Mobilehome parks: additional lots: exemption from additional fees or charges.

Existing law, the Mobilehome Parks Act (act) , generally regulates various classifications of mobilehome and related vehicle parks, and imposes enforcement duties on the Department of Housing and Community Development and local enforcement agencies. The act authorizes any person to file an application with the governing body of a city or county for a conditional use permit for a mobilehome park. The act requires a person, before operating a mobilehome park, and each year thereafter, to obtain a valid permit from the enforcement agency in order to operate the park. The act also requires the owner of a mobilehome park to obtain a permit to create, move, shift, or alter park lot lines. This bill would, subject to specified exceptions, authorize an owner of an existing mobilehome park that is subject to, or intends to qualify for, a valid permit to operate the park, to apply to the enforcement agency to add additional specified lots to the mobilehome park not to exceed 10% of the previously approved number of lots in the mobilehome park, if the owner has not had their permit to operate suspended. The bill would require the owner to apply to the enforcement agency for, and obtain from the enforcement agency, all required permits pursuant to the act before adding additional lots. The bill would exempt the additional lots from any business tax, local registration fee, use permit fee, or other fee, except those fees that apply to the existing lots in the park, and would prohibit the owner from reducing the size of, or interfering with, certain existing facilities without first complying with specified requirements for creating, moving, shifting, or altering lot lines. The bill would provide that the additional lots are considered new construction, as defined, except as provided, and specify how certain laws adopted by a city, county, or city and county that establish a maximum rent apply to additional lots. Existing law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) , requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA does not apply to the approval of ministerial projects. This bill would prohibit the enforcement agency, city, or county from requiring a conditional use permit, zoning variance, or other zoning approval in order to add the lots. By requiring a city or county to ministerially approve a project to add the mobilehome park lots described above, this bill would exempt those projects from CEQA. The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.