Housing financing: joint powers agreements: bond approvals: subdivisions: tentative and final maps: appeals

The law creates a limited path to keep qualifying multifamily rental projects moving when local approvals for tax-exempt bonds are not provided. It also removes a layer of appeals over maps for housing projects on eligible urban, serviced, lower-risk sites.

What the law does ​

• Defines a joint powers authority’s jurisdiction as the combined boundaries of its public-agency members.
• Authorizes the Treasurer to join a joint powers authority without Department of General Services approval solely to approve or consent to bonds for an eligible rental project after the host local member fails to act on a written request within the applicable deadline.
• Treats the state as a city or county only for those limited bond-financing actions, without giving it other joint-powers authority powers or expanding the authority’s geographic operating powers.
• Provides that the state joining under this authority is not itself a change in a bond-issuing joint powers authority’s composition.
• Bars interested-person appeals of subdivision-map decisions for qualifying urban housing projects with public water and sewer service, subject to site exclusions including specified coastal, farmland, wetland, fire-hazard, fault-zone, floodway, and conservation-easement areas.
• Preserves map appeals by applicants, subdividers, certain tenants, advisory agencies, public agencies, and public officials acting in their official roles.

Who it affects ​

• Joint powers authorities, local governments, and borrowers financing qualifying multifamily rental housing with private-activity bonds.
• The State Treasurer, which may provide narrowly defined replacement approvals or consents.
• Housing developers and local officials processing subdivision maps for eligible urban housing projects.
• Interested members of the public seeking to appeal covered subdivision-map decisions.

Context ​

The local deadline is generally 30 days after a written request, or the locally published process deadline if it is no more than 90 days.