Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee, Wednesday, March 11, 2026

11 March 2026

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Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee Tue, 10 Mar 2026 California State Assembly

40:42 - 44:21

Speaker 1

All right. We are going to get started. Welcome everyone to the Committee on Housing and Community Development. Today, we are going to have the second of our outcomes review hearing. This bill this, hearing focused mainly on a b four fifty seven.

But in addition to, looking at a b four fifty seven, which we're gonna talk about at length, we're gonna be speaking more generally about the challenges and opportunities to build farm worker housing and housing in rural parts of the state. For those of you who know the district that I represent, it is not famously a rural district. It's probably the most urban district in the state. So I'm very grateful to have folks here with us who are joining us, my colleagues who have been such tremendous leaders on ensuring that we have a broader access to housing and affordable housing for farm workers and more generally in rural in rural areas of California. I especially wanna thank assembly member Soria for joining us today, for her leadership and partnership, and also acknowledge, speaker Rivas' new outcomes review initiative.

And this is a process that reflects a simple but important principle. Passing a bill is not the end of our job. Bill signings are important, but impact is what matters, especially when it comes to solving for housing affordability that affects all Californians. Our responsibility is not just to pass laws, but to evaluate when they are working, whether they are being implemented as intended, and whether they are delivering results for Californians. California is the leading US state for agricultural production, generating billions in sales and providing half of the nation's fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

The Central Valley and Salinas Valley are key agricultural regions, and farm workers are essential to supporting our agricultural economy. Farm workers are paying high rents and, in some cases, commuting long distances because there are not there's not affordable housing near their work. The bill we are going to be looking at in-depth today, a b four fifty seven, was built upon by two other bills. A b was built upon two two other bills, a b seventeen eighty three by speaker Rivas and a b thirty thirty thirty five by assembly member Pelerin, who is also joining us today. The goal of these three bills was to make it easier to build farm worker housing by creating a streamlined ministerial approval process that borrowed from a s b 35.

The premise is that making the local approval process more efficient will create more certainty for developers and result in housing cheaper and faster. In this case, housing specifically for farm workers. A b thirty thirty five and a b four fifty seven made reforms to the original bill, a b seventeen eighty three, to make it work better. The reform reforms changed where the bill applied to sites that are in close proximity to agricultural land, but not on agricultural land, and increased the total project size to make the developments more financially feasible and competitive for state funding. Today, we will learn about the barriers to utilizing that process created by these bills and improvements to the bills to make it work better.

We'll also be talking more generally about farm worker in rural and housing in rural areas to learn what makes it harder to build this housing and what, if anything, the state can do to make it more feasible. With that, I want to invite the author of this bill, assembly member Soria, to make opening remarks and then also invite, assembly member Pellerin to to make remarks well. Samim Rippellerin, welcome.

44:21 - 47:25

Speaker 2

Thank you, and and good morning to everyone. I I wanna sincerely thank, chair, Haney for holding this hearing on a b four fifty seven as well as farm worker and rural housing issues. Generally, as you guys know, I represent a very rural district, Assembly District 27, which encompasses Fresno, Madera, and Merced Counties. Also, for me, this issue of rural housing and farm worker housing, very personal as I I am the daughter of farm worker immigrants, and so I know the plight that many of our farm worker families have to go through. And, as I've been here now in the legislature for the last, this is my fourth year.

I've learned about, you know, what the the work that we've done on housing and around housing. And it's been incredible, and I think that we've made an enormous strides to try to address the affordability crisis that is impacting constituents across California. But I also recognize, that a lot of the policies that do come out of, this building are very urban focused, and I think that it is important today to have this discussion. And so when I approach assembly member Haini, he's out he said, yes. Let's do it.

I think that that's a a worthy issue to discuss. And so I'm so grateful that the staff has spent the time and that there are folks here this morning to also really talk about the nitty gritty of what is happening in our local communities, what what are some of the wins that we've seen, and also the opportunities that exist out there where us as policymakers, we can make better policy to also not leave regions like my region left behind, which we have been historically. And so I'm so grateful for that for the opportunity today. Obviously, the issue of farm worker housing, similar to, I I believe, speaker Rivas. We're passionate about it because we came from it.

And that's why I authored a b four five seven last year because I've heard about the challenges of building farm worker housing in many of our small rural communities and wanting to make sure that, we would not reinvent the wheel, but look at previous policy to try to build upon it. And so I'm grateful that the governor did sign, this piece of legislation and that today we have that initiative that speaker Rivas created of these outcomes review process that can allow us to look back and then also kind of look forward to examine the effects of not just a b four five seven, but other bills that have impacted or are impacting the ability to build not just farm worker housing, but rural housing in our community. And so I'm looking forward to a robust conversation. I want people to be honest and tell us, you know, what what what are those challenges that communities like Mendota, who I know is is here represented in the West Side of of Fresno County, what are they experiencing? Because every time I go and meet with constituents in my district, they want housing.

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