CC 3-5-19 Item #9 Cities Association Draft Housing Policy Statement12
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Excerpts from the CASA Compact
The CASA Compact is described as “A 15-Year Emergency Policy Package to Confront the
Housing Crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area.” The 40 page document includes ten core
principles and five “calls to action.” The following lists the principles and calls to action with
the summary text as included in the CASA Compact:
1. Just Cause Eviction Policy - Ensure that all Bay Area tenants are protected from
arbitrary evictions by adopting a region-wide policy requiring landlords to cite specific
“just causes” (both fault and no-fault) for termination of tenancy, such as failure to pay
rent or violation of lease terms. Require landlords to provide relocation assistance for
covered no-fault evictions.
2. Rent Cap - Establish a Bay Area-wide rent cap that limits annual increases in rent to a
reasonable amount.
3. Rent Assistance and Access to Legal Counsel - For low-income tenants facing eviction,
provide access to free legal counsel and emergency rent assistance.
4. Remove Regulatory Barriers to ADUs - Extend current Bay Area best practices
regarding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to every jurisdiction in the region. Amend
existing state ADU law to remove regulatory barriers including ministerial approval for
ADUs and Junior ADUs in residential zones, allowance for multiple ADUs in multi-
family homes, and creation of a small homes building code (AB 2890 Ting).
5. Minimum Zoning Near Transit - This element includes three components. In
neighborhoods served by high qualit y bus service, establish minimum zoning on all
residential, commercial, and institutional zones to allow ‘missing middle’ housing types
up to 36’ tall. In neighborhoods surrounding the region’s major transit stops (rail stations
and ferry terminals), establish minimum zoning to allow midrise residential housing up to
55’ tall (75’ tall with a density bonus). Allow sensitive communities to defer rezoning
above 36’ while they develop context-sensitive plans. On large commercial-zoned parcels
located near job centers, make housing an allowable use. For projects with 20 units or
more, require inclusion of affordable units.
6. Good Government Reforms to Housing Approval Process - Establish ‘good
government’ standards for the entitlement and permitting of zoning-compliant residential
projects. Require transparency and consistency in how residential impact fees are set and
enforced.
7. Expedited Approvals and Financial Incentives for Select Housing - Ensure timely
approval of zoning-compliant housing projects and create financial incentives for
enabling on-site affordability and prevailing wages. This streamlining policy will provide
another option for projects that may not benefit from SB 35. This policy does not amend
or replace SB 35. Allow Sensitive Communities to defer implementation while they
develop a context-sensitive plan.
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8. Unlock Public Land for Affordable Housing - Promote increased utilization of public
land (surplus and underutilized) for affordable housing through a variety of legislative
and regulatory changes, as well as the creation of new regional coordination and planning
functions.
9. Funding and Financing the CASA Compact - Raise $1.5 billion in new revenue
annually from a broad range of sources, including property owners, developers,
employers, local governments and the taxpayers, to fund implementation of the CASA
Compact. While not all revenue ideas will be implemented, no one sector would bear the
burden on its own. No more than one revenue idea should be implemented under each of
the five categories.
10. Regional Housing Enterprise - Establish a regional leadership entity to implement the
CASA Compact, track and report progress, and provide incentives and technical
assistance. The entity must be governed by an independent board with representation
from key stakeholder groups that helped develop the Compact. The housing entity would
not play a regulatory/enforcement role.
The following are the CASA Compact “Calls to Action:”
Redevelopment 2.0 - Pass legislation enabling the re-establishment of redevelopment in
California to provide a significant source of new funding for affordable and mixed income
development. Redevelopment agencies should be focused on development activities that are
audited regularly, with local projects subject to state level reviews. A new redevelopment
framework in California should reinforce a strong link between housing and jobs and transit.
Funding should be designed to leverage other sources, including new regional funding through
the implementation of the CASA Compact.
Lower the Voter Threshold for Housing Funding Measures - Pass legislation that will
provide voters statewide with the opportunity to apply a 55 percent threshold for investments in
affordable housing and housing production. This legislative priority is critical to the successful
implementation of the CASA Compact — and to the Bay Area’s prosperity and quality of life.
Fiscalization of Land Use - Pass legislation that will return e-commerce/internet sales tax
revenues to the point of sale — not the point of distribution as currently mandated — to provide
cities that have a significant residential base with a commensurate fiscal stimulus for new
housing. Also pass legislation that will change the Proposition 13 property tax allocation formula
to provide jurisdictions building more housing with a higher share of property tax revenue.
Homelessness - California is experiencing an affordability and housing crisis that is negatively
impacting thousands of Californians. The work of CASA has endeavored to put forth a package
of policy interventions to house the Bay Area. Homelessness is a humanitarian crisis that is
deeply impacting the entire Bay Area. CASA recognizes that homelessness is a regional issue
that requires alignment across geographies in order to tackle this problem. CASA’s funding
package must include resources that help produce housing for formerly homeless people, prevent
homelessness when possible and make homelessness rare, brief and non-reoccurring.
