(a) If a proposed development within a housing sustainability district includes any parcels being used for affordable housing at the time the application is submitted to the approving authority, the approving authority shall condition its approval of the application on the applicant’s agreement to replace those affordable housing units.

(b) For the purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply:

(1) “Affordable housing” shall mean a parcel of property that meets any of the following criteria:

(A) The parcel includes rental dwelling units that are or, if the dwelling units have been vacated or demolished in the five-year period preceding the application, have been subject to a recorded covenant, ordinance, or law that restricts rents to levels affordable to persons and families of lower or very low income.

(B) The parcel is subject to rent or price control through a public entity’s valid exercise of its police power.

(C) The parcel includes a housing development that is currently occupied by low- or very low income households.

(2) “Replace” shall mean either of the following, as applicable:

(A) If any affordable housing units described in subdivision (a) are occupied on the date of application, the proposed housing development shall provide at least the same number of units of equivalent size to be made available at affordable rent or affordable housing cost to, and occupied by, persons and families in the same or lower income category as those households in occupancy. If the income category of the household in occupancy is not known, it shall be rebuttably presumed that lower income renter households occupied these units in the same proportion of lower income renter households to all renter households within the jurisdiction, as determined by the most recently available data from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy database. For unoccupied affordable housing units described in subdivision (a) in a development with occupied units, the proposed housing development shall provide units of equivalent size to be made available at affordable rent or affordable housing cost to, and occupied by, persons and families in the same or lower income category as the last household in occupancy. If the income category of the last household in occupancy is not known, it shall be rebuttably presumed that lower income renter households occupied these units in the same proportion of lower income renter households to all renter households within the jurisdiction, as determined by the most recently available data from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy database. All replacement calculations resulting in fractional units shall be rounded up to the next whole number. The replacement units shall be subject to a recorded affordability restriction for at least 55 years.

(B) If all affordable housing units described in subdivision (a) have been vacated or demolished within the five-year period preceding the application, the proposed housing development shall provide at least the same number of units of equivalent size, as existed at the high point of those units in the five-year period preceding the application to be made available at affordable rent or affordable housing cost to, and occupied by, persons and families in the same or lower income category as those persons and families in occupancy at that time, if known. If the incomes of the persons and families in occupancy at the high point is not known, it shall be rebuttably presumed that low-income and very low income renter households occupied these units in the same proportion of low-income and very low income renter households to all renter households within the jurisdiction, as determined by the most recently available data from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy database. All replacement calculations resulting in fractional units shall be rounded up to the next whole number. The replacement units shall be subject to a recorded affordability restriction for at least 55 years.

(C) Notwithstanding subparagraph (B), for any dwelling unit described in subparagraph (A) that is or was, within the five-year period preceding the application, subject to a form of rent or price control through a local government’s valid exercise of its police power and that is or was occupied by persons or families above lower income, the city, county, or city and county may do either of the following:

(i) Require that the replacement units be made available at affordable rent or affordable housing cost to, and occupied by, low-income persons or families. If the replacement units will be rental dwelling units, these units shall be subject to a recorded affordability restriction for at least 55 years. If the proposed development is for-sale units, the units replaced shall be subject to paragraph (2).

(ii) Require that the units be replaced in compliance with the jurisdiction’s rent or price control ordinance, provided that each unit described in subparagraph (A) is replaced. Unless otherwise required by the jurisdiction’s rent or price control ordinance, these units shall not be subject to a recorded affordability restriction.

(D) For purposes of this paragraph, “equivalent size” means that the replacement units contain at least the same total number of bedrooms as the units being replaced.

(Added by Stats. 2017, Ch. 371, Sec. 2. (AB 73) Effective January 1, 2018. Conditionally inoperative as provided in Stats. 2017, Ch. 371, Sec. 4.)