get their plans approved. Some cities have already done this and you know what's happened. They're still having problems.

And the reason is because once you go out on the market, then the market becomes impacted as well. In other words, the same problem that's afflicting the city that's holding them up holds up the regular market. And so you have more delays that way too. So I don't know that it's going to solve problems for all cities.

I think cities that find this useful will do that. What about the sub plan checks, like fire safety plan checks? Because once it goes to the regular building official plan check process, then once it gets approved there it goes to or actually the other way around, they send it to the plan check at the Fire Department.

And that can take a while because that's much more specific and there are a lot more codes and updated codes that the plan checkers have to go through and make the calculations and make sure.

So a lot of these are, you know, and I know this just this smaller residential you're saying, you know, but there's a lot of different codes that we're changing regulatory environment that we're changing constantly.

And before we even vet to see if those things are working, we're piling more stuff on and we're removing more and more of the local control part of it. And part of the local control isn't just control over the rapid rate of growth or the slowing rate of growth.

It's the liability part, you know, who's liable when something gets missed and are they hiring in house people?

Because once you've hired an in house person, well, the in house person is pretty much glued to what that the interest of the developer in getting that plan check through as opposed to the city who's trying to make sure that it is correct and safe and ready to go according to the building codes.

So there's a lot of different little conflicts here. And my concern is that we just keep piling more and more on and we've created this web of regulatory stuff that makes plan checking even more difficult. So. What is the answer for the public safety part of it, the overall part of it and the liability part of it.

Thank you for the question, Senator. I'd like to start answering that question by just stepping out for that 30,000 foot view about why this is a necessary opportunity, necessary change and allowance.

As we have seen as the evidence shows, we have an increasing delay in being able to get that shovel into the ground to be able to get work done. And a lot of that is coming from the workload that we've had.

And that's off to the cities or those local jurisdictions that are ramping up their permitted activity because we need more housing. And that is coming at a price. And the ability to flow through proper review to be able to get everything to a point where it can be deemed approved and construction can commence is a.

Whether they are increasing the level of permanent activity they're having today, which is great or not, we have a payable workflow problem.

And what I'm hearing often, whether you are an individual property owner or you are a developer, is that we have become numb and accustomed to a status quo today, that it's just a fact of life that you go through all the steps that you need to do to consult your architect, your engineer, your GC or everybody on your team to get your project ready to go.

You submit that to the city and then you wait and if you've been through that process, you say like, okay, well what happens next? I don't know. The city will get back to us in about six to nine months. That's usually our experience. Well, I submit that that's not something that we should accept.

We need to dig into why that problem is. And of course we have work, talent, workload. And in a perfect world, I would love to see our cities more supported and funded to be able to help with that workload.

And many are actually looking towards electively using private third party plan checkers, certified professionals to be able to do some of those workloads. So we know that a side process can exist.

And what this bill, threading this all back together does is it allows the option a relief valve if that 30 day plus impact is present that somebody can be able to use that opportunity to be able to perform that function. But it stops there. It doesn't get into inspections, it doesn't get into final occupancy.

I know other bills are getting into that space, but I'm just trying to get, get shovels in the ground. I'm trying to get things happening just a little bit faster. Importantly, it does focus on the small, less complex stuff, your one to 10 style units. That is making sure that two things are happening.

One, cities are still retaining the importance from a safe health and safety perspective to be able to focus their efforts on mid scale and especially large development where things do get complex and need that extra levels of review. But it doesn't dismiss and it doesn't actually take out any kind of lack of regulatory oversight.

There still is a process embedded with this Bill that a private third party professional could be able to do that review, submit that to the city and then would have a shot clock to be able to review whether or not the review was done correctly.

Review the review.

That's exactly what would happen which is already happening again electively with some cities today that does include and I know as a former fire captain this is very important to you chief fire chief not going to demote you that this is very important to you and your perspectives and it's important to me as well a lot.

Again the simpler types of development profiles are I'm not going to say cookie cutter but they're a little bit easier to follow and so to an extent extent that that review also would be done initially by that plan checker that would still be able to go through a permit review a review process that includes all the officials that are already at the table at a city or local government.

If I may, through the Chair, I think there's a additional response.

I wanted to address your liability question. So the liability would fall entirely on. The third party reviewer. The city would not be liable if. It goes a third party review route.

Ultimately, the city approves the plan and the city is on the hook.

Actually, there is. Through our amendments, we are absolving the local governments of liability from this. They do have. Obviously they would resume liability on final inspection. That is an important part to make sure that everything was done correctly.

But I think, Senator, like any other process, when somebody is doing construction, you hire your team, you hire your gc.

I understand the experience is the city winds up being the one that gets sued and the city is the one who winds up settling. And the city is. So they have to have. That's one of the reasons things take so long is because there's such a liability from the state from all the mandates we've put on cities.

And if they miss one, they're on the hook for that. They get fined for that. So there's a lot of liability packaged into the review process for plans and stuff. And I don't doubt, I know it takes too long. It's frustrating. It's frustrating for people, not just for little buildings, but the bigger buildings where they employ people.

But to pretend that we can absolve the City of all liability by putting a clause in a Bill. That's not going to do it. That is not going to work. So I was kind of a maybe on this one, but this is local government.

And for me, if they can already do it within the confines of their structure and their liability structure, then I'm good with that. Cities that don't and can't compete, well, you know, they're going to have to figure out a way to do it.

And I don't think laying a blanket over the entire state with this type of mandate is, I think, fair to the cities that already do it the right way and that are trying to adhere, but at the same time protecting themselves and their communities. So that's all.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Did you want to comment on the liability issue on behalf of your Members?

Yeah. The amendments kind of go a long way in addressing the liability components of it. But the discussion that Senator Sierra brought up and the points still remain and that this is kind of shifting away from, again, back to some of the comments made currently.

Many cities and counties do, in times of crunch or for special things, retain private parties to review these things. This is.

Now, this bill would shift that Essentially that contractual relationships and especially the local governments ensuring that those private plan checkers their performance and of course making according adjustments to performance such as finding new folks or going with other firms if the performance is subpar, this is shifting it over to the essentially the contractor side or the developer side.

That kind of oversight will now be missing under this Bill. And that's the key piece of it.

The liability language, which does go a long way, but I concur with Senator Sierrato is that there's going to, there's potential that these plans, because they're deemed approved after a certain amount of time if a county or if local government is not able to get to them, is that you may have issues that come up on final inspection, that because of the rush and because of the mood, because of the kind of the speed at which things go are caught on final inspection.

And we're talking potential for major structural issues. And that I believe, Senator Syrato, is where a lot of the concerns about the litigation essentially ensue as the finger pointing begins of well, whose fault was it that this major structural component wasn't caught hot until the very end?

And I do concur that for many parts, despite all the statutes there providing the kind of the balances and checks and balances that typically it's just much easier to settle the situation even in scenarios where the local government's not the one who hadn't made the errors.

Thank you. Senator Choi, did you have.

Yes, I do. Thank you, Chair. Senator Ward, I understand your intent of this Bill. Basically when it's delayed over 30 days and for one to 10 residential units only and the home builders, time is money and the waiting forever. I mean there will cost, the material cost, everything else likely to go up.

So I think this is to solve that problem. Many cities, for whatever reason they are very many cities are short of plan checkers which delays this cost. So from the business point of view, I think this is one viable alternative that I tend to support.

But listening to opposition points and all the liability issues and the expertise that the private plan checker will have and I don't quite understand your reply, the fire Department portion, whether that's separate from the private company, will have authority to approve.

If you can reiterate on that issue again and are we allowed to anyone of my choice as consumer or builder or are you expecting the city to provide the list of pre checked qualified list of contractors that the city can rely upon, you know, those are pre qualified.

So I think that might be a good one of the approaches and my final question will be, if I begin the hiring process after 30 days waiting, it may take another 30 days to select and find and negotiate and make a contract and submit your plan.

And for them to begin private contractors, upon receipt of your application, how quickly can they turn around? Will it really benefit? Or is it going to be one waiting from the city with the city and then waiting another waiting process with the private contractor, I wonder?

Thank you, Senator. I'll answer your questions in reverse.

So as we heard from one of our supporters in testimony, the turnaround can be substantially faster that a private professional would be able to perform a plan check that all elements of code, including fire code, the energy code, the building code, calgreen standards, everything that would normally go into an initial plan check review are deemed accurate and then submit that to the city, where city officials, including the fire Department, would still have a chance to be able to review whether or not things were analyzed appropriately and correctly.

So the turnaround I think is showing in real world that it is substantially faster. And that's good for those that want to opt into this option.

Granted, they're going to pay for it, but that does help the overall workload to flow a little bit faster and maybe even get the city back into a point where it is within a 30 day turnaround right now.

