Bill Text: CA AB1469 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
Bill Title: Santa Clara Valley Water District.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)
Status: (Passed) 2023-10-10 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 729, Statutes of 2023. [AB1469 Detail]
Download: California-2023-AB1469-Amended.html
Bill Title: Santa Clara Valley Water District.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)
Status: (Passed) 2023-10-10 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 729, Statutes of 2023. [AB1469 Detail]
Download: California-2023-AB1469-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Assembly
April 18, 2023 |
|
Amended
IN
Assembly
March 16, 2023 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly Bill
No. 1469
| Introduced by Assembly Member Kalra |
February 17, 2023 |
An act to amend Section 4 of of, and to add Section 12.8 to, the Santa Clara Valley Water District Act (Chapter 1405 of the Statutes of 1951), relating to the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 1469, as amended, Kalra.
Santa Clara Valley Water District.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District Act creates the Santa Clara Valley Water District, and authorizes the district to provide for the conservation and management of flood, storm, and recycled waters, and other waters, for beneficial uses and to enhance natural resources in connection with carrying out the purposes of the district.
This bill would additionally authorize the district to take certain actions in order to assist unsheltered people living along streams, in riparian corridors, or otherwise within the district’s jurisdiction, in consultation with cities, the County of Santa Clara, and
the state, as appropriate, a city or the County of Santa Clara to provide solutions or improve outcomes for the unsheltered individuals.
This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for County of Santa Clara.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: NO Local Program: NOBill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) The number of unhoused people in the County of Santa Clara has increased by 36 percent in the last five years, rising from 7,394 in 2017 to 10,028 in 2022, according to the Homeless Point-in-Time Count and Survey. In 2022, 77 percent of the unhoused population in the county were unsheltered, meaning they are living in vehicles, in abandoned buildings, on public lands, or on the street.
(b) Thousands of the unsheltered people in the County of Santa Clara live along creeks and streams, in the riparian corridors, where
294 miles of creekside lands are owned by the Santa Clara Valley Water District, an independent special district responsible for regional water supply, flood risk reduction, and environmental stewardship of waterways in the county.
(c) Encampments of unsheltered people along waterways are both a human and an environmental tragedy, causing deaths and negative health outcomes for unsheltered individuals, increased community risks from fires, and flooding due to blocked drainages and the excavation of banks and levees, as well as the degradation of water quality from litter and human waste.
(d) Nutrient loading of streams from human waste facilitates algal blooms that degrade natural and constructed habitats for aquatic species, including federally threatened fish species such as
steelhead trout.
(e) The safe operation of water supply and flood risk reduction infrastructure in the County of Santa Clara requires vehicle access along pathways favored by encampments and requires the rapid release of water from upstream reservoirs, not only during storms, but often weeks before storms arrive, which may unintentionally flood encampments, endangering unsheltered people.
(f) Construction of flood risk reduction and water supply infrastructure, as well as environmental restoration and enhancement, requires closing certain areas to the public to protect life, safety, and the environment.
(g) As an independent special district, the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s actions to address the human and
operational challenges posed by encampments and to reduce environmental impacts are limited by the agency’s authorities granted by the Santa Clara Valley Water District Act, as well as by the California Constitution’s restrictions on the use of taxes and fees collected for water supply and flood protection for other purposes.
(h) The Santa Clara Valley Water District Board has long sought to increase resources that could be available to assist unsheltered people living along waterways and on other district properties to provide solutions, housing, or improved outcomes for the unsheltered individuals.
(i) In 2020, voters the in County of Santa Clara approved Measure S, a special tax that provides $500,000 annually to the water district for cost-share agreements with local agencies
for services related to cleanups of encampment litter and debris on waterways, in keeping with the district’s limited mission. Those funds are limited and eroded by inflation, and the growing needs far exceed both the purpose and amount of funding provided by the special tax.
