AB 723 Summary

• Authorizes the Department of Housing and Community Development to allow previously-funded applicants to apply for additional Community Development Block Grant funds without having expended a minimum 50% of prior awards, subject to director determination and board approval.

• Allows the Housing Finance Agency to waive the requirement that at least half of affordable units be reserved for very low income households, with board approval and specific findings that lower income housing needs will otherwise be met.

• Permits the Housing Finance Agency to use flexible occupancy assumptions for determining rents on very low income units, effective September 1, 2016, instead of strict per-bedroom occupancy standards, if deemed appropriate and commercially reasonable.

• Changes the statutory language describing the agency's bond issuance authority from "an alternative method to issue bonds for making construction loans" to "an alternative method to finance construction loans and mortgage loans."

• Took effect immediately upon approval on September 24, 2016, as an urgency statute addressing the critical statewide shortage of affordable housing.