Because the they've been able to quote unquote, slough off some of the easy stuff and clear the deck a little bit and get them back down to a workable workload on those that need to be pre qualified. That issue has come up before.

There again are a number of professionals out there right now who can do this work. And so I would not want to limit a local jurisdiction's opportunities or I would say that homeowners opportunities, potential homeowners opportunities, if you only had say a list of three individuals.

Well now those individuals are so incredibly overworked because that's all that you can choose between. But there's more opportunity out there for equally qualified individuals to be able to help out that situation.

Okay, my last question would be, will I know the builder when they apply? Will the city tell me, tell them whether it'll take 45 days, 60 days in advance, or do I just wait blindly for 30 days and start processing this hiring new contractor?

When you submit your plans to the city, the city would need to be able to tell you if it is already aware that it has more than a 30 day backlog of work. And so if it does, you can then commence with the provisions. The option under this Bill to begin to do that private review.

If it doesn't because it thinks yeah, we're within 30 days, but then they hit that 30 day mark, then it's triggered and you can go ahead and you don't want to wait anymore. You can go ahead and utilize the private third party review.

Do you have something to add? No, no, not. Okay. Even though there are some points that need to be defined and since I also hear already some of the cities are doing this is one Bill that would find more merits than problems. So I think. Does it have any sunset date or is it open ended?

It does not have a sunset date. Until when it does not. It's not. I see. Okay. I wonder whether this would really create any big problems or sunset date. It might have been preferable. I don't know whether that would be. We can explore that. Something you can look into because it's both ways.

We can protect the governmental process. If cities are overwhelmed with liberal lawsuits as a result of poor quality work, which I don't think because they already licensed the contractors plan checkers. That's the reason I suggested pre qualify the list of people.

But at the same time in itself may provide another problem because of those limited number of people may be again overwhelmed and so open ended whether the consumer can use the contractors on the recommended list or my own profit, that may be more preferable way. So a number of issues can be defined during that pilot period.

So if you can consider that, I would be happy to support. Yes, we will look into that as well.

Before we move on, I'd like to establish quorum. Thank you, Senators.

[Roll Call] You have a quorum.

Thank you very much. Okay, I think then. Any more? Yes, Senator.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So I agree 100% with Senator Choi on this. So I mean, we're in this place because of the Legislature's overreach on a lot of these. On a lot of other issues. So we have said that we, we. As the Committee analysis on many bills today says, we tell cities this is a top priority.

So do this within 10 days. This one's also a top priority. Do it in eight days. This one's a huge priority. Really? We really mean it this time. This one, do it in 30 days. And then we also pass laws that say you cannot charge. Cities are just trying to get money out of people.

So hey, no more. You can't have any plan check fees. You can't charge for this, you can't charge for that. And then we're like, what happened? People can't get the work done and we can't hire employees. We can't hire actual city employees to do what is very much city work. And so now we're in this position.

In my own city, you know, we would deal with this issue by hiring the maximum number of full time employees that we could to do the work, then some amount of part time employees to do the surge. And then after that we would contract with a firm for surge work basically.

And then after that we had an on call list of folks that we could contract with quickly in order to meet the demand. But that doesn't work anymore because of all the laws that present you from a covering costs.

Because in our wisdom we've said that all those fees and charges are just, they're just a scam by cities to rip developers off. So we're in this position for all of those reasons.

I would be a lot more comfortable with both this Bill and I know we have the other Bill that's coming forward on inspections in the direction that Senator Choi mentioned, which is more like an on call list. Like here is a list of. Because you know, Frank Lloyd Wright 's a great architect.

So as IM Pei, I would never trust them to do the planning check on a mixed use 10 unit apartment complex. They're not qualified to do that.

So just licensed civil engineer or licensed architect is not enough to me to be assured that we're getting the right health and safety checks and everything else that are necessary in the plan check process and certainly in the inspection process.

So having something in between, just wild west, any architect or engineer you can find can do the work or nobody's going to do the work. There is a solution in the middle which is something like city validated on call list.

Here are people that we have used or that we have approved and we could say it has to have at least 25 names on it, something. But I'm uncomfortable with the notion of just any licensed professional in this area.

And so I'm also supportive of it today with the hope that by the time it gets to the next stage and to the floor that we have, we have something that's a little more contained in that respect because these are important.

I mean the projects have to work, they have to be safe and people are going to be living in them for their whole lives. So we want to get that right. I know the chairs worked really hard on this as well. So I'm supportive of the effort.

I think it's an important step forward in sort of a necessary response given the box we've put people in.

But I would be a lot more comfortable with it if we had something like an on call list or pre qualified some mechanism that said here are folks that are actually qualified to do the specific work of plan checks.

Yeah. And I like what you kind of threaded right in there pretty quickly. But ensuring that there was a minimum number that was out there I think would alleviate my concerns that somehow this wasn't a requirement that was so prohibitive that it wouldn't be a useful opportunity for those that wanted to like to use it.

So that's something that we can explore a little more.

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, Assemblymember, for working with us on this Bill. You heard the concerns raised today by both the public and stakeholders and our Members. These are the issues that happen when we take responsibilities from public officials and give them to private parties. These are the issues that come up. I share those concerns.

I'm very supportive of new housing, affordable and market rate. And for sure speeding up the construction is a real important part of making that happen and addressing the housing crisis. But we also have to be aware of what we lose when we remove some of those steps and address those.

Sometimes they get referred to as bureaucracy, but they actually exist to make the places we or others are going to live in. So I'll just add that we are seeing other bills. Senator Cabaldon mentioned this coming through the Committee that take the final inspection of construction out of the hands of local officials.

So we could have homes theoretically that are constructed without a public official ever reviewing them. So we have to put all these considerations together. I urge you to address these issues as the Bill moves forward. I will support the Bill with the amendments, but these are some serious issues that everybody's brought up.

So expect you to continue to work on them.

And now you may close. Thank you, Senator. And yes, I think this discussion that we've had leading up to today's hearing has been very helpful to be able to enhance what we share in our interest for the potential success for the Bill.

You know, you had mentioned as well that you're concerned about that we might be creating something that would cause a balance of what we lose. And that is not the intent. Because what I'm trying to do is recognize that in today's processing we have one chute that everything needs to get through right now.

And it is that bottleneck that is also causing delays for opportunities Especially on the easy stuff, to be able to fulfill themselves.

And so what I want to do is see if there is a relief valve not unlike what is happening incidentally here and there in the State of California, not unlike what's happening in some other states in our nation more universally. And I see that as an opportunity.

If we can tighten up some of the requirements that we share, concern on safety, on other attributes of why we have this process in the first place, so that it truly is a parallel process, then I don't see this as something that certainly lowers that risk if not abates it altogether, that we don't lose any of the things that are important in this important review process.

And I do want to comment as well too from our friends with organized labor as well that were here today that I do share their concerns. The first consult that I had as I was developing this Bill and thinking about it were my own representatives of labor in labor, of unionized employees at my own city right now.

And the important thing here is that workload is not diminished. We share the goal that cities workload and workforce should be right sized to be able to meet. And in a perfect world, if that were the case, this trigger would not even happen right now because you could get everything through in less than a 30 day turnaround.

But that's not the world that we live in today. And there's a consequence of the ability to be able to move housing decisions, housing opportunities through a pipeline or a parallel pipeline faster. I think that this is a very good option that is out there.

That again is already used here and there in practice today, but could become the new parallel standard that I think would benefit Californians up and down the state. And for that I respectfully, with the commitment to continue work on these issues, request your aye vote today. Okay. Thank you.

The motion is do pass as amended to the Committee on Housing. [Roll Call] 3-0.

Thank you.

Oh yes, can we have a motion for the consent calendar please before Senator Choi leaves? That's okay. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Okay, so you are Senator Seyarto moves the consent calendar.

[Roll Call]

The Bill is on call. We're going to move on your next Senator. Assembly Member Hart. Hold. Hold on just one second. Okay. Assembly Member Hart, you may begin.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Currently, cities and counties are able to enforce local ordinances by imposing administrative fines and penalties that may be collected through property liens. Unfortunately, the existing penalty statutes are not well suited to address serious code violations such as illegal cannabis activities, substandard housing conditions and fire hazards.

AB 632 will provide local governments with the authority to collect penalties through an expedited process for egregious violations. The bill allows local governments to obtain an order for a money judgment for unpaid fines after multiple notices and a full administrative process is completed. This also includes two avenues for judicial review that a property owner may pursue.

This model can be effective in cases where existing code enforcement mechanisms may be insufficient, such as slumlords or illegal cannabis operations whose assets are hidden or can move jurisdictions quickly.

These operators can delay process in the courts and strain the already limited resources of many cities and counties, especially in rural areas where illegal cannabis grows are more common. AB 632 also clarifies existing case law by reinforcing the authority of local governments to impose ordinary priority liens.

