Vehicles: homelessness.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary and digest do not provide specific details about compensation for vehicle owners whose cars are removed.

Vehicles: Homelessness

This law allows local governments to quickly remove vehicles that pose an immediate danger to health and safety without waiting for a long notice period.

What This Bill Does

• Allows cities or counties to take away cars right away if they pose an immediate danger to health and safety.
• Changes the rule so that a vehicle doesn't need both to be called a public nuisance and have its owner sign off before it can be removed quickly.

Who It Names or Affects

• Local governments
• Vehicle owners whose cars might be removed

Terms To Know

Public nuisance

Something that is harmful or annoying to the public and can be removed by local authorities.

Emergency summary abatement

Quick action taken by local governments to remove dangerous items from public spaces without waiting for a long time.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify how much notice must be given before removing vehicles in non-emergency situations.
• It is unclear what happens if the vehicle owner cannot be found or contacted.

Official Summary Text

SB 692, as amended, Arreguín.
Vehicles: homelessness.
Existing law makes it unlawful for a peace officer or an unauthorized person to remove an unattended vehicle from a highway, except as provided. Under existing law, the removal of a vehicle is a seizure, subject to the limits set forth in jurisprudence for the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Existing law authorizes a city, county, or city and county to adopt an ordinance establishing procedures for the abatement and removal, as public nuisances, of abandoned, wrecked, dismantled, or inoperative vehicles or parts of vehicles from private or public property. Existing law requires that any ordinance for the removal of abandoned vehicles contain certain provisions, including a provision exempting vehicles under certain circumstances, and a provision providing no less than a 10-day notice of intention to abate and remove the vehicle or part thereof as a public nuisance,
unless the property owner and the owner of the vehicle sign releases. Existing law also exempts from the 10-day notice prior to removal provision, a vehicle meeting specified requirements, including being valued at less than $200 and being determined to be a public nuisance, if the property owner has signed a release.
Existing law requires a peace officer, or any other authorized employee of a public agency, at least 72 hours prior to removal of a vehicle, to attach a distinctive notice that states the vehicle will be removed by the public agency, except as specified.
This bill would specifically authorize a local government to perform emergency summary abatement of vehicles creating imminent health and safety hazards. The bill would modify the exemption from prior 10-day notice of intention to abate
and remove a vehicle to no longer require that both the vehicle be determined to be a public nuisance and that the property owner sign a release.
The bill would additionally exempt abandoned vehicles or parts from those notice provisions if the vehicle or part is inoperable due to the absence of, among other things, a motor or transmission, and the local agency has determined the vehicle or part to be a public nuisance, as specified.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF