(Wiener D) Planning and zoning: housing development: higher education institutions and religious institutions.

Current Text: Amended: 3/28/2023 

Status: 10/11/2023-Approved by the Governor. Chaptered by Secretary of State. Chapter 771, Statutes of 2023.
4/13/2023-Set for hearing April 26.

Summary: The Planning and Zoning Law requires each county and city to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for its physical development, and the development of certain lands outside its boundaries, that includes, among other mandatory elements, a housing element. That law allows a development proponent to submit an application for a development that is subject to a specified streamlined, ministerial approval process not subject to a conditional use permit, if the development satisfies certain objective planning standards. Existing law, the Zenovich-Moscone-Chacon Housing and Home Finance Act, establishes the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee within the Department of Housing and Community Development. Existing law requires the committee to allocate state low-income housing tax credits in conformity with state and federal law that establishes a maximum rent that may be charged to a tenant for a project unit constructed using low-income housing tax credits.

This bill would require that a housing development project be a use by right upon the request of an applicant who submits an application for streamlined approval, on any land owned by an independent institution of higher education or religious institution on or before January 1, 2024, if the development satisfies specified criteria, including that the development is not adjoined to any site where more than one-third of the square footage on the site is dedicated to industrial use. The bill would define various terms for these purposes. Among other things, the bill would require that 100% of the units, exclusive of manager units, in a housing development project eligible for approval as a use by right under these provisions be affordable to lower income households, except that 20% of the units may be for moderate-income households, and 5% of the units may be for staff of the independent institution of higher education or the religious institution that owns the land, provided that the units affordable to lower income households are offered at affordable rent, as set in an amount consistent with the rent limits established by the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, or affordable housing cost, as specified. The bill would authorize the development to include ancillary uses on the ground floor of the development, as specified. This bill contains other related provisions and other existing laws.