Housing element: governmental constraints: disclosure statement.

Assembly Member Alvarez's housing element reform legislation requires California cities and counties to include new disclosure statements detailing governmental constraints on housing development, enhancing transparency around local policies that affect housing construction and affordability. The bill mandates that housing elements identify constraints adopted between housing element updates and anticipated restrictions likely to be enacted in the first three years of the planning period.

The legislation establishes specific requirements for these disclosure statements, which must catalog any new or amended regulations that could impede housing development enacted since the previous housing element's due date. Local governments must also report planned constraints that appear on legislative body agendas under the Ralph M. Brown Act. While the bill does not prohibit jurisdictions from adopting new constraints, it creates a formal mechanism to track and publicly document these changes.

The measure applies to all California cities, including charter cities, reflecting the statewide significance of housing element compliance and constraint analysis. Local governments must bear implementation costs, as the bill specifies that no state reimbursement is required since jurisdictions can levy fees to cover new administrative requirements. The Department of Housing and Community Development will develop standardized reporting formats for jurisdictions to use in documenting these constraints in future housing element updates.