Where could new housing go?
Regional Housing Needs Allocation
The Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) process is the part of Housing Element Law used to determine the number new dwelling units, and the affordability of those units, each local government must plan for in its Housing Element. This process is repeated every eight years, known as a “cycle”. For the new, or 6th Cycle, the Bay Area is planning from 2023 to 2031. The RHNA process is a requirement for all jurisdictions to plan for future housing needs, ensuring development can occur, should an owner or developer wish to. However, it is not a mandate for jurisdictions to actually construct the units.
The City’s RHNA allocation is 2,114 units. Now, the City must identify parcels that could feasibly accommodate the 2,114 net new housing units in addition to excess capacity or a “buffer”.
Opportunity Sites
State law requires that the Housing Element contain a site-by-site inventory of land suitable for development of all housing types, which are referred to as “opportunity sites”. Opportunity sites are specific locations which are likely to accommodate new dwelling units within the eight-year planning cycle. The State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), which is charged with approving (“certifying”) Housing Elements, has developed several criteria for sites to be included as discussed in more detail below; however, the decision about which sites to include is up to the jurisdiction. Click here for a summary of HCD’s criteria.
Potential inclusion of each site must be measured against a number of factors, including its availability for development within the eight-year planning period, the track record of the jurisdiction for approving housing on certain types of sites, whether sites that need to be aggregated are under the same ownership, and a host of other factors, including public input.
A draft list of opportunity sites was developed through a combination of public input and staff analysis of sites. The list includes sites not developed in the previous (5th cycle) site inventory, sites submitted by the public through the public engagement process, and new sites identified by staff with some potential to meet the criteria. Unlike previous Housing Element updates, the GPAC held workshops and hosted online activities to receive input from the public to identify potential opportunity sites to be considered against the HCD criteria. GPAC hosted a webinar for the community (Housing Element Workshop #4, May 13, 2021) in which participants undertook a brief training about how to select opportunity sites, and then worked in small groups to identify potential sites. Notes from the session can be found online. Following the workshop, community members were encouraged to identify additional potential sites. A total of 194 submissions were received in the online platform. Many of these sites were duplicates, that is, more than one person nominated a site. After removal of duplicates, 95 sites identified by community members remained. In addition, some of the sites nominated were included in the last Housing Element and have not yet been developed with housing but may be eligible for inclusion as part of the inventory for this planning cycle.
Site Selection
The General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC) will be vetting sites during its February 15th and March 1st, 2022 meetings. Discussions of sites will include whether or not sites should be included in the inventory and what that might mean for re-zoning areas throughout the downtown. Once the GPAC prepares a draft site inventory, the inventory will be sent to the Planning Commission for review and then eventually forwarded to the City Council.
How can I give input?
There are two ways to give your input:
Attend a General Plan Advisory Committee meeting and provide spoken public comment. To receive updates on General Plan activities, subscribe to e-notifications for the “General Plan Update”.
Write your comments in to generalplan@lovelafayette.org. Comments received by noon the day of the meeting will be provided to the GPAC.