(j) In the case of Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584, 616 (9th Cir. 2019), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that “as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.” The United States Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision, leaving it in effect in the western states covered by the Ninth Circuit, including California. Martin v. City of Boise has been
interpreted to mean a de facto requirement to offer shelter before unsheltered people may be relocated from public lands, and failure to do so may result in the issuance of a temporary restraining order.
(k) Considering the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s uncommon flood risk reduction responsibilities that are separate from county government, accounting for its location in one of the largest urban areas in the state, noting the large numbers of unsheltered people living on the public lands in riparian corridors, and citing evolving case law requiring the offer of shelter to relocate unsheltered people living on public land, there is a compelling need to expand the purposes of the Santa Clara Valley Water District to better assist unsheltered people, to fulfill the district’s existing mission of comprehensive water supply, flood risk
reduction, and environmental stewardship of streams, by providing solutions, housing, and improved outcomes for unsheltered people living on public lands and along waterways within the County of Santa Clara.
SEC. 2.
Section 4 of the Santa Clara Valley Water District Act (Chapter 1405 of the Statutes of 1951), as amended by Section 1 of Chapter 279 of the Statutes of 2006, is amended to read:Sec. 4.
(a) The purposes of this act are to authorize the district to provide comprehensive water management for all beneficial uses and flood protection risk within the County of Santa Clara.(b) It is the intent of the Legislature that the district work collaboratively with other appropriate entities in the County of Santa Clara in carrying out the purposes of this act.
(c) The district may take action to do all of the following:
(1) Reduce the risks to the County of Santa Clara from floodwater and stormwater of the district, including tidal floodwater and the
floodwater and stormwater of streams that have their sources outside the district, but flow into the district.
(2) Reduce the risks of floodwater or stormwater to the public highways, life, and property in the district, and the watercourses and watersheds of streams flowing within the district.
(3) Provide flood risk reduction and provide for the conservation and management of stormwater, recycled water, or other water from any sources within or outside the watersheds in which the district is located for beneficial and useful purposes, including spreading, storing, retaining, and causing the waters to percolate into the soil within the district.
(4) Protect, save, store, recycle, distribute, transfer, exchange, manage, and
conserve in any manner any of the waters.
(5) Increase and prevent the waste or diminution of the water supply in the district.
(6) Obtain, retain, protect, and recycle drainage, stormwater, floodwater, or treated wastewater, or other water from any sources, within or outside the watersheds in which the district is located for any beneficial uses within the district.
(7) Enhance, protect, and restore streams, riparian corridors, and natural resources in connection with carrying out the purposes set forth in this section.
(8) Assist unsheltered people living along streams, in riparian corridors, or otherwise within the district’s jurisdiction, in consultation
with cities, the County of Santa Clara, and the state, as appropriate,
a city or the County of Santa Clara to provide solutions or improve outcomes for the unsheltered individuals.
(9) Preserve open space in the County of Santa Clara and support the county park system in a manner that is consistent with carrying out the powers granted by this section.
SEC. 3.
Section 12.8 is added to The Santa Clara Valley Water District Act (Chapter 1405 of the Statutes of 1951), to read:Sec. 12.8.
The district is authorized to take the following actions to assist unsheltered people living along streams, in riparian corridors, or otherwise within the district’s jurisdiction, pursuant to paragraph (8) of subdivision (c) of Section 4:(a) Collect waste or biowaste.
(b) Contract with a city, the County of Santa Clara, or the state to provide outreach, counseling, transitional housing, public safety, or other services for unsheltered people.
(c) Provide, develop, sell, or lease land for the purposes of constructing temporary or permanent structures for transitional or long-term housing or other services for unsheltered people.
(d) (1) Contract with nongovernmental entities to provide outreach, counseling, or transitional housing for unsheltered people.
(2) Any contract between the district and a nongovernmental entity pursuant to paragraph (1) shall be in coordination with a city or the County of Santa Clara.
(3) Any housing developed pursuant to this authority shall be consistent with Housing First core components as defined in Section 8255 of the Welfare and Intuitions Code.
