Building Equity and Growth in Neighborhoods Program: applications.

Existing law establishes the Building Equity and Growth in Neighborhoods (BEGIN) Program under the administration of the Department of Housing and Community Development for the purpose of making grants to cities and counties that provide incentives for, or reduce or remove regulatory barriers to, affordable housing. Existing law requires the department to assign points in the approval process to grant applications that meet certain criteria, and authorizes the department to assign additional points to applications meeting specified objectives, including, among others, the location of the project in specified job centers. This bill would expand those job centers to include the Riverside and San Bernardino metropolitan statistical area.