Housing: publicly funded low-rent housing projects.

The California Constitution prohibits the development, construction, or acquisition in any manner of a low-rent housing project by any state public body, as defined, until a majority of the qualified electors of the city, town, or county in which it is proposed to develop, construct, or acquire the same, voting upon that issue, approve the project by voting in favor at an election. The California Constitution, for purposes of this prohibition, defines "low-rent housing project" to mean any development composed of urban or rural dwellings, apartments, or other living accommodations for persons of low income, financed in whole or in part by the federal government or a state public body, or to which the federal government or a state public body extends assistance by supplying all or part of the labor, by guaranteeing the payment of liens, or otherwise. Existing law establishes exclusions from this definition of "low-rent housing project," including a development that consists of the acquisition, rehabilitation, reconstruction, alterations work, new construction, or any combination thereof, of lodging facilities or dwelling units using moneys appropriated and disbursed pursuant to specified provisions of the Zenovich-Moscone-Chacon Housing and Home Finance Act relating to affordable housing preservation, rental housing development awarded funds from certain multifamily housing direct loan programs, and housing for individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness or who are at risk of homelessness and who are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic or other communicable diseases. This bill would expand that exclusion to include a development that consists of the acquisition, rehabilitation, reconstruction, alterations work, new construction, or any combination thereof, of lodging facilities or dwelling units using an allocation of federal or state low-income housing tax credits from the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee or moneys appropriated and disbursed pursuant to the Zenovich-Moscone-Chacon Housing and Home Finance Act, and the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program, thereby excluding the developments that receive money from the specified funds and programs from the scope of the above-described constitutional provision.