I want to thank the opposition for taking the time to meet with me in my office and I look forward to continuing the work on this bill. Speaking in support of the bill is Ted Ware, recently retired code enforcement officer for Sacramento county, and Sarah Duquette with the Rural County Representatives of California.

Also here to answer any technical questions is Arthur Weiland, the former County Council for Tehama County.

Welcome.

Good morning Members. Sarah Duquette on behalf of the Rural County Representatives of California, AB 632 mirrors a tool we have in the pesticide enforcement space in the AG and Food Code around entering money judgments for serious violations, including illegal cannabis, substandard housing and fire hazards.

Communities throughout California, particularly rural and areas in the north coast, have been inundated with unlicensed and unregulated cannabis activity that's not only harming residents, but also our regulated cannabis businesses that are struggling to survive. And oftentimes on these sites, we see serious violations of other local health and safety code as well as in environmental protection laws.

In Mendocino County, a county that has allowed cannabis license types has been inundated with illegal cannabis operators. Often the violators ignore fines, cease communication with the county, continue to grow, create unsafe conditions on properties, impacting the environment, workers, neighbors and creating fire hazards.

Just to give you an idea of the type of violations we're dealing with dealing with is unlicensed cannabis, unpermitted greenhouses, unauthorized water tanks, illegal pesticides, unauthorized grading of hillsides, storage of disposable refuse, unpermitted water ponds, shipping containers, unsafe housing, electrical work, and that's just to name a few.

In one county we had a recent fire where six first responders were hospitalized and CAL FIRE personnel were burned due to illegal cannabis operations. Burning with illegal pesticides, leaving toxic toxic fumes behind. We also had a case in San Bernardino county where it took four years to shut down an illegal cannabis dispensary.

In Santa Clara, tool this the In Santa Clara County, this tool would have been helpful to address substandard housing. We had a recent case where a meat locker and a chicken coop were converted to inhabitable housing and a greenhouse converted to housing units for agricultural workers and families.

This bill before you is a narrowly tailored approach that provides much needed tools to assist code enforcement in addressing unlicensed cannabis activity, unsafe housing and fire hazards hazards. For these reasons, RCRC respectfully asks for your Aye vote.

Good morning Chair and Members. My name is Ted Ware. I'm a board Member of California Association of Code Enforcement Officers. They're a proud co sponsor of AB 632, which gives local agencies an essential tool to ensure administrative fines are not ignored.

They also help to resolve violations such as fire hazards and unsafe housing conditions before they escalate into more serious public health and safety risks. Through my work as a certified code enforcement officer, I've seen firsthand the impacts that ignored fines and deferred compliance have on the most vulnerable Members of our communities.

California State housing and health and safety laws are some of the most comprehensive in the nation and they assure decent, safe and sanitary housing for all Californians. The primary goal is compliance with with those health and safety laws.

This bill is needed to support that work because of examples like the slumlord here in Sacramento that laughed at repeated code enforcement fines for safety risks which resulted in fires and people were displaced and many folks were injured during the process.

The safety risks that led to the fire put children at risk and the other issue would be to pursue the costly, time consuming litigation. There was a case that actually went to trial and we can read about unsafe housing conditions, but what really sticks with code enforcement is the inadequate sanitation and makeshift outbuildings.

As she mentioned, AB 632 will help cities and counties enforce compliance fairly and efficiently. For those reasons, we request an Aye vote.

Right Are there other witnesses in support which to register? Name organization and their position.

Thank you Mr. Chair, Gene Hurst here today on behalf of the Urban Counties of California in support.

Erin Evans, on behalf of Santa Clara County, proud to co sponsor this measure. Thank you.

Mark Neuberger, on behalf of the California State Association of Counties in support.

Walid Hajj, representing the League of California Cities in support. Thank you.

All right, are there any lead witnesses in opposition?

We will each have two minutes. Welcome.

Good morning Chair and Members. My name is Benjamin Henderson from The Western Center on Law and Poverty and here to oppose AB 632. We've seen real world consequences of how this bill will impact low income people. A blind, low income senior in Oakland accumulated years of citations for issues like yard waste and peeling paint.

Due to his disability and income constraints, he simply could not comply with the law that code enforcement wanted to. By the time he reached legal aid, he owed over 53,000 in fees and interest and was facing foreclosure. Without help from legal aid, administrative liens would have been placed and he likely would have lost his home.

Another example is a person with a herding issue who had a code enforcement lien placed on their property. This person also had a reverse mortgage, a special type of loan that is only available for seniors who are 62 years or older.

If you have a reverse mortgage and then later encumbered the property with additional liens, it allows the mortgage company to foreclose on the property. Thus, the code enforcement lien calls her to face foreclosure not from the county, but from the lender. Lastly, there was a person who received down payment assistance from her local municipality.

One of the requirements of the assistance program was that you could not have additional liens on the property. This person got a code enforcement lien and it accelerated the down payment assistance loan. Legal aid was able to avoid the foreclosure by appealing to the code enforcement lien.

However, if legal aid had not stepped in, there would have been a foreclosure by the city. Thank you. And I urge you to oppose AB 632.

Good morning. My name is Carmen Nicole Cox here from the Cox firm on behalf of ACLU California Action. I'm just going to start by naming this Bill is very much about foreclosing on homes. This is about asset forfeiture. There is no other way that the lien has the result that the sponsors say they want.

If the point isn't to force people to disgorge themselves of the property. Right, because what we're claiming is that these are really bad actors who won't otherwise bring themselves into compliance. California is currently facing an unprecedented affordability crisis. In 2023, our poverty rate was 818.9%. 20% of California's children are living in poverty.

We greatly appreciate our engagement so far with Mr. Hart. We are committed to working to narrow the Bill so that it does. In fact, it is cabin to apply only to serious code violations and not to the poor, the elderly and the disabled. But as the Bill is currently written, that's exactly who it would target.

Across the state, including in Oakland, Compton, and even historic Oak Park. Here in Sac, Sacramento, we have seen gentrification with displacement that is facilitated by code enforcement actions against homeowners who can barely make ends meet. And we should be clear, this Bill is about attaching liens for failure to pay fines and fees, not for costs.

Cities can already lien for cost of abatement. This is a fine and fee only lien in the middle of a housing crisis. What's more, the Bill wants to replace place court process with an entirely administrative process that is run by agents of the very entities that are trying to place the liens in the first place.

As your Committee analysis states, this makes localities, quote, more powerful than you can possibly imagine. End quote. We've shared research showing that liens have been used as a tool of racialized wealth extraction since their origin during the end of the civil war. And today it continues. Lean foreclosure sales of generational family homes. Thank you.

Often remain concentrated in communities of color, including immigrant communities. Many of us here are doing all that we can to fend off the federal big bullshit Bill, which we know is a attempt to make the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich through policy.

We are urging this Legislature not to take the same approach with AB632. Thank you. You.

Thank you both. Are there witness. Witnesses in opposition would like to register their name. Organization in position.

Scott Kaufman, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in opposition.

All right. See no other testimony. Will return to the Committee Members for questions or comments. All right. Seeing none, we don't have a sufficient number of Members at the moment to move to take action. But we will when we have, when more of our colleagues return. So, Mr. Hart, would you like to close?

I would just simply say I respectfully. Request an aye vote when the time is appropriate.

All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, our next up. And so it's me. Okay. Yeah.

Kelly.

Okay, then there was one.

You're presenting one. Yeah. Speaking of one. All right, so we are. You are going to present on behalf of Assembly Members?

Yes, sir. Yes, Mr. Chair.

AB 30.

AB 39.

AB 39. Very good. All right. Yeah. You may begin your presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Mr. Chair. AB39 is designed to empower local governments to engage in planning to develop strategies for a clean energy future. California, as you know, is committed to an ambitious climate and energy goals, including a transition to electric vehicles and the electrification of appliances and equipment in homes and in businesses.

Efforts that require critical infrastructure upgrades throughout our local communities. Across California, we will need roughly 1 million vehicle chargers to support the 8 million passenger electric vehicles projected on the road by 2030, with an even greater infrastructure required to meet the state's 2035 electric vehicle mandate.

In the building sector, while many jurisdictions have adopted organization ordinances promoting electrification and new construction, we need to do more to assist homeowners and businesses in converting to electric appliances and equipment.

In order for us to meet the targets, we have to ensure that local partners are developing and implementing solutions that advance California and support our Most Vulnerable Communities. AB39 aims to address this by requiring local jurisdictions only those with populations of 75,000 or more, to create and adopt a plan to meet their electrification goals.

This bill provides guidelines to ensure that plans adopted by this policy focus on the needs of disadvantaged communities, low income households and small businesses for equitable and prioritized investments in zero emission technologies that directly benefit these communities.

