On September 26 California Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA), signed into law Assembly Bill 2162, a measure that would fast-track housing for the homeless by bypassing some of the local approval hurdles. The measure was sponsored by Assemblymen David Chiu (D-San Francisco) and Tom Daly (D-Anaheim). It requires supportive housing to be a use by right in zones where multifamily and mixed uses are permitted if they meet certain affordability and design requirements. It allows a local government to require a supportive housing development to comply with objective, written development standards and policies; provided, however, that the development shall only be subject to the objective standards and policies that apply to other multifamily development within the same zone. It requires the local government to, at the request of the project owner, reduce the number of residents required to live in supportive housing if the project-based rental assistance or
operating subsidy for a supportive housing project is terminated through no fault of the project owner, but only if all of the certain conditions have been met. It also requires a developer of supportive housing to provide the planning agency with a plan for providing supportive services, with documentation demonstrating that supportive services will be provided onsite to residents in the project.
