For the purpose of providing disaster relief to owners of rental housing and the tenants residing in rental housing that was damaged or destroyed as a result of a natural disaster as defined by Section 8680.3 of the Government Code, resulting in a state of emergency proclaimed by the Governor pursuant to Section 8625 of the Government Code, financial assistance may be provided to disaster victims as prescribed in this chapter under the following special conditions, which shall prevail over conflicting provisions of this chapter and administrative regulations: (a) (1) Funds may be used to make loans for (A) repair or (B) refinancing in conjunction with repair, of rental housing developments that were damaged or destroyed as a result of the natural disaster. For purposes of this section, ârepairâ includes reconstruction. (2) The loans shall only be made in a city, county, or city and county proclaimed by the Governor to be in a state of disaster to assist rental housing developments that are damaged or destroyed by a natural disaster and only to the extent that other federal and state resources, private insurance proceeds, or private institutional lending sources, are not available or do not provide the assistance or coverage needed to rehabilitate or reconstruct that housing. (3) The loans may be provided (A) to persons who do not qualify for loan assistance from an agency of the United States for repair of the damage caused by a natural disaster, or, (B) to the extent that federally provided or assisted financing may be insufficient to accomplish the necessary repair or would require rent increases above the rent charged for the units prior to the disaster. (4) As to damaged rental housing, the loan funds shall be used to correct serious, life-threatening violations of the state or local building code or housing standards which are required to be corrected prior to occupancy, and to bring the property into compliance with seismic safety standards. If reconstruction is precluded on the original project site due to documented soil, geological, or other conditions which cannot be mitigated at a reasonable cost or the cost of the repair or reconstruction would exceed 110 percent of the value after reconstruction, the department may approve reconstruction on a comparable site in the immediate neighborhood. However, loan funds shall not be used for acquisition of real property. (b) (1) Rental housing developments, for this purpose, shall include, but not be limited to, multifamily rental dwellings, apartments, residential hotels, rental mobilehomes, mobilehome parks, group homes for senior citizens or the disabled, buildings of mixed residential rental and commercial use, and buildings of mixed owner-occupant and rental use, that are made available for permanent residency of tenants. Rental housing developments shall contain five or more units. For buildings of mixed residential rental and commercial use, funds may be used for the repair of commercial as well as residential space. (2) To be eligible for funds under this section, the owner of any rental housing development set forth above, shall have been the owner of record at the time of the natural disaster. (c) In addition to the other requirements of this chapter, the department may require terms and conditions as it determines necessary to meet the needs of the disaster area and its victims, to ensure the fiscal integrity of the rental housing development, and to protect the interests of the state. The department shall require that priority in occupancy in any unit assisted pursuant to this section shall be given first to occupants of rental units assisted pursuant to this section who were displaced by the natural disaster or the resulting repair of the assisted rental units. Second priority shall be given to other persons who were displaced from housing as a result of the natural disaster. (d) In allocating funds, the department shall consider the availability of other res
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