AB 3 California Assembly · 2025-2026 Regular Session

Alcohol and drug treatment facilities: local regulation.

Summary

Existing law declares that it is the policy of the state that each county and city shall permit and encourage the development of sufficient numbers and types of alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facilities as are commensurate with local need. Existing law requires an alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facility that serves 6 or fewer persons to be considered a residential use of property for the purposes of local regulation, regardless of whether or not unrelated persons are living together. This bill would exempt an alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facility from being considered a residential use of property for the purposes of local regulation if multiple single-family dwellings are being used as a licensed or unlicensed alcohol or other drug recovery or treatment facility, they share an owner, a director, programs, or amenities with another facility, and any of the dwellings are within 300 feet of that facility, or if a single-family dwelling being used as an alcohol or other drug recovery or treatment facility shares an owner, a director, programs, or amenities with another facility that is commercially owned, operated, and licensed that is located anywhere in the state.

Bill status failed 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Dec 2024

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Dec 2, 2024 Last action Feb 2, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 2 comparisons

What changed between versions

03/20/25 - Amended Assembly → AB3 · 1 edit

MINOR

This diff reflects a change in document presentation format rather than a substantive policy change. The bill text moved from a traditional printed legislative format (with line numbers and formal headers) to a web page rendering that includes navigation elements and a different layout. The actual legal content of all sections (a) through (h) of Section 11834.23 remains identical between the two versions.

TECHNICAL

The document was reformatted from a printed bill layout with line numbers to a web page format that includes site navigation links, a search bar, and different header styling. No changes were made to the substantive legal text of any section.

12/02/24 - Introduced → 03/20/25 - Amended Assembly · 3 edits · Mar 20, 2025

MINOR

AB 3 was amended to add two new exceptions to the state preemption that protects small alcohol and drug recovery or treatment facilities from local zoning restrictions. The original bill had only one narrow exception (for facilities licensed on or after January 1, 2026, within 300 feet of a related facility with more than six total residents). The amendment adds two broader exceptions: one for multiple single-family dwellings operating as recovery facilities that share ownership or direction with another nearby facility, and one for any single-family dwelling sharing ownership or direction with a commercially licensed facility anywhere in the state. These changes give local governments more authority to regulate clustered or commercially connected small recovery homes.

SCOPE

Added a new exception allowing local regulation when multiple single-family dwellings are used as licensed or unlicensed alcohol or drug recovery or treatment facilities that share an owner, director, programs, or amenities with another facility and any of the dwellings are within 300 feet of that facility. Unlike the original exception, this does not require a January 1, 2026 licensing date or a minimum total resident count.

Added a new exception allowing local regulation when a single-family dwelling used as a licensed or unlicensed alcohol or drug recovery or treatment facility shares an owner, director, programs, or amenities with a commercially owned, operated, and licensed facility located anywhere in the state. This is a statewide reach provision with no distance limitation.

The overall effect is to narrow the protection previously afforded to small (six or fewer resident) recovery homes by local governments. The original bill broadly shielded such facilities from conditional use permits, zoning variances, and occupancy change requirements, with only one limited exception. The amendment carves out two additional categories of facilities that can be subject to local regulation.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Amendments

Feb 2, 2026

Lower · Passed

From committee: Filed with the Chief Clerk pursuant to Joint Rule 56.

lower

Mar 24, 2025

Committee

Re-referred to Com. on HEALTH.

lower

Mar 20, 2025

Introduced

From committee chair, with author's amendments: Amend, and re-refer to Com. on HEALTH. Read second time and amended.

lower

Feb 3, 2025

Committee

Referred to Com. on HEALTH.

lower

Dec 3, 2024

Lower · Passed

From printer. May be heard in committee January 2.

lower

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors