Housing development: incentives: rezoning of idle retail sites.

Existing law establishes, among other housing programs, the Workforce Housing Reward Program, which requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to make local assistance grants to cities, counties, and cities and counties that provide land use approval to housing developments that are affordable to very low and low-income households. This bill, upon appropriation by the Legislature in the Budget Act or other act, would require the department to administer a program to provide incentives in the form of grants allocated as provided to local governments that rezone idle sites used for a big box retailer or a commercial shopping center to instead allow the development of housing, as defined. The bill would define various terms for these purposes. In order to be eligible for a grant, the bill would require a local government, among other things, to apply to the department for an allocation of grant funds and provide documentation that it has met specified requirements, including certain labor-related requirements. The bill would make the allocation of these grants subject to appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or other statute. This bill would require the department to issue a Notice of Funding Availability for each calendar year in which funds are made available for these purposes. The bill would require that the amount of the grant awarded to each eligible local government be equal to 7 times the average amount of annual sales and use tax revenue generated by each idle site identified in the local government's application over the 7 years immediately preceding the date of the local government's application, subject to certain modifications, and that the local government receive this amount in one lump sum following the date of the local government's application. The bill, upon appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or other statute, would authorize the department to review, adopt, amend, and repeal guidelines to implement uniform standards or criteria that supplement or clarify the terms, references, or standards for this program and exempt those guidelines from the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act. The bill would make its provisions operative on January 1, 2023.