California Builder's Remedy (CA)

Tracked preemption from the California overlay bundle.

Overview

Effective
1990-01-01
Sunset
Authority
state
Scope
state:CA

Trigger predicate

When this evaluates true for a parcel, the law's preempted fields take precedence over base zoning.

city.housing_element_status {Out, Enforcement Out}

Preempted fields

5 fields on the base district schema are rewritten when the trigger fires.

FieldOpValueNote
base_districts[*].max_height_ftwaive
base_districts[*].max_units_per_acrewaive
base_districts[*].max_farwaive
base_districts[*].allowed_useswaive
review_typewaive_discretionary

Citation

Research notes

Triggered when city's Housing Element is NOT certified by HCD. Allows projects with ≥20% affordable (low income) to bypass all local zoning — height, density, FAR, use restrictions. City can only deny based on health/safety findings supported by preponderance of evidence. Status sourced from CA HCD Housing Element Compliance Report weekly dataset. AB 1893 (2024) added procedural requirements.