Attorney General Issues Alert on Housing Approvals

California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a legal alert to assist California local officials in processing housing development project applications consistently, fairly, and lawfully in light of the Permit Streamlining Act was enacted in 1977 and the “Housing Crisis Act,” that amended the Permit Streamlining Act. 

Housing development project applicants can submit a preliminary application, which locks in applicable development standards at the time the preliminary application was submitted. The Housing Crisis Act requires the applicant to then file a full application within 180 days.

According to the Attorney General, some jurisdictions have misinterpreted this law to mean that such applicants only get one or two 90-day review periods before losing their vesting rights. The Attorney General’s alert underscores that, for purposes of determining whether a housing development project application is complete, an applicant is entitled to as many 90-day review and resubmission periods as necessary and, throughout the process, retains the rights that vest upon the submission of a preliminary application under the Housing Crisis Act, so long as the applicant submits its first attempt at a full application within 180 days of its preliminary application.

Key points from the legal alert include:
​

• The statutory provisions codifying the Permit Streamlining Act, and as amended by Senate Bill 330, expressly contemplate iterative review of development applications, or as many back-and-forth review and revisions as necessary, between an agency and an applicant, for purposes of completeness determinations.
  
  
• The separate requirement, that a full development application must be submitted within 180 days of a preliminary application, does not justify limiting this iterative process. This point is particularly crucial with respect to “Builder’s Remedy” applications, and in determining whether a local agency’s decision, or course of conduct, constitutes disapproval of a housing development project application under the Housing Accountability Act.
  
  
• The Attorney General’s interpretation of the Permit Streamlining Act’s 90-Day Rule is consistent with at least two recent lower court rulings: Janet Jha v. City of Los Angeles, et al. and Yes in My Back Yard, et al. v. City of Los Angeles, et al.