THERE ARE SO MANY OPINIONS!

LAR aspires to present information from all perspectives. Reviewing the studies and articles cited here will provide you with the opportunity to learn more about RHNA. Our goal is to assist you by bringing together in one website information from many different points of view so you can more easily formulate your own opinion. Are the RHNA numbers assigned to Los Altos reasonable, appropriate, impossible to achieve, misguided and miscalculated? You decide.

We have attempted to make it easy for you to understand all the varying viewpoints about RHNA allocations across the state and across the Bay Area in particular. First we provide links to articles that explain the RHNA process in detail. Then we provide articles and studies that support RHNA, others that oppose it, and other articles that discuss particular aspects of the RHNA process and recent events that drastically affect the future and, as a result, question whether the RHNA numbers need to be revisited.

One thing we want to make clear is that LAR believes there is a real need for affordable housing in Los Altos, the Bay Area and throughout California. We support measures that we believe will actually produce affordable housing. We believe that affordable housing should be built with input from residents, city staff and the city council.

That said, LAR opposes state mandated RHNA housing allocation because it strips local jurisdictions, including Los Altos, of control over zoning and development in our city. We believe residents should have a voice in matters related to their neighborhoods, and the infrastructure necessary to support new housing development. The state-mandated RHNA allocations do not take into consideration the need for additional services and facilities such as schools, fire stations, police, and parks to support these additional housing units. And there is no state funding to assist cities!

WHAT IS RHNA?

RHNA - Regional Housing Needs Assessment

What is RHNA and why do I care? RHNA is the Regional Housing Needs Assessment - the number of market rate and below market rate housing units that the Housing and Community Development Agency (HCD) determines is necessary to build in an 8 year cycle in areas of California. The RHNA numbers for each of the major metropolitan areas is established by HCD based on the number of new jobs projected in each area and the new housing that will be needed to accommodate these jobs. In the Bay Area, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) divvy up the RHNA number for the Bay Area between all the cities and towns in the area. MTC/ABAG released the number of housing units that Los Altos will need to build between 2023-2030. Los Altos’ current allocation of housing units for this next cycle is 1,958 units, of which 1,105 are to be affordable. Los Altos currently has about 11,000 housing units so that is an increase of approximately 18%.

Questions:

1. Is Los Altos lacking in market rate housing?

2. Will the city’s current 15% inclusionary rule by itself produce 1,105 affordable units in the next 8 year cycle?

3. Will the city be able to build the approximate 7400 market rate homes needed to achieve the 1,105 affordable units (the RHNA number) via the 15% inclusionary rule for Los Altos? If yes, where will they be located?

STUDIES AND ARTICLES EXPLAINING THE RHNA PROCESS

  1. Article Explaining the Process Behind the Development of the Regional Housing Need Plan for the San Francisco Bay Area: 2014 - 2022. Published by San Jose city government https://www.sanjoseca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument?id=16033

  2. HCD Official Site - Comprehensive Official Site - Comprehensive Information about RHNA and the Housing Element: https://www.hcd.ca.gov/community-development/housing-element/index.shtml

Studies and articles supporting the rhna numbers

  1. LAR recently co-sponsored an event hosted by Los Altos Affordable Housing Alliance (LAAHA) entitled Understanding RHNA. Three people from HCD explained how they derived the RHNA numbers for the Bay Area and provided information on how HCD stands ready to help communities who are having difficulty achieving the mandated number of new housing units - both market rate and below market rate. The new chief of HCD’s Enforcement division was also on hand to provide details on measures that will be employed to force cities into compliance. The slides and the recording of this webinar are available at this Link.

