Existing law, the Planning and Zoning Law, requires each county and city to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the county or city, and specified land outside its boundaries, that includes, among other specified mandatory elements, a housing element. Existing law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to determine whether the housing element is in substantial compliance with those provisions, as provided. Existing law requires the department to designate jurisdictions as prohousing pursuant to emergency regulations adopted by the department, as prescribed, and requires that jurisdictions that are prohousing and that are in substantial compliance with specified provisions be awarded additional points or preference in the scoring of applications for specified state programs.

This bill would require the department, on or before July 1 of each year, to publish a list of housing leadership designated jurisdictions on its internet website. To qualify for a housing leadership designation, the bill would require that the jurisdiction have submitted a complete annual progress report for the preceding 5 years and, as applicable, that it meet specified requirements relating to housing production that vary based on whether the jurisdiction is an affordable jurisdiction, an unaffordable jurisdiction, or an extremely unaffordable jurisdiction, as those terms are defined. The bill would also require the department to publish a list of the affordability designation for each jurisdiction that has submitted a complete annual progress report, as provided. The bill would authorize a jurisdiction with a housing leadership designation to take prescribed actions, including to establish by ordinance an exemption or modification of specified provisions of the Planning and Zoning Law. The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.