When Anaheim city leaders and state housing officials disagreed late last year about whether the city’s sale of Angel Stadium broke an affordable housing law, they reached a stalemate.

The state Housing and Community Development Department hit Anaheim with a notice of violation of the Surplus Land Act, but the city argued unwaveringly that the law didn’t apply to the stadium deal. The state’s only recourse would have been taking the city to court.

Under a proposed bill from state Sen. Tom Umberg, that would change: if the state housing department found a violation of the law, it could force a local agency to rebid the property it was trying to sell.

Umberg – who was an early critic of the Angel Stadium sale – said Wednesday that he consulted Assemblyman Phil Ting, who has previously written bills to tighten up the Surplus Land Act.

“He and I concluded that it’s best to close whatever ambiguity may exist, so that there’s real teeth so that HCD can effectively enforce any violation,” Umberg said.

The Surplus Land Act requires public agencies that want to sell surplus property to first offer it for the potential development of affordable housing. If they get any viable housing proposals, they must have good-faith discussions with those bidders; if they can’t reach a deal, they can dispose of the land as they see fit.

When Anaheim officials opted to sell the stadium, they only dealt with Angels Baseball, which has a lease that runs through 2029 (at first they were discussing a new lease before moving to negotiate a sale of the property). If Umberg’s bill were to pass, the city likely would have to put the stadium land out for bids before it could craft any new deal.

The city has argued the stadium deal was covered by another provision of state law, which allows officials to skip the bidding process when selling public property for “economic opportunity.”

Anaheim spokesman Mike Lyster said Wednesday, “We are aware of the proposed legislation, but don’t have anything to share at this time.”

Anaheim and the state ultimately resolved their dispute with a legal settlement requiring the city to put $96 million of proceeds from the stadium deal into a fund to build affordable housing. The amount was equal to a penalty the Surplus Land Act allows state officials to charge when the law is violated – but the issue then became moot last month when the sale unraveled after former Mayor Harry Sidhu, who helped negotiate it, was revealed to be under federal investigation.

A spokeswoman for state Housing and Community Development said Wednesday the department is “unable to comment” on Umberg’s bill. But in April, when the settlement was announced, HCD Deputy Director Megan Kirkeby said her department had no authority to block the stadium sale, and the $96 million requirement “is as far as our enforcement was able to take us.”

Ting said he drafted changes to the decades-old Surplus Land Act in 2014 and 2019 after local officials continued to try to circumvent the law, and Umberg’s bill would “really up the ante so that the sale can get canceled” when the state determines the law was broken.

The catch is that Umberg’s bill would only apply in Orange County; it also would sunset in 2030.

Umberg originally wrote a statewide bill, but in a statement Wednesday his office explained that the Committee on Local Government (where the bill was set to be heard Wednesday) requested it be narrowed, and since the language hadn’t been in print long, Umberg was “a little hesitant to take it statewide at this time.”

However, he plans to continue to work with Ting, who said he wants to see the law applied everywhere.

As to the OC-only scope of Umberg’s bill, Ting said, sometimes “you have to accept half a loaf and make a decision whether to deliver something for your community or nothing for your community.”

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