Housing

The major piece of housing legislation enacted this year was SB 1689 (Perata), one of the infrastructure bills, which places before the voters the Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006 and Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Program, that authorizes the issuance of $2.85 billion in general obligation bonds for state housing programs and establishes the Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Program.

Other significant housing legislation enacted included SB 257 (Chesbro) allowing the California Housing Finance agency to make loans to finance special needs housing; SB 1231 (Dunn) and AB 2250 (Coto) extending the sunset date on the Department of Housing and Community Development’s Mobilehome Park Maintenance Inspection Program until January 1, 2012; AB 1169 (Torrico) reenacting provisions for owners of residential property to provide at least 60 days’ notice of the intent to terminate a periodic tenancy when the tenant has resided in the dwelling for one year or more; AB 1203 (Mullin) establishing new requirements for the sale of manufactured homes, multiunit manufactured homes, or used mobilehomes by a dealer to be installed by the buyer on a foundation as real property; AB 2100 (Laird) requiring the board of directors of a homeowners association to adopt a reserve funding plan based on their reserve study and establishing new requirements for the review of contracts; AB 2572 (Emmerson) requiring the Council of Governments to consider a university’s impact on the housing need in a particular jurisdiction when it allocates the region’s housing need; AB 2587 (Liu) extending the Methamphetamine Contaminated Property Cleanup Act of 2005 to a mobilehome park or on private property, and a recreational vehicle that is sited in a mobilehome park; AB 2634 (Lieber) requiring cities and counties, within their housing elements, to analyze the need and develop quantified objectives for the production of extremely low income housing; AB 2638 (Laird) expanding the allowable uses of Local Housing Trust Fund Matching Grant Program funds to include emergency shelter, safe havens, transitional housing and for sale homes and allowing expiring low-income housing tax credit developments to apply for a new allocation of tax credits; and AB 2800 (Laird) making consistent all housing nondiscrimination statutes through California’s fair housing laws so that there is a single legal standard--it will be unlawful to discriminate against or harass any person because of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, ancestry, familial status, source of income, or disability of that person.

Vetoed legislation of note included SB 540 (Kehoe) establishing parameters for the posting of, or the displaying of, campaign signs by tenants; SB 1322 (Cedillo) requiring local governments to identify sufficient sites where emergency shelters and residential service providers can locate by-right to address each community’s own need; AB 770 (Mullin) establishing the Office of the Common Interest Development Ombudsperson; AB 1469 (Negrete McLeod) establishing educational requirements for park managers in mobilehome parks; AB 2374 (Umberg) establishing notification requirements for increases in existing fees or charges that park management are required to provide homeowners in mobilehome parks; AB 2496 (Laird) phasing in requirements that water closets and urinals have lower flush volumes; AB 2712 (Leno) providing that a landlord has no special duty with regard to renting property to a tenant who is required to register on the Megan’s Law database to ensure that there will not be a further concentration of offenders in lower-rent apartments and single-room occupancy hotels; and AB 2748 (Jones) requesting the University of California and required the California State University to prepare a report on statewide housing.