AB 73

State Land Use Enacted Legislation

Bill #	State	Year	Party	Topic
AB 73	CA	2017	D	Affordable housing incentives and financing, Appeals, By-right zoning, Commercial land, Deadlines, Environmental review, Funding, Inclusionary zoning, Lands near transit, Planning Requirements, Pro-Housing Designation, Streamline application, Written findings, burden and standard of proof

Provided by Furman

Summary

Authorizes city, county or city and county together to create ‘housing sustainability districts’, which provide several benefits, including a ‘zoning incentive payment’
Requirements for an area to be designated a housing sustainability district include:

Must be either half a mile or less from public transit OR is otherwise highly suitable for mixed use housing
Area zoned for residential use through the ministerial issuance of a permit
Meets certain density and affordability (at least 20% of units affordable) requirements
No court order preventing housing development in the area
No general age or other occupancy restriction in the area
Housing complies with federal, state and local fair housing laws
Area of any given district can’t exceed 15% of the city/county and area of all districts in the city can’t exceed 30% of the city/county without special permission from state
Must comply with state law on approvals process and replacement of affordable housing units affected by development

Projects in these each in a district must pay laborers a fair wage and use a skilled and trained workforce. Both these requirements are waived if project is for 10 or fewer units
Sets standards as to approvals process cities/counties need to use for projects within the housing sustainability district (issuing a decision within 120 days of receiving the application, if the authority fails to act within this time it is deemed approved)
Applicants have right to appeal denial of project in superior court and burden is on approving authority to show how it complied with requirements of the statute
Exempts housing projects from having to file environmental impact reports as required under CEQA if in a housing sustainability district and conditions (e.g. mitigation efforts) from a district-wide environmental impact report are met.