Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that appropriates $500 million to be disbursed to a city, county, tribe, or continuum of care for round 7 of the homeless housing, assistance, and prevention program in California.

Highlights:

• Establishes round 7 of the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention Program, and appropriates $500 million to be disbursed to cities, counties, tribes, or continuums of care for round 7 implementation (Sec. 1).

• Specifies that a city, county, tribe, or continuum of care must have obligated at least 50% of its round 6 disbursement before receiving funds from the round 7 appropriation (Sec. 1).

• Exempts rezoning that implements certain approved housing elements from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Sec. 6).

• Specifies that this exemption may not apply to projects that include a distribution center, oil and gas infrastructure, or that are located on specified natural and protected lands (Sec. 6).

• Exempts certain new agricultural employee housing projects and projects consisting exclusively of maintenance of an existing farmworker housing project from the CEQA (Sec. 8).

• Expands the CEQA exemption for projects that benefit small disadvantaged community water systems to include projects that provide sewer service to a disadvantaged community, and extends the exemption to January 1, 2032 (Sec. 9).

• Exempts other community water projects that result in long-term net benefits to climate resiliency, biodiversity, sensitive species recovery, and wildfire risk reduction (Sec. 10).

• Exempts updates to the state’s climate adaptation strategy from the CEQA (Sec. 13).

• Exempts projects for nonmotorized recreational trail facilities funded by certain sources from the CEQA (Sec. 14).

• Exempts projects that consist exclusively of a day care center, federally qualified health center, rural health clinic, nonprofit food bank or panty, and facilities for advanced manufacturing from the CEQA as long as the projects are not on natural and protected lands (Sec. 15).

• Exempts projects for electric high-speed rail and passenger rail stations from the CEQA (Sec. 16).

• Requires the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to develop and publish a map of eligible urban infill sites for every urban area or cluster in the state, and to accept feedback from cities and counties on the map (Sec. 17).

• Specifies that this Act does not require reimbursement of local agencies and school districts for costs mandated by the state (Sec. 20).

• Specifies that this Act takes effect immediately upon passage (Sec. 21).

Full Bill Text