Housing: joint living and work quarters and occupied substandard buildings or units.

Existing law, the State Housing Law, establishes statewide construction and occupancy standards for buildings used for human habitation. Existing law permits a city or county to adopt alternative building regulations for the complete or partial conversion of commercial or industrial buildings to joint living and work quarters. Existing law defines a joint living and work quarter as residential occupancy by a family or not more than 4 unrelated persons maintaining a common household of one or more rooms or floors in a building originally designed for industrial or commercial occupancy, as specified. This bill would redefine joint living and work quarters to mean residential occupancy by a group of persons, whether those persons are related or unrelated. Existing law, among other things, requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to propose the adoption, amendment, or repeal of building standards to the California Building Standards Commission, and to adopt, amend, and repeal other rules and regulations for the protection of the public health, safety, and general welfare of the occupant and the public, governing hotels, motels, lodging houses, apartment houses, and dwellings, and buildings and structures accessory thereto. Existing law specifies that its provisions and the building standards and rules and regulations adopted pursuant to that law apply in all parts of the state and requires specified entities within each city, county, or city and county to enforce within its jurisdiction those pertaining to the maintenance, sanitation, ventilation, use, or occupancy of apartment houses, hotels, or dwellings. This bill would authorize an enforcement agency that issues a notice to correct or abate, as defined, to an owner of an occupied substandard building or unit, as defined, a statement that the owner has the right to request a delay in enforcement of up to 7 years. The bill would authorize this delay only for an occupied substandard building or unit located in a zone where residential use is permitted, including areas zoned for residential mixed use. The bill would permit the owner of an occupied substandard building or unit that receives a notice to correct or abate to submit an application requesting delayed enforcement for up to 7 years on the basis that correcting the violation or abating the nuisance is not necessary to protect the health and safety of the public and the occupants of the building or unit. The bill would authorize an enforcement agency to grant an application for delayed enforcement upon determining that correcting the violation or abating the nuisance is not necessary to protect the health and safety of the public or occupants. The bill would also permit the enforcement agency to grant the application for a shorter period of time than requested for violations or nuisances that impact the health and safety of the public or occupants and to require those violations or nuisances to be corrected or abated earlier than 7 years.