AB2295 – 2022 Education Workforce Housing Law

Year: 2021–2022

On September 28, 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law “Assembly Bill No. 2295: Education Workforce Housing Development,” which was co-authored by cityLAB Director Dana Cuff and cityLAB Senior Fellow Jane Blumenfeld. The bill was formally introduced in Sacramento by Assemblymember Richard Bloom, well known for his housing advocacy. AB2295 streamlines the development of affordable and mixed-income housing for teachers and support staff of California’s K-12 public schools on public land, opening opportunities for up to 2.3 million units of housing statewide. As Bloom observes, the bill “provides a tool for school districts to allow housing to be built on school properties for teachers and staff while reducing the timeline to build that housing by half.” With AB2295, at least half of all units must be affordable, and all units will prioritize teachers and other school employees as tenants. While most objective, local controls remain in place, the bill assures that schools will be able to build three stories of housing on available sites. These and other provisions become effective on January 1, 2024. In authoring AB2295, cityLAB synthesized six years of design research, much of which was accomplished by AUD students and the cityLAB team.