New California law could give ‘path forward’ for El Dorado County apartment plan (Sac Bee Article)

When the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 893 last year, it was pitched as a way to help jumpstart student housing near college campuses across the state. Yet to developer Affirmed Housing, it could serve as a lifeline for a 128-apartment project planned just east of El Dorado Hills — though it is nowhere near a college campus.

That was by design said Kate Rodgers, a policy director with the Student Homes Coalition who drafted AB 893 and was one of the primary advocates working on the bill as it made its way through the Legislature. A provision was added to the bill before it passed to try and close a loophole that local officials could use to hold up housing developments on commercial land across the state.

It forces those officials to focus solely on the area of a site where construction will occur and not on bordering land when considering if a project is exempt from environmental law. “What the folks at Affirmed Housing and El Dorado County are doing is exactly the intended use case of the bill, that specific provision,” Rodgers said.

Two years ago, Affirmed Housing went to the Board of Supervisors with a request to subdivide a 5-acre commercial property in the Rescue and Cameron Park areas so a future project there could qualify for an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act. Property with wetlands on it was not eligible for the exemption the developer was seeking….

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article315522550.html