General plans: housing element: emergency shelter.

Senator Laird, with coauthor Senator Blakespear, advances a measure that ties emergency shelter planning directly to the housing element process, requiring cities and counties to designate zones where emergency shelters are permitted as a by-right use and to specify onsite services for shelters and related interim facilities. The core change requires the housing element to identify adequate sites for emergency shelters and to outline objective standards for siting, operation, and accompanying services, including interim interventions such as navigation centers or bridge housing. It also treats permit processing and related standards for shelter siting as non-discretionary for purposes of environmental review.

Key mechanisms include a defined set of written standards that shelters must satisfy—covering maximum beds, staff parking, onsite waiting and intake areas, onsite management, proximity to other shelters, length of stay, lighting, and security—alongside a requirement that all services be provided onsite. The bill expands the shelter framework to include onsite services for emergency shelters and other interim interventions, with the goal of aligning shelter operations with the general plan. A capacity-determination framework uses site area to estimate capacity, employing a standard of 200 square feet per person, and it specifies eligible site types: vacant sites zoned for residential use; vacant nonresidential sites that permit residential development near services; and nonvacant sites suitable for shelter use or redevelopable for shelter in the planning period.

The measure also creates a mechanism for multijurisdictional agreements, allowing up to two adjacent communities to share year-round shelter capacity and allocate capacity credits among participating jurisdictions, with each jurisdiction required to report its contribution and funding. Where the inventory identifies insufficient sites, the plan must include a rezoning program with deadlines tied to revisions of the housing element, including steps such as submitting drafts for department review and obtaining findings of substantial compliance before adoption. Enforcement provisions provide for civil actions to compel housing-element program actions, while the shelter standards’ non-discretionary treatment is intended to limit discretionary hurdles under CEQA.

Implementation and oversight provisions tie the changes to companion measures that would modify the housing element framework, conditioned on enactment and sequencing with those measures by a target date. A standardized reporting format for fair housing and related assessments is to be developed by the Department, with the seventh and subsequent revisions required to use the format. The bill also contemplates reimbursement to local agencies for costs that state-mandates determine are attributable to the act. The authorial framing presents the provisions as a means to expand and align shelter siting, onsite services, and fair housing considerations within local planning, subject to the enactment and order of related measures.