City Received Comment Letter on Draft Housing Element

The Housing Element must be approved by the State and updated every five to eight years and the City of Lafayette’s current Housing Element was certified by the State of California on March 26, 2015. The Planning Department initiated the update process in early 2020 to meet the state’s certification deadline of January 30, 2023. Under the direction of the City Council, staff recruited for and assembled an 11-member General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC) composed of geographic district, chamber of commerce, and nonprofit representatives selected by lottery and commission and committee members nominated by their body to serve on the GPAC. Since its formation in October 2020, the GPAC has met on a monthly or bimonthly basis to begin updating the components of the Housing Element. Throughout that time the GPAC, Planning Commission, and City Council have sought public input and worked together to develop a complete Draft Housing Element to meet the numerous new State requirements.

The City submitted its initial draft 6th Cycle Housing Element Update (HEU) to the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for review on June 30th. HCD had 90 days to review the draft and prepare a comment letter. On September 29th, the City received a 13-page comment letter detailing revisions and requests for additional information related to the draft Housing Element.

Click here to access the HCD comment letter

Staff will review the comments in the letter and return to the Planning Commission and City Council in the coming months with recommended revisions to address HCD’s comments.