California Apartment Association

The California Apartment Association this year is sponsoring four state bills to help increase the state’s housing supply, a fair and economically proven way to lower housing costs.

CAA’s four housing-production bills come as California contends with several years of climbing home and rental prices, driven primarily by an imbalance between new jobs and new residential development in regions where employment has boomed.

Encouraging residential development via the Legislature also offers reasonable alternatives to rent control and other ill-conceived policies. Providing sensible solutions in Sacramento is urgent as a growing number of local governments consider rent control, rent mediation and other poor policies that fail to address California’s long-term affordability culprit — anemic housing production.

The bills, which are still being finalized, would:

• AB 2299 (Bloom) – Mandate that local governments allow for second units on residential lots based on specific findings.
• AB 2501 (Bloom) – Make it faster, easier, and more economical for developers to obtain density bonuses in exchange for building affordable housing.
• AB 2584 (Daly) – Authorize organizations such as CAA to bring legal action against a local government that denies housing projects in violation of state law.
• AB 2180 (Ting) – Expedite the building permit process.