Bill > AB2676

This bill, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, expands protections against local governments enacting policies that hinder housing development. It clarifies that these protections now extend to a city's "sphere of influence," which refers to the area a city expects to grow into, and defines "moratorium or similar restriction or limitation on housing development" to include situations where voters use their referendum power to extend existing housing development bans. The bill also requires that any initiative or referendum that imposes such a moratorium must be approved by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) before it can be enforced, and if denied, it becomes void. Furthermore, the bill revises the definition of "reducing the intensity of land use" to encompass any action that decreases a site's capacity for residential development, including changes to height, density, or lot size, and establishes a three-year statute of limitations for enforcing these provisions, applying retroactively to any pending legal actions. The bill asserts that these changes are a matter of statewide concern, overriding local control, and therefore apply to all cities, including charter cities.