AB39 recognizes the leadership that some of our local partners are undertaking in local processes and allows them to build on existing plans rather than developing whole new ones. With proper planning and strategies across California, we ensure that all community Members have the resources and support needed to participate in the state's electrification transition. Thank you.

And I respectfully, respectfully ask for an aye vote on this at the appropriate time. With me in support of AB39 today is Brandon Wong on behalf of Calstart and Madison Vanderklae with the Building Decarbonization coalition.

Good morning Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Brandon Wong, on behalf of Cal Start here as a proud co sponsor to AB39. Cal Start is a global but California based nonprofit dedicated to the growth of the clean transportation industry.

And as the Senator noted, AB39 is designed to help cities and counties set local goals for the decarbonization of our transportation and building sectors. As Members know well, the transportation sector accounts for almost half of our greenhouse gas emissions, but almost all of our NOX emissions are diesel pollution here in California.

And those impacts really make the transition to zero emission vehicles not so much a climate change necessity, but more so a public health necessity, particularly for our communities who are continuously burdened by poor air pollution.

We know that one of the biggest barriers to EV adoption for both consumers and for medium and heavy duty fleets is access to public charging infrastructure. And so this barrier is particularly cute for Californians who live in multifamily dwellings, who don't have access to at home charging, who are disproportionately low income and people of color.

And so while we've made a lot of progress, the California Energy Commission does expect we need to more than quadruple our existing charging network over the next five years.

And so we will need the support of local governments to identify potential barriers at the local level, many of which are unintentional, to really streamline them, address them and resolve them. And AB39 will be critical in making that build out of our EV charging network possible. And so for those reasons, we urge you for your support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee. Good afternoon Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. Madison Vanderclay, Government Affairs Manager at the Building Decarbonization Coalition. Here today as a proud CO sponsor of AB39, BDC aligns a diverse coalition of environmental groups, utilities, manufacturers and others to advance safer, healthier buildings and communities.

According to the California Air Resources Board, the transportation, transportation and building sectors are collectively responsible for the vast majority of the state's annual greenhouse gas emissions. To that end, California has set emissions reductions targets for 2030 and 2045 and Governor Newsom has also set a goal of creating 7 million climate ready homes by 2035.

The state is moving to encourage the adoption of zero emission electric space and water heating appliances such as heat pumps, including through establishing programs like the Equitable Building decarbonization program in TechClean California. Over 60 jurisdictions in the state have adopted ordinances to require or encourage electrification in new construction. Though more needs to be done for existing homes.

Meeting these goals requires that governments at all levels partner in developing and implementing strategies that support Californians in retrofitting their homes to install electric appliances.

AB39 will direct local governments to identify and address local barriers to building electrification and support cities in meeting their community's energy needs, particularly for renters, low income and disadvantaged Californians who face the greatest barriers in electrifying. For these reasons we are proud to be co sponsors of AB39 and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. At this time we'll take all of you. Come on up to the mic. Your name, organization and your support for the bill.

Melissa Romero, in support of the bill with California Environmental Voters and I was also asked to pass along the support of the Climate Center. Thank you.

Good morning Mr. Chair and Members. Megan Murray with the Weidman Group on behalf of Electrify America and support. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Obed Franco, here on behalf of the California Electric Transportation Coalition in support.

Good morning. Michelle Canales, on behalf of Union of Concerned Scientists in support.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Scott Cox on behalf of the Electric Vehicle Charging Association and strong support.

Good morning, Mr. Chair Members. Brian Mayor Montes with AFSCME California and support me.

Good morning. Matt Lashay with SEIU California and support.

Good morning. Amy Garrett with California Association of Realtors in support. And thank you to the author for accepting amendments allowing our support today.

Okay, do we have any primary witnesses in opposition who would like to come up and speak? There's nobody scrambling up there. Anybody who wants to come to the mic and just say they oppose the bill? If not, we're going to bring it back to the dais. Do we have any questions, comments? Mr. Arreguin? You're the only one.

Okay. Well, I do. Okay. I have a question. Yes, sir. And number one, the author has. Is taking the amendments. Have you communicated with him? Yes, sir.

That he is. Yes, on the author's behalf, we're accepting the Committee amendments.

All right. Well, that's good. Number two, does this bill come with any funding to be able to implement this, especially for cities that don't have the funds to do this? It does not come with. No, it does not come with specific funding.

We have an unfunded mandate once again with one of the clauses that say that we're not going to do that. So anyway, I have a problem with the bill because of that, number one. Number two, this is a tremendous workload, a tremendous workload on communities. Not every community can absorb this much.

We just had a bill where we were talking about having to have private people do the work of the city because they're inundated with other bills. And this is one of those type of bills. Cities that are in the position of being able to do this already do it.

I know a few of my cities that are new developing cities are already doing this type of planning for their communities and they're doing what fits, not what the state tells them to. So this is a mandate that is unfunded.

And I'm tired of approving unfunded mandates for things that cities, some of them, are already doing on their own in the capacity that they can do them. So with that, I'll let you close. All right.

Go ahead. Okay, that's on your point. I think that is a valid point. I'll note the threshold in which this bill applies and 75,000 or greater. And so I think providing technical assistance, particularly to small and medium sized communities, I think will be important to the extent CEC can do that.

Or there's some state resources that could be dedicated to do that. I think that's something we should explore as this if this Bill does move forward. As you know, Mr. Vice Chair, there are larger committees are already doing this. They've either either adopted electrification plans or policies or decarbonization plans or climate plans.

I think this is a really important bill to help advance the state's goals towards electrification. And to the extent we can provide more resources to help communities actually implement these plans, I think that's important. So thank you for that point. Thank you very much.

The state does have some of those goals, but the state is not 100% of everybody. Other people have a more moderate opinion of how some of these goals can be implemented and it doesn't include all electrification. So at any rate, did you close? No, not yet. All right, go ahead and close.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair, very much appreciate and I share the same perspectives that you and Senator Arreguin have raised about the workload on cities.

And also I just want to note the Committee analysis observes that because of our passage earlier this week of AB 130 and SB 131 or whatever the whatever the designators are, that city's ability to modify their building codes to accomplish what is in the bill is also going to be curtailed to some extent.

At the same time, I know in my own city the staff that we've assigned for CEQA compliance for all of our housing projects might have a little bit more time to work on electrification.

So I anticipate and I'm sure the staff of this Committee and every other Committee in the Senate and the Assembly are going to have to be taking a look at the set of legislation that is out there right now that we have been processing for the last several months pre CEQA reform in order to make sure that we're harmonizing and aligning with what we've just done.

Obviously that's only a few hours ago. So that work will continue certainly commit the author to continue to work with that on that as well. So with that I ask for an Aye vote.

Very good. Thank you very much. So we have a motion. Go ahead and call roll.

The motion is due pass as amended to the Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications. [Roll Call] 2-1 on call.

All right. That Bill will remain on call. We're going to go back to item number five, AB 632 Hart and if I can get A motion. I have a motion by Otakin to move the Bill. AB530 or 632, go ahead and call roll.

[Roll Call]

That Bill is two to one and will remain on call. I'm going to pass the gavel back to the previous assigned chair.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto. Now we'll proceed to item six, which is AB660 by Assemblymember Wilson. Welcome.

You ready for me? Awesome. Thank you. Well, good morning, Interim chair and Senators. I'm pleased to present AB 660, which aims to strengthen the integrity and efficiency of California's housing approval process. I want to thank the Committee for their Hard work on this bill. We are. We will be taking the proposed amends.

AB 660 strengthens existing law by setting clear timelines and accountability for local agencies to process entitlement permits and applications. It ensures housing projects aren't delayed by giving applicants a way to move forward when local agencies don't follow the rules. While past housing streamlining bills have made progress, challenges still remain.

The California Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reforms final report makes clear that despite state reforms, permitting delays and failures continue to be a major factor in the housing crisis.

Currently, delays in post entitlement permits both slow down housing production and drive up costs, making homes less affordable for Californians, and of course, delaying when someone can get into a much needed home. This legislation aims to streamline the housing approval process targeting areas where housing developers have experienced significant issues.

AB 660 will prohibit local agency inspectors from requiring the project to make changes in a field that would deviate from the plans the local agency has already approved. It limits how many times they can ask applicants to revise and resubmit their plans.

And it's important to note that local agencies can go beyond the two plan check limit if there's strong evidence that more review is needed to address a serious health or safety issue. Now, this bill has received bipartisan support in previous committees and we look forward to continuing this work.

Now with me to testify today on the importance of this legislation are Audrey Rudicek on behalf of CBIA and Angie. I'm sorry, Angie Manetti on behalf of the California Apartment Association.

Good morning, Chair. Members of the Committee. Audrey Retajczyk on behalf of the California building industry. And we're here in strong support of AB 6. This is critical legislation needed to improve the efficiency, fairness and accountability of the post entitlement permitting process for housing development projects.

