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All Cities and Counties in California June 14, 2022 Page 3 The California Planning and Zoning Law requires a local jurisdiction to prepare a Housing Element as part of its General Plan. (Gov. Code, § 65302, subd. (c).) The law also prohibits discrimination against affordable housing developments, affordable housing developers, and potential residents by local jurisdictions when carrying out their planning and zoning powers. (Gov. Code, § 65583.) A local jurisdiction’s Housing Element must analyze the housing needs of people with disabilities and potential governmental constraints to the development, improvement, and maintenance of housing for people with disabilities; demonstrate local efforts to remove any such constraints; and provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities through programs that remove constraints. (Gov. Code, §§ 65008, 65300, 65583, subd. (c)(3).) As part of this process, a local jurisdiction must review its land use and zoning policies and procedures to ensure that they: • Comply with fair housing laws; • Include a provision for group homes with more than six residents, specifically for people with disabilities, other than those residential zones covered by state law; • Include a broadened definition of “family” that 1) provides zoning code occupancy standards specific to unrelated adults and 2) complies with fair housing law; • Evaluate any siting or separation requirements for licensed residential-care facilities to determine the extent to which the local restrictions affect the development and cost of housing; • Ensure that any minimum distance requirements in the land use element for the siting of special needs housing developments do not impact the development and cost of housing for persons with disabilities; and • Include alternate residential parking requirements, including reduction, for people with disabilities.9 A local jurisdiction must further determine whether it has an established reasonable accommodation procedure, and evaluate that policy to describe: • The process for requesting a reasonable accommodation retrofit (e.g., a request to build a ramp), and • The extent to which existing requirements constrain or facilitate the application of: o An existing or proposed reasonable accommodation procedure (e.g., as related to permit processing, zoning, building codes, and procedures for the approval of licensed residential-care facilities) and 9 HCD, Building Blocks <https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/building- blocks/constraints/constraints-for-people-with-disabilities.shtml> (as of May 20, 2022).