Title
a. . Receive a report on the status of the County's compliance with Assembly Bill 1466 modifying discriminatory restrictive covenants;
b. Consider supporting that the Board of Supervisors authorize staff to further research and develop a proposed restrictive covenant modification education project for Monterey County; and
c. Provide direction to staff.
Presenters: Taylor Price, Assistant Planner, Melanie Beretti, Principal Planner, HCD, Alicia Sotelo, Assistant County Clerk-Recorder, Clerk Recorder, and Krista Hanni, Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Manager, Health.
Report
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Health, Housing and Human Services Committee of the Board of
Supervisors:
a. Receive a report on the status of the County's compliance with Assembly Bill 1466 modifying discriminatory restrictive covenants;
b. Consider supporting that the Board of Supervisors authorize staff to further research and develop a proposed restrictive covenant modification education project; and
c. Provide direction to staff.
SUMMARY:
Restrictive covenants, legal agreements on deeds or real property restricting individuals based on race or ethnicity, were a method used to discriminate against certain groups and segregate neighborhoods in the United States and were particularly prominent from the 1920s to 1948. Though unenforceable since 1948 and made explicitly illegal by the 1968 Fair Housing Act, these discriminatory covenants and language remain in agreements related to real property throughout the United State and here in Monterey County. California state law not only provides for a process by which restrictive covenants can be modified, as of July 1, 2022, state law requires the county recorder for each county to develop an implementation plan (see Attachment A) and establish a program to identify and redact unlawfully restrictive language from recorded California real property records via the recordation of a Restrictive Covenant Modification document. The ...
Click here for full text