California is in the midst of an unprecedented housing supply and affordability crisis and despite legislative progress in recent years, particularly with the enactment of AB 2234 revis from 2022, which established important procedural timelines for local agencies when processing post entitlement permits, serious barriers remain that continue to delay much needed housing across the state.

AB660 addresses those barriers and strengthens the existing framework with a narrowly tailored approach by doing a few things. One, prohibiting last minute field check changes that contradict previously approved plans. 2. Limiting excessive plan check resubmittals and 3 closing loopholes that currently allow indefinite extensions, eliminating a major source of uncertainty in the process for developers.

The need for these reforms is clearly documented as highlighted in the final report from the Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform. Failures in the permitting process have an outsized role in the overall housing crisis, with delays directly contributing to increased costs and uncertainty for developers.

This not only affects the viability of projects, but also impacts affordability for future homeowners and renters.

So AB660 offers a balanced, common sense solution that does not override local control or compromise safety, and instead creates a clear, consistent framework that ensures timely permit processing, fair treatment of applicants, and ultimately the ability to deliver the housing our state so desperately needs. So for these reasons, CBIA respectfully urges an aye vote on AB 660. Thank you.

Good morning Chair and Members. Angie Minetti here on behalf of the California Apartment Association in strong support of SB AB 660. California severe housing shortage and affordability crisis demands immediate action to streamline our local regulatory process that hind housing production.

AB 660 will bolster our housing production by limiting excessive plan check resubmittals, thereby reducing unnecessary delays that increase project costs. It will provide applicants with legal recourse when local agencies fail to comply with established timeframes, reinforcing accountability in the permitting process.

By promoting a more efficient, predictable and fair permitting process, AB 660 is essential to help ensure that housing projects we desperately need can move forward without unnecessary bureaucratic delays. And for these reasons, CAA supports this bill.

All right. Do we have any testimony by folks in support? Want to register their name, organization and position on the bill?

Good morning.

Genevieve Schweitzer on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kunalis in support.

Thank you. Good morning. Lauren Rebovitch with Housing California in support.

Good morning Chair. Members of the Committee. Jordan Prana Caravajar on behalf of California YIMBY in support. Thank you so much.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Raymond Contreras with Lighthouse Public affairs on behalf of SPUR and Abundant Housing Los Angeles in support.

Good morning. Jacob Brint with the California Retailers Association in support.

Good morning. Kevin Rogers with the California Association of Realtors. We're in support. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Are there lead witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Are there any other witnesses in opposition that wish to register their position?

Yes. Claire Sullivan on behalf of the city of Thousand Oaks in opposition. Respectfully, thank you.

Right. Thank you. Seeing no other testimony, we'll bring it back to the Committee for questions or comments.

Senator Arreguin, thank you so much for this bill. I think this is going to make a huge difference in speeding up the permitting and approval process, and I'll be happy to make a motion at the appropriate time.

All right. See? No further questions or discussion. Assemblymember Wilson, you may close.

Thank you so much. And I appreciate the lack of robust discussion. I will say this Bill streamlines the housing approval process by closing loopholes and local permitting timelines, holding agencies accountable when they cause delays, so focusing on the bad actors, not the good ones, and helping ensure California can build housing faster and more efficiently by cutting the red tape.

It supports planning timely housing development to better meet our state's growing needs. I appreciate the time before this Committee and respectfully ask for an aye vote when it's appropriate.

Great time. Senator Arreguin makes a motion. Would you. Would you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

All right. 2-0 on call. Thank you very much.

Great. I didn't realize you guys had made Committee, so. Yeah.

All right. We'll now move to item eight, which is Assembly Bill 1021 by Assemblymember Wicks. Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. Okay. Thank you for allowing me to present Assembly Bill 1020. I would first like to thank the chair and the Committee staff for working with us, and I accept the proposed amendments. This bill will make it easier for school districts and other local educational 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 of the other administrative, technical, and support staff that make our schools function.

The cost of housing has skyrocketed, as I know many of you know, and as a result, the staff are moved further and further away from the schools they serve or are leaving the workforce altogether. The result is that there is a chronic staff shortage across the state, including in rural, suburban, and urban areas.

In response, local education agencies have begun to consider solving their problem by building workforce housing on land they own. In some ways, these agencies are well positioned to build employee housing. They already own the land, they are not required to turn a profit, and they are exempt from property taxes.

However, in other ways, these agencies still face substantial barriers to doing so, including zoning, density, environmental review, and procedural hurdles unique to school districts.

To help address these challenges, in 2022, the Legislature passed AB 2295 from Assembly Member Richard Bloom, which made housing an allowable use on land owned by local education agencies and set minimum density and heights.

That Bill was based on the experience of the handful of local education agencies that were seeking to build employee housing before 2022 in the intervening three years, this movement has grown and a substantial number of local educational agencies are now interested in building employee housing.

As these agencies have tried to navigate this process, they have identified a handful of ways in which further changes are needed to truly unlock their potential to build employee housing.

This b ill systematically addresses the issues raised by these real world case studies, including removing some of the geographical barriers that made it difficult to build housing in rural districts, increasing the allowed density of these projects to reflect what is necessary to make them viable, and increasing the economic feasibility of projects by using the rent standards maintained the state's Tax Credit Allocation Committee, AB 1021 is sponsored by the true experts in this area, the California School Board Association UCLA City Lab, which has been studying these issues for years and rooted an organization from my hometown of Oakland that advocates for more teacher housing.

The bill has no opposition and with the proposed amendments this will bring SEIU into support. Here to speak on behalf of the bill are two witnesses, Andrew Lee, Board Member for the Jefferson Union High School District, which is the most recent success story on education workforce housing, and Chris Reefe from the California school board Association Mr.

Chair Members, thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today on this important topic. My name is Andy Lee and I'm a school board Member with 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 and on behalf of the California School Boards Association which is a co sponsor.

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

AB 1021 will help to further adjusting 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, Jefferson Union High School District is the lowest funded High School District where prior to the development of our workforce housing we were experiencing an annual staff turnover of 25%.

In a staff survey conducted back in 2017, 35% of staff indicated they would leave the 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 rate starting at 1400 per month for one bedroom units. We house teachers, counselors, maintenance workers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, paraprofessionals and more.

Our resident mix is approximately 60% certificated staff and 40% classified all non management staff. We currently have a wait list of 40 staff and the building is 100% occupied. The benefits are clear. In both the fall of 22 and fall of 23, we had no vacancies district wide.

On the first day of school for the first time in a long time, staff commutes shrunk from an hour each way to 10 minutes. Recruiting vastly improved and we are able to attract, hire and retain highly qualified teachers and classes staff. 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 this project, the statewide average for the completion of educator workforce housing is seven years and longer.

That's too long and too much can happen during that time to cause delays, increased costs and other factors that can impede the development of this tool needed to address our educator workforce shortage. Although AB 2295 and Now AB 1021 preceded our work, these bills would have helped cut down the time it would have taken.

Joe from inspiration to breaking ground to cutting the ribbon for 705 ceremony, AB 1021 will help make will help many other school districts that are in the process of pursuing their own workforce housing.

In today's climate where we have both a housing and a public educator shortage, it's imperative that we continue the support of to support the development of educator workforce housing is a critical tool that school districts like mine have at our disposal to help meet the needs of our teachers and classified staff and most importantly, to help improve the educational outcomes of our students.

I urge you to support AB 1021. Thank you for your time.

Good morning Mr. Chair Members Chris Reefe, on behalf of the California School Boards Association, is a strong co sponsor along with rooted, a part of the Trust for Public Innovation out of Oakland as well as the UCLA City Lab. As aforementioned, TSPA has been in this place for a while now.

We began working and understanding the importance of addressing workforce housing about seven years ago. We have worked with UCLA City Lab as well as UC Berkeley's Center for Cities and Schools to be able to look at how districts can be able to utilize their existing property to help address this program particular issue.

Recognizing that there is great need. If you look back in time in 2012, 30% of housing was generally affordable for a veteran teacher. Today that number is below is about 17% in 50% of our districts across the state. Even lower salaried or beginning teachers cannot afford to even begin to purchase a home.

And so this is really becoming an existential crisis for us to be able to address our workforce issues in terms of our shortages. We just don't have enough teachers today to serve many of our students. We see these this most exacerbated in our most, pardon me, underrepresented communities.

And so we saw in the last two election cycles more school districts pass local bonds with authorizing language to be able to build workforce housing than we have in prior years.

And so we have gone from just a handful of districts prior to 2022 to now over 20% of districts looking at or beginning the process of developing their own workforce housing.

This measure will go a long way in terms of helping to make it more efficient and make it much more affordable so that we can be able to address the workforce shortages that we're facing in the classroom. So for that reason, for that reason and many others, respectfully request your Aye vote. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you. Are there witnesses in support at which to register their position, name and organization? Welcome.