  2. Furthering Fair Housing Through the RHNA Process in California by Annelise Osterberg, UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation, now employed by HCD https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/furthering-fair-housing-through-the-rhna-process-in-california/

  3. Who Decides Whether California Misjudged the Bay Area’s Housing Needs? (And Why It Matters), Elmendorf, UC Davis School of Law. https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/who-decides-whether-california-misjudged-the-bay-areas

studies and articles opposing the rhna numbers

  1. ABAG’s Regional Housing Plan is a Fantasy - Article in 48hills – Independent San Francisco newspaper.  Limit office growth to match actual housing built. https://48hills.org/2021/01/abags-regional-housing-plan-is-a-fantasy/

  2. Palo Alto Rejects RHNA numbers as Impossible to Achieve. https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/11/18/palo-alto-asserts-housing-growth-mandate-is-a-recipe-for-failure

  3. Bay Area’s new growth plan eyes massive housing influx in Silicon Valley. https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/10/22/bay-areas-new-growth-plan-eyes-massive-housing-influx-in-silicon-valley

  4. Orange County Cities Protest RHNA Numbers. https://www.ocregister.com/2021/01/09/more-cities-than-ever-are-protesting-rhna-allocation-of-homes-theyve-been-told-to-plan-for/

  5. Pasadena Objects to RHNA Numbers.  

    https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2021/01/20/pasadena-reckons-with-unachievable-rhna-housing-goals-after-appeal-rejection/

  6. Mountain View blogger opposes RHNA numbers. https://www.mv-voice.com/blogs/p/2020/10/28/abags-housing-demands-for-local-cities-are-too-much

articles and lawsuit asserting rhna numbers are too low

  1. YIMBYs suing because they think the RNHA numbers are too low . https://www.sfweekly.com/news/yimbys-sue-for-even-more-housing-via-rhna/?link_id=2&can_id=ef16c99661e9515d8df49418d23dc75c&source=email-were-suing-11&email_referrer=email_1066017___subject_1440908&email_subject=were-suing-for-more-homes

  2. YIMBYs lawsuit. https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/02/05/bay-area-needs-dramatic-increase-in-homes-suit/

  3. Excellent Article to Understand How Cities Appeal. https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/who-decides-whether-california-misjudged-the-bay-areas

  4. YIMBY lawsuit. YIMBY lawsuit https://reason.com/2021/02/09/california-massively-increased-the-amount-of-housing-the-bay-area-has-to-allow-yimby-lawsuit-says-eh-could-be-more/

articles and studies pointing to flaws in rhna allocations

  1. Article by the California Legislative Affairs Office:  Do Communities Adequately Plan for Housing? https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2017/3605/plan-for-housing-030817.pdf

  2. Article Reporting Unfair Allocation of Housing Due to Lobbying. How Newport Beach Ended Up With 2 Affordable Housing Units In 8 Years, by CalMatters published in capradio. https://www.capradio.org/articles/2020/12/28/how-newport-beach-ended-up-with-2-affordable-housing-units-in-8-years/

  3. Article Explaining Causes for Non-Compliance with Housing Laws. California’s Housing Element Law:  The Issue of Local Noncompliance by P.G. Lewis, Public Policy Institute of California. https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/R_203PLR.pdf

  4. Embarcadero Institute Exposes Double Counting of Factors due to SB878 – Did Legislators Not Understand How the Department of Finance Predicts Future Household Formation and Introduce Errors in RHNA Process.  https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.65/r3g.8a0.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/The-models-V10-Feb-2021.pdf

  5. Embarcadero Institute Explains How HCD-MTC-ABAG is Solving the Wrong Housing Crisis.  https://www.planningreport.com/2021/02/26/were-solving-wrong-crisis-finding-fixing-real-housing-crisis-california

articles and studies urging delay or changes in rhna due to covid-19 pandemic and the resulting drastic changes in employment and housing

  1. Economic slowdown is a new factor in determining housing quota https://padailypost.com/2020/04/16/economic-slowdown-is-a-new-factor-in-determining-housing-quotas/

  2. Covid economy:  Bay Area residents exit region in growing numbers, study finds:

    https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/04/covid-economy-bay-area-residents-exit-region-growing-numbers-jobs-tech/

  3. How millennials are changing the luxury real estate market – they want single family homes in the suburbs with big yards for the kids they have or want to have

    https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/02/01/how-millennials-are-changing-the-luxury-real-estate-market/

  4. Salesforce reveals new “Work From Anywhere” policy.

    https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/02/09/salesforce-reveals-new-work-from-anywhere-plan-for-its-employees/

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