Housing: construction loans.

Existing law establishes the Multifamily Housing Program, the Joe Serna, Jr. Farmworker Housing Grant Program, and the Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Program, administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development, which provide assistance for multifamily housing, farmworker housing, and development of high density uses within close proximity to transit stations, respectively. This bill would, until June 30, 2013, require the department, upon request of a program award recipient unable to secure a construction loan on the private market, to contract with a construction lender to make permanent loan funds available and to escrow, reserve, or set aside permanent loan funds for a project as of the date of closing of the construction loan. The bill would require the department, within 3 months of its effective date, to comply with specified procedures and standards relating to the above requirements. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.