Good morning. Ruth Sosa on behalf of Power CA Action and strong support.

Good morning. Mark Newberger on behalf of the California State Association of Counties in support.

Megan Baier, on behalf of the Oakland Unified School District in support.

Matt La Jay, with SEIU California. With amendments today, we would move into a support position. Thank you very much to the author and Committee for working with us on the bill.

Morning. Sasha Horowitz, Los Angeles Unified School District in support.

Carlos Lopez with the California School Employees Association in support.

All right, thank you. Are there lead witnesses in opposition? Are there any other witnesses in opposition? See now let's return it to the Committee. Senator Seyarto, thank you.

Question for the author. Obviously this is already being done and CEQA exemption is already per 10. The bill we just passed is already extended. So what do you need this bill for?

Well, given the experience that my witness had here, you know, there's still hurdles to go through in order to get this done and the provisions in this Bill will make it easier and more streamlined.

So a number of the provisions that exist in law. When we did AB 2295 from 2022, there were limitations on the ability of school districts to be able to develop this, especially in our rural and more smaller school districts. So in California, of our 940 school districts, roughly 58% of them are small and rural school districts.

There were some unfortunate provisions that we had negotiated at the time of 22:95, recognizing those very early in the process, and we were very much learning to do this that restricted the type of benefits that 2295 and then now AB 1021 would afford to these districts.

So from the perspective of the benefits, it's not just related to CEQA, but it's related to the other zoning and other issues that districts can be able to utilize to develop the workforce, housing, especially in our very rural and smaller.

School districts, because the part of it with the, with local agencies is, it's probably zoned for institutional.

It's not necessarily zoning per se 2295 already allowed districts to be able to build on that existing property.

It's how they go through the process of actually siting, assessing, doing the needs, what is the actual income levels of their staff, for example, and other areas where they have to be able to provide additional documentation that can slow the process. And so this really helps accelerate that process.

That's. That's what this bill will help do. That is not already being especially as.

Correct, especially for our small and rural school districts. Okay, thank you.

Yeah. I have a scenario question I'm going to workshop a little just because I know the. Both the witness and the author is quite capable of it, so we can do it in hearing Committee. So school districts are generally horrible property developers. It's great because that's not their job.

We want them to be great at something and it should be student learning. So they're not great at it. But I'm trying to. Let me paint a scenario and see if there's something in the bill that prevents it. And if not, maybe you could consider something like a holding period minimum for the property.

So I'm imagining I was mayor for 20 years, mostly had good relations with our school district, but there are times when we didn't and they were highly susceptible to developer mischief. So if I have a parcel as a private developer in the city limits, it's not surrounded on three sides by urban development or whatever.

And I'm looking at it and say, okay, if I go to the city and I need to rezone it and go through CEQA and do all of that, it's going to cost me this much money.

What if I go to the school district and say to them, I will transfer you the property so that you can take advantage of this bill and then I don't have to pay that much. I will pay you 200k or whatever, the school district actually would be in their right mind to accept that deal.

That's not what you're trying to do at all. And given the way the analysis describes, you know, in addition, like many of my school districts are declining enrollment. They're not actually looking to build more staff and faculty housing because they're cutting back. But they do have a lot of excess properties and there's a lot of opportunity here.

So this bill could be hugely important for them. But I'm trying to understand if they're, you know, the sort of the game part of it. Is there some provision of the bill or is there some holding period by which you would say, no, you. Okay.

If the school district has to have had that property for a year or two or something, that would prevent that sort of game from happening?

100%. So let me answer the question in two parts. First, when we co sponsored 2295, we understood that this was going to be particularly challenging for districts and tried to keep that type of if. If you were allure. Right. From happening.

So there is actually provisions in the original legislation, AB 2295, that requires the district to hold onto the property for 55 years. So you're not just going to go and buy, you know, exchange or buy a property, let's say built, and then sell it for a profit. Right.

We know that there's a vested interest in making sure that this fits into what the goal is of the policy.

And, you know, we want to be very clear here that we want to do this for the right reasons and we want to make sure that it's done for the right reasons and not be susceptible to those types of influences.

Now, on the other part of this, I'll say one reason why we've gotten into this field and a lot of the work that we've been doing, we've gotten a series of philanthropic grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where we're actually developing cohorts of districts to develop the best practices so that we can help districts understand how to do this.

Because you're exactly right. School districts have, and county offices are not in the property development, the residential development industry. Right. But we need, we know that this is fast becoming an effective tool to address our workforce shortages. And so they need to be brought to speed pretty quickly.

And so these best practices that we're doing through our cohorts are helping to develop that blueprint for our current districts. And then those who are expressing interest to do it into the future.

And the Other thing I will add is the housing units have to first be offered to the employees of the district, then employees. It's a sort of a waterfalling effect. Waterfall effect.

Then employees of adjacent districts, school districts, then to public, other local public employees within the jurisdiction of the school district, and then finally Members to the public. So there's a waterfall effect.

So even if the school district, in and of itself that this is intended for, doesn't have the greatest need, other districts will be included and then also other public employees. So I think it's going to be a long time before it gets to the General public.

And to my knowledge, none of the projects to date have actually made it to the General public. They've been occupied by employees, public employees.

Thank you, Senator Arreguin.

Thank you very much for this bill which I think builds off a lot of work that started over the last decade to allow for the construction of workforce housing for school district employees.

I had a bill that was killed in Senate appropriations that would have allowed for some pre development money to be available for leas to be able to do the analysis about the development capacity of their land and to work in partnership with local developers.

This, I think, is really important to make these sites more financially feasible and to maximize the amount of housing that can be built on these sites by establishing the maximum height and minimum densities, by making sure that this is a permissible land use. I think those things will eliminate some barriers to getting these projects entitled.

And I think about the project that I helped move forward in the City of Berkeley, where even though I think many people support the idea of workforce housing for teachers and school district employees, there was a strong neighborhood opposition to that project because people felt that the height and the scale of that project was.

Was too big for the residential neighborhood that it's built in.

And so I think this will help at least ensure that we're going to achieve a certain scale that will maximize the number of housing units built and the number of teachers and school district employees that will benefit from these projects and to help remove some of the roadblocks in terms of local resistance that unfortunately we are seeing happen when these projects are moving forward in California.

So thank you very much for moving this forward. I think this is a really critical tool. Hopefully we'll get the housing bond passed too, and there'll be some money that we can also make available to build workforce housing for teachers as well. And happy to move the bill at the appropriate time.

Thank you.

Thank you. And I apologize because I was not here for your going back and forth between four committees. And I understand here for your presentation when I read this and it the thing is in my district there are two bond measures that have passed. They have each included housing for four district employees.

Did you go to Natural Bridges School? No. Okay. He's a Santa Cruz resident. That is where there will be a 78 unit housing facility constructed.

And the thing I could not understand from the bill is that if it affected mitigations or if all these provisions of the tiers and different things were designed to expedite something that the voters have already on one level weighed in on and the mitigation is a big issue.

If I couldn't understand if there were any sort of relief being given on some of the mitigations for this or whether it sticks to whatever the local zoning and local requirements in law are. And at least one of these is in a charter city. The second one is likely in a charter city.

I saw the charter city thing in the analysis. So just trying to not go home and have somebody say, say, why did you vote for this bill? Because I did not understand these provisions, of course. So if I could answer it this way.

The, the challenge. So AB 2295, which was the Bloom Bill from 2022, had a number of provisions in it that was created to help expedite and support districts developing their workforce, housing. The challenges that we were seeing in the field is that no district yet is going through the 2295 door.

Hence why we need 1021 to help remove some of the unintentional barriers that were created when the originating legislation was going through. So to answer your question in regards to Santa Cruz city schools and natural bridges, to my knowledge, natural bridges and that site is not being addressed or the district is not going through the 2295 door.

So number of the mitigations that are afforded in 2295 were just not amenable to to what Santa Cruz City schools was looking to do. But it might mean that Monterey walks through that door. It could and it depends on. If. They when they're looking at the efficiencies that were provided.

So it's more specifically, I think maybe one of the efficiencies that you might be referring to is provisions in 2295 that allowed subjective versus objective zoning requirements. So in 2025 you adhere to the objective zoning requirements, but not more subjective requirements that can be placed on by say a local planning Commission, for example.

So as long as they're meeting the overall objective approach, then they can walk through the 2019.

And you see Senator Wiener, who has been apparently tying up Chairman Haning's Committee so I can't present to bill there. He and I mix it up because on housing he says, oh, there's all these arguments.

You build the housing, the water will come, the roads will come, and I represent an area that does not import water in the Monterey Peninsula. There is a De facto moratorium that the state has imposed on them that I am trying to reconfigure so we could construct affordable housing and do things, things like this.