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Grow and Stabilize the Construction Labor Force - Growing the construction labor force and
improving labor force productivity is critical to expanding the supply of housing. CASA
recommends the following as a starting point:
1. Grow the workforce by increasing apprentice training, placement, and payment of
prevailing wages when direct public funding, public land, fee abatement, tax abatement,
CEQA exemptions, and other fiscal/economic development incentives are provided for
housing.
2. Discourage the underground economy and require compliance with existing wage and
workforce laws.
3. Create a CASA/State labor workgroup charged with coordinating implementation of
CASA policies and needed labor force expansion consistent with CASA principles.
4. Call upon the State to use its workforce development and training programs to improve
the construction employment pipeline and create improved pathways from secondary
education into apprentice training programs.
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Highlights of 2018 Housing Legislation
After adopting far-reaching legislation in 2017, the legislature continued to focus on housing in
2018. The key measures related to housing sought to further limit local control, modify the
process for assigning jurisdiction’s their share of regional housing goals, and begin to reframe
those goals as requirements.
In brief, legislation passed in 2018:
Deletes existing language in the housing laws that acknowledges that cities may not meet
RHNA and replacing it with language that states “reasonable actions should be taken by
local and regional governments to ensure that future housing production meet, at a
minimum, the regional housing need established for planning purposes.” (SB 828-
Wiener)
Reforms the RHNA allocation process to give the State more oversight and require
considerably more jurisdiction and specific detail in the RNHA plan. For example, the
RHNA document must report on the number of low-wage jobs and the number of
housing units affordable to low-wage workers in each jurisdiction. (SB 828 and AB
1771)
Requires approval of projects consistent with the General Plan at the maximum density
allowed by the General Plan and without regard to zoning if the applicant can show that
the zoning is inconsistent with the General Plan. (AB 3194 - Daly)
Requires that supportive housing be a “use by right” in zones where multiple family and
mixed uses are permitted, including in non-residential zones permitting multifamily uses,
if the proposed housing development meets specified criteria. The bill requires local
governments to approve supportive housing developments that comply with the
requirements. (AB 2162 – Chiu)
The following provides additional information about the bills above but is still just a short
summary of complicated legislation.
AB 3194 (Daly) Housing Accountability Act. Project Approval
This measure makes two important changes to the Housing Accountability Act. These changes
are as follows:
• Provides that a proposed project is not inconsistent with applicable zoning
standards and criteria, and shall not require a rezoning, if the proposed project is
consistent with objective general plan standards and criteria but the local agency’s
adopted zoning for the project site is inconsistent with the general plan; and
• Allows a local agency to require a proposed project to comply with objective
standards and criteria of the zoning consistent with the general plan, but requires
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the standards and criteria to be applied to facilitate and accommodate
development at the density allowed on the site by the general plan and proposed
by the project.
SB 828 (Wiener) Land Use. Housing Element
This measure makes numerous changes to the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) process
These changes include:
• Deleting existing language that acknowledges that cities may not meet RHNA and
replacing it with language that states “reasonable actions should be taken by local
and regional governments to ensure that future housing production meet, at a
minimum, the regional housing need established for planning purposes.”
• Expanding the scope of data the Council of Government (COG) must provide to
HCD to include a wide range of new items including the percentage of
households that are cost burdened and the rate of housing cost burden for a
healthy housing market. (“Cost burdened” is defined to mean the share of very
low-, low-, moderate-, and above moderate-income households that are paying
more than 30 percent of household income on housing costs and the “rate of
housing cost burden for a healthy housing market” means that the rate of
households that are cost burdened is no more than the average rate of households
that are cost burdened in comparable regions throughout the nation, as determined
by the council of governments.)
• Prohibiting a COG from lowering a jurisdiction’s RHNA based on 1) prior
underproduction of housing in a city or county from the previous regional housing
need allocation; or 2) stable population numbers in a city or county from the
previous regional housing needs cycle.
AB 1771 (Bloom) Planning and Zoning. Regional Housing Needs Assessment
This bill made numerous changes to the State RHNA process. Chief among the changes are an
expansion of the RHNA objectives to include:
• Achievement of the region’s greenhouse gas reductions targets;
• Improving the balance between the number of low-wage jobs and the number of
housing units affordable to low-wage workers in each jurisdiction; and
• Affirmatively furthering fair housing. (The bill states that affirmatively furthering
fair housing means taking meaningful actions that, taken together, address
significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing
segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns,
transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of
opportunity, and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair
housing laws).
The bill sets forth a range of new requirements for highly detailed specific information that must
be included for each jurisdiction (such as a requirement to include an estimate of the number of
low-wage jobs within each jurisdiction and how many housing units within the jurisdiction are
affordable to workers at those wage levels). The bill also establishes a new process for expanded
State and public review of the RHNA allocations.
AB 2162 (Chiu) Planning and Zoning. Supportive Housing
This bill requires that supportive housing (an affordable rental with intensive services promoting
housing stability) be a “use by right” in zones where multiple family and mixed uses are
permitted, including in non-residential zones permitting multifamily uses, if the proposed
housing development meets specified criteria. The bill requires local governments to approve
supportive housing developments that comply with the requirements.
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