Land use: housing element: regional housing need: noncompliant cities and counties: penalty.

The Planning and Zoning Law requires a city or county to prepare and adopt a general plan, containing various elements, including a housing element, and requires the housing element to contain an assessment of the city's or county's housing needs and an inventory of resources and constraints relevant to the meeting of those needs. That law requires that assessment to include the city's or county's share of the regional housing need, as determined by the Department of Housing and Community Development in consultation with each council of governments, and requires a council of governments to develop a proposed methodology for distributing the existing and projected regional housing need, as specified. This bill would require a noncompliant city or county, as defined, to pay a penalty, as provided, to the Department of Housing and Community Development. The bill would define a "noncompliant city or county" to mean a city or county that has not met at least 13 of its share of the regional housing need for low-income and very low income housing during its current housing element planning period on or before January 1, 2021. The bill would require the penalty to be deposited in the Regional Housing Needs Assessment Compliance Fund, which the bill would create, and would continuously appropriate money in the fund to the department for the distribution of grants, as specified, to compliant cities and counties, as defined. The bill would require compliant cities and counties to use the grant for specified purposes. The bill, on or after January 1, 2021, would prohibit a noncompliant city or county from collecting established fees, or imposing new fees, as a condition of approval of a development project, as specified, and from requiring the payment of building permit fees.