REPORT TO PLANNING COMMISSION
SUBJECT
Title
Study Session: Housing Element Update
Report
BACKGROUND
California state law mandates that all local governments adequately plan to meet the housing needs of their communities at all income levels. Under the law, the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) first determines each region's housing need for an upcoming eight-year planning period. The regional council of governments, which in the Bay Area is the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), then allocates a "fair share" of the unit total to each jurisdiction. These first two parts of the process are known as the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). Finally, local governments update their housing elements (a required element of the General Plan) to show how they will accommodate their share of the RHNA. Because the State assigned an overall housing need for the Bay Area that is approximately 2.5 times the need for the prior housing element cycle, jurisdictions throughout the ABAG region will receive significantly larger RHNA targets than they did in prior RHNA cycles.
The RHNA planning process for the Bay Area's sixth housing element cycle, which will last from 2023 to 2031, began in 2019 by ABAG with a series of Housing Methodology Committee stakeholder meetings, and culminated in January 2021 with the adoption by the ABAG Executive Board of a RHNA distribution methodology for the allocation of housing needs to each city, town, and county in the region. The State HCD is currently reviewing the ABAG methodology for consistency with State criteria. The RHNA process will continue through 2021 with the release of draft allocations for each ABAG jurisdiction, an appeal process, and final allocations at the end of the calendar year. A preliminary allocation has been identified for each ABAG jurisdiction by utilizing the recently adopted methodology.
Santa Clara, like all other Bay Area towns, cities, and counties, will be required to...
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