Under the Planning and Zoning Law, the legislative body of a city or county may adopt ordinances that, among other things, regulate the use of buildings, structures, and land, as provided. The Subdivision Map Act vests the authority to regulate and control the design and improvement of subdivisions in the legislative body of a local agency and sets forth procedures governing the local agency’s processing, approval, conditional approval or disapproval, and filing of tentative, final, and parcel maps.

Existing law requires a local agency to ministerially approve a parcel map for an urban lot split if the development or parcel meets specified requirements. Existing law requires the local agency to require an applicant for an urban lot split to sign an affidavit stating that the applicant intends to occupy one of the housing units as their principal residence for a minimum of 3 years from the date of the approval of the urban lot split. Existing law authorizes a local agency to adopt an ordinance to implement these provisions, as provided.

This bill would require the local agency to require an applicant to either sign the above-described affidavit requiring owner-occupancy or for the applicant to require, as a condition of sale to a homebuyer, that all of the units on both parcels of an urban lot split remain owner occupied for 3 years, beginning on the date a parcel or unit is conveyed by the applicant to a homebuyer. By increasing the duties of local agencies, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

This bill would impose prescribed recording and notice requirements on this 2nd owner-occupancy requirement, as provided. The bill would provide that, for the purposes of either owner-occupancy requirement, an applicant may be the managing or authorized member of a limited liability company or the trustee of a living trust.

This bill would additionally prohibit a local agency from adopting or imposing any requirement, process, practice, or procedure, or undertaking any course of conduct, that applies to a project solely or partially on the basis that the project is an urban lot split, including, but not limited to, restricting the eligibility of an applicant of an urban lot split.

Existing law requires that specified disclosures be made upon any transfer by sale, exchange, real property sales contract, lease with an option to purchase, any other option to purchase, or ground lease coupled with improvements, of any single-family residential property.

This bill would require the seller of an urban lot split subject to the second owner-occupancy requirement described above to disclose, in writing, any owner-occupancy requirement for three years after the conveyance of an urban lot split unit.