Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA)
The State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) provides each region throughout California with its projected housing need for a seven and a half year period. This projection is based on state population estimates and demographic trends, and is articulated in the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA).
The state’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPO’s) are then required to prepare and adopt an allocation plan that identifies how the state’s RHNA will be met within the local context. The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) is responsible for preparing and adopting that allocation plan here in Santa Barbara County. State law provides a series of guiding principles to help guide MPO’s in deciding how to address the RHNA for any given planning period. SBCAG, responding to local norms, values, and expressed community preferences, has historically focused on dividing the RHNA between the incorporated cities and unincorporated County by using data related to population, employment, and commute patterns.
Once a RHNA plan has been developed and adopted by the SBCAG Board of Directors, the Cities and County are required by State law to accommodate their assigned portion of the RHNA through a General Plan Housing Element update within one year. Intrinsic to the State’s RHNA process are four overarching goals:
- Increase the housing supply and mix of housing types, tenure, and affordability in all jurisdictions.
- Promote infill development and socioeconomic equity, protection of environmental and agricultural resources, and encouraging efficient development patterns.
- Promote improved intraregional jobs-housing relationship.
- Balance disproportionate household income distributions.
New Housing Legislation
Changes in State housing law during this decade have placed an increased emphasis on ensuring that cities and counties plan for housing near where jobs are located. These changes in State law have helped to preserve the economic, social, and environmental vitality of the State economy by providing policy direction to concentrate growth where growth makes sense.
- SB 375: Goals include the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and traffic congestion from cars and trucks through better regional planning patterns, with development placed closer to employment centers, community services, commercial centers and transit corridors. SB 375 operates through incentives and expressly reserves land use authority to local governments. SB 375 constitutes regional planning coordination, pursuant to Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. AB 32 outlines the state’s vision to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the year 2020. With regard to general planning, AB 32 requires local jurisdictions to address these goals by planning for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions associated with land use and transportation.
- AB 2158 (Lowenthal, 2004): Updated the RHNA methodology to direct housing growth to areas that have large employment centers. This addresses existing jobs-housing imbalances, minimizes the impacts of commuting, congestion, and development of the County’s open space and agriculture land, thereby preserving the region’s quality of life and unique physical environment.
For the County, these changes have also provided not only the policy basis for the County to protect its rural and agricultural heritage, but also a platform to guarantee that local norms and values, as expressed by our unincorporated communities, are preserved in our local community plans.
The County's RHNA Planning Process
The County participated in RHNA process by serving on the Technical Planning Advisory Committee (TPAC) in 2007, which developed and recommended a RHNA methodology to SBCAG. The SBCAG Board of Directors adopted a final RHNA methodology in March 2008, and the allocations that followed took into account planning factors adopted into the RHNA process, pursuant to AB 2158. These factors placed increased focus on promoting housing opportunities in urban areas, near existing jobs, services, and transit; preserving agriculture; addressing jobs/housing imbalances; and, minimizing GHG emissions resulting from poor land use planning (i.e., SB 375, AB 32).
These changes have resulted in dramatically divergent intra-regional RHNA assignments to jurisdictions between the 2001-2007 planning period and the 2007-2014 planning period. For example, the unincorporated areas of Santa Barbara County received 35% of the RHNA for the 2001-2007 planning period. Then, during the 2007-2014 planning period, Santa Barbara County received about 10% of the RHNA, using the AB 2158 planning factors provided under GC 65584(d) and 65584.04(d).
These factors were effectively precursors to SB 375, which formally links planning processes for transportation and housing. The flexibility enabled through this new legislation aims to reconcile the policy discrepancies between the two most recent planning periods, while also ensuring that adequate housing opportunities are provided to address the quantified regional need.