And so you come in with an overlay that might not recognize the reality of those situations. And that is the difficulty. And if it looks like we're expediting one project over others that are sitting there waiting, that is my concern. And so it sounds to me like this just isn't the case with this. Correct. Okay, thank you.

I appreciate you humoring me with those questions.

Any other Members, any questions? Sorry, I had to run three different Committee locations today. I won't be able to support this bill because my experience as a school board Member as well as a City Council Member and the mayor of Irvine.

We are so proud of our city because of pre planned city planning, particularly with the differentiating residential area and commercial business area and certain mixed areas specifically. And beautification is very important to our city. This Bill intent is to increase the number of affordable housing in spaces as much as possible and provide the housing for teachers.

Or it could be next would be firefighters. If a fire station has extra room, it can allow them to meet even Police Department station if they happen to have, I mean for their own profession, teachers, firefighters or police officers so that we can recruit and provide them necessary housing.

So there are some merits potentially, but this will create at least two big concerns is the city's zoning power.

Because each city has their own best practice zoning and zoning this will most likely violate in certain cases because not all homes are within the residential area, even though in the City of Irvine all homes are nearby the residential areas. But secondly. The. New residents in there, any excess new residents will be made available to the public.

So that means that there's no control over this non staffers such as faculty Members of the school district. So anyone comes in, there's no way of verifying who will be in there, who will be purchasing and living in the new housing units.

So if homes happen to be so close, then that will create definitely some questionable public safety concerns. So if you can address to that area, that's fine, but otherwise that's My concern for worrying about this bill to be approved.

Well, thank you, I appreciate it and would love to have my witness actually respond since he has real life experience of how this has actually played out in his community. But it's my understanding that every tenant has to be verified as an employee from the local education agency or you know, down the waterfall of public employee.

And that's absolutely correct. I mean all of our residents are employees of the district. And so already they've already gone through the verification process to be an employee. And then, and then when they actually do apply for housing, we go through, they go through the regular application process that we've established.

We have a third party property manager that manages that process for us and they worked with our Director of staff housing to make sure that all of the paperwork and the eligibility requirements are met for that employee resident.

The reality is, given the cost of rental housing throughout the state, it's pretty unlikely that we would make it all the way down the waterfall to the General public. The reality is, I think it's going to be districts like mine which again we're housing 25% of our staff.

But in the event that you have a district that is unable to fulfill it with their own employees, they'll be able to go to any school district employee would be eligible. And I think that would be sufficient to fill most of these developments.

And also just to add in addition to that, if you know, if there was declining enrollment and so an area didn't need as much employees of school districts that need as much housing, again, it opens up to local public employees which could include firefighter, police and others who desperately need the housing as well.

There's no guarantee any new housing development on the proposed areas that the intended employees will fill up the housing available. So if that's the case, then you will have to open it up to the public, right?

Well, if I could say two things. First, this would not be property that the district would sell. The district, this would open up rental property to its employees. So from that perspective, these are not homes that districts would be intended to build and to first for property sale. Secondarily, much to what Mr.

Arreguin was saying earlier, it all is about the good work that's done on the front end. So on the pre development work that districts will do when they're looking at is this a viable option for them to address their workforce needs, they'll do a feasibility study. And that feasibility study will look at a number of different factors.

One, in terms of the sites that are Available proximity of the sites to where the that teachers and staff are going to work. Teachers and staff don't want to live far away from where they work. They want to work as close as they can to their site.

And so those feasibility centers will look at also issues of affordability. What can teachers and staff afford to pay? And if it is not feasible, then the district has to make the decision about whether or not it is a viable option to use to address their workforce shortage.

So there are a lot of good advancements work that happens before we even put the first shovel on the ground.

Yeah, I'm sure you'll do pre condition survey and prepare. Everything will be safe and employees will take advantage of that. But after initial certain period, let's say four or five years and for whatever reason they find out and vacancy happens. It could happen. No, we don't know. Rather than this approach.

Yes. And so just to clarify, if a vacancy happens, the district has to first offer that vacancy to a school employee of that school district. And so the default is always going back to first the district who is the sponsor of the housing, then nearby districts, then public employees.

And again, where we've done this, we have yet to actually see where it's opened up to the General public because the public employees, whether you're in a district or, or a city employee or you know, with a fire Department, there's such a great need for that affordable housing from these public employees that it fills up.

And so this is the type of housing that is explicitly and exclusively essentially being used for folks who need it the most, those that are public servants, those that are educating our children, that need this housing, this workforce housing desperately.

I see. I would rather prefer rather than, you know, confined certain property of the school that the school will be mixed with the residential area.

What about if we expect through legislation that any affordable housing projects in the City of a county, first priority shall be offered to teachers, police officers, firefighters within 20 miles, let's say intended for that locality.

Once we build affordable homes, you know, people from 100 miles away, out of town, unintended people do move in because they're so open to the public. So if we have some restrictions or expectations by mandating affordable quality affordable housing units, first option to be offered will be for this cycle for this unit will be teachers.

Next one will be or three notoriously service oriented police, firefighters or teachers will be given first priority and then will open. So that way there will be more available and that will be within the intended zonings and doesn't have to be crammed in the school property.

So this is. That would. You're free to run a bill towards that end. This is going at, I think, a different problem, creating a potential different solution, right?

Sure, sure.

So I think what we're trying to do here is solve a couple problems at the same time. We have available land that the school districts own. The school district has a hard time with teacher retention because of the high cost of housing. Our biggest need for these districts right now is affordable housing.

I see it in Oakland all the time. You have teachers who were born and raised in Oakland. They want to teach in Oakland. They cannot afford to live there. And so they are either moving to another place, and Mr.

Arreguin knows this because he represents the same area, or their drive till you qualify is what the realtors say. And they're moving out to two hours away to be able to commute into Oakland. And so what this bill will do is create affordable workforce housing for our districts who need it the most.

Again, opening it up potential to other local public employees as well. And I think this is why you see the workforce that represents these workers supporting this because they know the issue of costing, the cost of housing is the biggest issue that faces our teachers right now.

So that's why I think this is a creative solution that's being used in other places with great success. We want to make sure we can do that more and replicate it more. And that's what this bill is intended to do. And I request an Aye vote. Sure. Yes.

You don't have to, you can have another clue.

No, no, that was good. I've talked enough.

Okay. I understand. We have a motion by Senator Arreguin. Take the roll.

The motion is due pass as amended, to the Committee on Housing. [Roll Call]

5-1, on call.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, I just switched places over here. Assembly Member Haney, you're next.

Longer if you want.

I am. I'm gonna do what you did. No, I'm just kidding.

All right, which one are we?

AB 507?

Okay. 507. Great. All right, well, I have two bills in front of you today. Both have to do with supporting downtown recovery and the opportunities around office to housing conversions. I want to start by thanking you, Madam Chair, and accepting the Committee's amendments.

AB 507, the Office to Housing Conversion Act, will accelerate adaptive reuse projects of historic office buildings. This bill is a direct response to the crisis of California's empty downtown business districts in the need to seize opportunities to convert underutilized office buildings with prime locations near jobs, transit and businesses into new housing.

Our cities are still struggling after the pandemic and after significant changes in the way that people work. With fewer employees working full time in offices, commercial buildings, and downtowns across the state are experiencing the effects of high vacancy rates and low foot traffic.

The shift has left our cities in trouble and in desperate need of innovative transformations that will create livable neighborhoods within our commercial district districts. To help downtowns build more housing, AB 507 creates a pathway for buy right ministerial approval of office conversion projects, ensuring more predictability and fewer barriers to an already difficult building process.

It will also provide the flexibility needed to ensure that historic buildings are more economically feasible for conversion so that they can preserve our buildings for housing while making sure the downtown's diverse characteristics are kept intact.

This is a very similar bill to the one that we brought last year that made it through this Committee and to the governor's desk. He did not sign that bill and raise some concerns about some of the labor provisions.

And thankfully, with your support, I think we were able to add amendments that are very appropriate and effective and will help to ensure that these projects can get done and also have the best labor standards in doing that.

And I believe that if we can move it forward to the Governor again with those standards that he hopefully will sign this bill. And with me in support today is Marc Vukcevich from Streets for All and Angie Manetti representing the California Apartment Association.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Committee Member,

You'll have two minutes each.

Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Marc Vukcevich, Director of State Policy for Streets for All.

Streets for All supports AB 507 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 state's climate goals, increasing transit ridership. But also we fundamentally have a belief that our urban areas need to be urban so that our suburbs can stay suburban and our rural areas can stay rural.

And as soon as we start blending those areas and blending that together, we think there starts to be transportation and climate implications and also financial implications when you start seeing, when you start seeing those blending.

And so as much as our workforce has shifted to remote work and many cities are stuck with a glut of underutilized office and commercial space, and the small businesses who really depend depend on office workers are left without customers. AB 507 offers an obvious solution to this by creating a way to fill those underutilized spaces with new homes and residents and expanding customer base of small businesses, all the while preserving the architectural character of the neighborhood.

