CA Senate passes bill to let LA buy fire-destroyed lots for low-income housing

(The Center Square) - The California Senate passed a bill to allow Los Angeles County and other municipalities to use property taxes to fund “Resilient Rebuilding Authorities" that would have to use at least 40% of their funding for building low-income housing. Senate Bill 549 now has a hearing in the state Assembly scheduled for Wednesday.

As a funding mechanism, the bill would allow the RRA for the Los Angeles wildfires to “Issue, receive, and administer funds, including, but not limited to, tax-increment financing, federal loans and grants, state loans and grants, and philanthropic grants, to support recovery.”

RRA-LAW would then be able to use taxpayer funds to oversee most of the construction process, and would be granted the power to “Purchase lots at a fair price for land banking,” “purchase critical construction materials in bulk,” and “Support the reconstruction workforce by partnering with trades, facilitating training and workforce development, and creating temporary workforce housing.”

RRA-LAW would also “Facilitate reconstruction of lost rental housing stock, including by promotion of accessory dwelling units, senior-serving housing, and replacement of affordable housing lost in the fires.”

The remaining funding could be used for “multifamily affordable housing projects,” “transit capital projects,” and “transit-oriented development projects.”

Wednesday's hearing is set for just over a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the allocation of $101 million in taxpayer funds for “multifamily low-income housing development” in communities in Los Angeles devastated by the Palisades, Eaton and Hughes wildfires.

In conjunction with the governor’s funding announcement, which provides per-unit funding of up to $450,000 in loans and up to $90,000 in grants, funding from RRA-LAW could make it easier for more income-restricted housing to be built in the Los Angeles area.

In Los Angeles, 73% of city planning applications for new units are for income-restricted housing. In the previous four years, income-restricted housing represented only an average of 30%, meaning the latest data reflects a precipitous drop-off in production for standard, market-rate housing.