The Community Redevelopment Law established redevelopment agencies in each community and granted specified powers to those redevelopment agencies for the purpose of promoting redevelopment in blighted areas. Existing law dissolved those community redevelopment agencies in 2012.
Other existing law, the Disaster Recovery Reconstruction Act of 1986, authorizes each city, county, or other local subdivision, as provided, to prepare, prior to a disaster, plans and ordinances facilitating the expeditious and orderly recovery and reconstruction of the area in case of a disaster. Existing law authorizes those plans and ordinances to include the authority and proposed organization for establishment of a local reconstruction authority with powers parallel to those of a community redevelopment agency, except as specified.
This bill would refer to those plans as a disaster recovery plan and would require a city or county that adopts a disaster recovery plan to ensure that its general plan is consistent with, and references, the disaster recovery plan. The bill would require the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, in consultation with other specified state and local entities, to assess the recovery and rebuilding needs of jurisdictions across the state and prepare guidance on disaster recovery plans, including model ordinance language, as provided.
This bill would authorize a city, county, or other local subdivision of the state to adopt an ordinance prior to a disaster, which could be invoked as soon as possible after a disaster, that would establish a local reconstruction agency, rather than a reconstruction authority, to coordinate disaster recovery efforts in the areas impacted by the disaster. The bill would authorize the ordinance to grant the reconstruction agency specified powers, similar to those previously authorized for a community redevelopment agency, including, among other powers, to sue and be sued, to make and execute contracts, to issue or sell bonds, and to accept financial assistance from any public or private source. The bill would also authorize a reconstruction agency to accept, through a dedication by the city, county, or other taxing entity, incremental tax revenues derived from local sales and use taxes or from transactions and use taxes, as provided.

Statutes affected:
AB 2385: 8877.5 GOV
02/20/26 - Introduced: 8877.5 GOV