With construction costs at an all time high, adaptive reuse provides an economically viable path for new infill housing at a time when many new construction projects are struggling to pencil. Yeah, we respectfully request an aye vote and are really excited to hear about the arrangement that has come together and agreement has come together.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Angie Manetti here on behalf of the California Apartment Association in support of AB 507. The creation of streamlined ministerial approval process for adaptive reuse projects is desperately needed in light of our shifting population and work from home environment. AB 507 will provide financial incentives for adaptive reuse of existing buildings.

As you know, California is in the midst of a shift in work culture. Offices in places like downtown LA and the Financial District in San Francisco are seeing the highest vacancy rates in 30 years. Companies are shifting to hybrid work models with fewer employees working full time in the office.

At the same time, our state continues to suffer from a statewide housing shortage. While there is desire to repurpose vacant office buildings to residential, there are many technical challenges to doing so.

While converting existing buildings to housing is often seen as more cost effective than new construction, renovating an existing office building in California can at times be more expensive than a complete tear down. AB 507 will help with the conversion challenges and for these reasons we request your aye vote today.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who wants to speak in support of AB 507? Please step up.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Jeremy Smith here on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council. With the proposed amendments and the analysis, we're happy to support.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Michael Ault with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. Happy to support.

Thank you.

Morning Madam Chair and Members. Raymond Contreras with Lighthouse Public affairs on behalf of SPUR, Habitat for Humanity California, and Abundant Housing Los Angeles in support.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, Bob Naylor representing Fieldstead and Company. That's Howard Amundsen Jr. In Orange County, entrepreneur, in strong support.

Thanks. Okay. Seeing no more in support. Anyone in opposition, please step up if you want to take some extra time. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Chair Haney, good to spend the full morning with you, as we had a long hearing in Assembly, Assembly Housing today but wanted to appreciate the conversation we've had. Brady Guertin on behalf of the League of California Cities in a respectful opposition unless amended position.

We have shared amendments with the author's office that we're looking at. You know, I think the main concern is the idea of doing buy right approval statewide and some areas of California that aren't necessarily viable for adaptive reuse. So we concern, we are concerned that it sets up a standard that's one size fits all for that.

We also think it's important, we appreciate that the author has been trying to give the opportunity for local governments to come with an up with an ordinance to approve this.

I think to help that effort would be to delay the effective date of the Bill to make sure that local governments have the ability to come up with good objective standards and stuff that they need. We also need some insurity that local governments can come up with objective standards to make sure we have public improvements and facilities.

As you convert office to residential projects, you have a lot more services that you need to account for. And by doing it ministerially, it can be really challenging to do that because CEQA is usually a good barrier for that. So we are concerned about that.

So we think that if there's an approach to look at making sure that local governments have the ability to make the public improvements that they have, you know, even the impact fee language we understand that they're trying not to double charge the landowners, but are concerned that, you know, when you're doing residential again, you have a lot more services that an office building previously hasn't done that.

And one of the ways we need to look at that is through impact fees. So we do continue to have some concerns about that. And then finally, I think, you know, the other issue is it provides a delay of 365 days on permits.

We think that there should be a requirement that if this is a need for the State of California, if a developer can't show with evidence that the bill has not been constructed within 60 days, finding a way to do that, if that's the goal of the bill, instead of just having it, you know, set and then having a delay for 365 days.

So we appreciate the conversations we've had with the Assembly Member. We'll continue to have those conversations and I know we have flagged these amendments for them and look forward to working through that process with them as well. So thank you for the time today and happy to answer any questions. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in opposition, please step forward. Assembly Member Haney, you might at the end maybe address some of the concerns that were raised.

Sure.

At your closing, in your closing.

Thank you, Committee and Chair. Claire Sullivan, on behalf of the City of Thousand Oaks, echoing concerns from the league. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Dylan Hoffman, on behalf of the city of Beverly Hills, respectfully opposed. Thank you.

Thank you. We come to the dais. Questions, Comments? Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. So, you know, the adaptive reuse sounds like a great thing when you're just talking superficially about it.

But then when you start getting into the nuts and bolts of what it requires, taking a building that was built in type 5 or, you know, type 1 or type 2 construction and going to type 5 construction requirements, there's a lot of different safety that's built in and just how the structure is put up. And it is hard to convert an office building into residential use for some of the reasons.

And even, you know, your witness talked about how much that costs because, you know, you may have one bathroom in the office, but you know, each residential unit has at least one bathroom and that requires plumbing, which requires breaking through the floor, which requires, I mean, there's just so many things that go on.

And when you're doing a ministerial approval for this, you know, I would hate to be, you know, the plan check guy, even if I was a third party plan check guy like earlier, that would have to go through and try to make it sound like this is safe because when you've got people sleeping in a building overnight as opposed to working there in the daytime, there's a much different safety standard and the HVAC system that's required.

Just all of these things. I don't understand how they think they can do this. It's cheaper to take it down and just build residential units the way residential units are supposed to be built. So I'm not, I've never been a big fan of this approach. We're trying to square, fit a square peg in a round hole.

And in this particular situation, you're talking about a lot of people that can be packed into a building that doesn't breathe as well and doesn't have exiting as well and can kill a lot of people if there's a fire on the ground floor.

And so I'm not quite sure how you get around some of that, and especially the ministerial approval part. Because each city has their earthquake zones, they have earthquake faults. All those things have to be taken into consideration. I don't know that ministerial approval does that.

Sure. Yeah. And I know, Senator, we had the conversation around this last time, and I appreciate that perspective. And these are very complicated and complex projects in many cases. That's why for these projects and for this bill, all of the local building standards, state building standards, still apply.

All of the health and safety standards, local and statewide still apply. And if there are additional inspections that are required, as these go through the process that are set up locally, they're able to do that.

This is just about the approval to be able to actually do a conversion on that site and some of the extra steps that we would usually extend to ground up construction that are not appropriate and can extend the timeline to be able to do what are often very complicated projects.

The CEQA process for a building that's already standing is very different when you're simply converting it. So this is about finding ways that we can make this a little easier and simpler. This is a place that we can do it.

But we're not cutting the corner on the health and safety standards or the building standards, which are still very important and do add in many cases, cost and complexity and time. And for that reason, those will be maintained.

But this is, I think, an appropriate place for us to be able to move a little bit quicker, make the initial approval, to be able todo this a little more streamlined. And I think for that reason, we'll see more of these projects be able to move forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I love the adaptive reuse work, but I also understand how challenging it is. At least I do from afar. If I was the Senator for San Francisco or for Los Angeles, I would be all over this bill in the way that it is right now.

But when you get on the ferry from the ferry building, as I did last weekend, to go back to Vallejo in my district in the North Bay, I'm struggling to think of a single adaptive reuse project that we've had in my entire district.

And so the odd part about this is that we're taking something from my part of California, something that's never ever happened, straight to ministerial. And ministerial to me is like, oh, it's the nine millionth solar panel we're, we're installing. Can we just like, can we just like get you from, from start to finish quick?

Because we've, we've seen this a million times. Or you're building 10 units of housing. How many more times do we need to look at that? Let's make that ministerial. But we've never seen it in Suisun City or Woodland or Davis or West Sacramento.

And so I don't, I'm not sure that like land use, this will sound weird, but land use in San Francisco is very well behaved. You know, there are no, like light industrial parks in the Presidio. There are no hotels, much to my chagrin, in the Castro, you know, they're just. Land use is much more, it is much more behaved.

And so I'm trying to imagine if I have a light industrial park with an office building in it, which is a common use in a light industrial park in Suisun City's industrial district, because the bill says all zones ,and somebody wants to convert for the very first time ever one of these buildings into housing, that I think it should definitely be considered.

It should be, you know, it should have all the wind behind it. But ministerial seems like a very strong lens for that.

And so I wonder if you thought about sort of the, for the rest of California that has not yet done this at all, whether there's something between where we are today and ministerial, because I think that this is absolutely sensible for the urban cores of the state that have already been through this.

But I'm just not, it's not clear to me that we know how this will play out in the rest of the communities of the state. And there isn't a sense that there's no other evaluation or maybe some more grace to local governments to be able to regulate more or something. But I don't have the answer. And of course we couldn't do it here in the Committee anyway.

But I do think this issue about how to distinguish between the other part, the suburban and rural parts of the state that we still need, we still need to have our test cases before we can determine what really is, what is sort of a ministerial thing before we start implementing this at scale.

Well, there are limits to. And I appreciate that question. Hopefully you'll see more of these projects in your area. I do think that there. And there's a lot of folks now who didn't do this type of development that are now looking at it a lot more closely because there are, for better or worse, not just in downtown San Francisco or downtown LA, but in a lot of places throughout our state.