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State Auditor: Housing “requirement” numbers way off

I talked about how the Regional Housing Needs Allocation numbers (RHNA) will mess up cities in the County two and a half months ago.  Little did I know at the time that the whole process of coming up with these numbers is shoddy at best and perhaps fraudulent at worst.  A state auditor, Michael S. Tilden, has said as much as reported here

The Auditor found problems in the HCD methodology that may have inflated RHNA requirements by hundreds of thousands of housing units. The Auditor concludes that “The Department of Housing and Community Development must improve its processes to ensure that communities can adequately plan for housing.”

In his letter to the Governor and legislative leaders, the Auditor also states, “Overall, our audit determined that HCD does not ensure that its needs assessments are accurate and adequately supported. …This insufficient oversight and lack of support for its considerations risks eroding public confidence that HCD is informing local governments of the appropriate amount of housing they will need.”

Unfortunately, the audit reviewed the RHNA plans from only eight counties, which together contain less than eight percent of California’s population. Due to pending lawsuits the audit did not consider the RHNA plans of the two largest planning organizations, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). These two regions contain almost two-thirds (65.5 percent) of the state’s population. This omission makes it difficult to grasp the scale of the problems created by HCD’s errors.

ABAG is the one we care about here.  They are the ones jamming big numbers down cities' throats and now we learn that the whole process may overestimate housing needs by 200,000 units.  Who knows, maybe it's even more.  But that hasn't stopped our Attorney General from getting into the act as reported by Tom Elias at the Daily Post on April 28th

RHNA Elias

Cities, especially B'game, should immediately question their allocations from ABAG.  They should also get a read out on the full Tilden report from city staff before anymore giant projects get the green light.  Getting a read out on the "pending lawsuits" noted above and the wisdom of joining one is action item #3.  And as I said here, it's time for a new attorney general with better priorities and an ability to stay in his or her lane.

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12 responses to “State Auditor: Housing “requirement” numbers way off”

  1. Joe

    Are we governed by idiots? “Yes” argument–they really have no ability to look into the future. “No” argument: They really have no desire to look into the future, it would require real work. Third option? Please discuss:
    San Mateo’s City Council declared its support for its draft housing element that articulates future goals and policies to allow for nearly 11,000 new units, with minor changes expected to density policy, fair housing language and senior housing.
    “I think it gets us the greatest opportunity for the greatest number of housing units that we needed yesterday,” Deputy Mayor Diane Papan said. “So I’m very pleased to see what we’ve seen tonight.”
    The City Council used its May 23 special meeting to ultimately accept its 2023-2031 draft housing element, a state-mandated document detailing housing policies and goals to further development opportunities. Under the housing element, San Mateo must provide the zoning conditions for more than 7,000 housing units as part of its Regional Housing Needs Allocation, a significant increase compared to the last cycle.
    https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/11-000-new-housing-units-sought-in-san-mateo/article_800b97dc-dbe5-11ec-adb7-53099fbea8d9?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1653487209&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

  2. Joe

    Wonder why few people believe in the need to conserve water? Here:
    A comprehensive document that outlines where and how 3,700 new housing units could be built in San Bruno over the next eight years was released last week, with many of the new homes planned for transit corridors.
    The state-mandated “housing element” is the first step in the city’s process of meeting targets to build 3,165 new homes between 2023 and 2031 to comply with the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, a requirement from the California Housing and Community Development Department that assigns residential growth in eight-year cycles.
    https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/plans-for-3-700-homes-solidified-in-san-bruno/article_9c2f9e2c-e0b3-11ec-87f7-bfd6b718c107?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1654005617&utm_medium=email&utm_content=read%20more
    I does get “boring” pointing out the same stupidity over and over….

  3. Peter Garrison

    DJ June 1st.
    Burlingame population dropped by 3.6%

  4. MBGA

    Hey, no worries about that little drop in population. It’s only temporary. I hear there’s plenty of people a little further south that are planning on coming into this area.
    I’m done using the terms “border”,
    or “our country” or “our state” or “our city”. Those terms are becoming meaningless now.

  5. Joe

    This is my kinda guy….and the Comicle let the letter to the editor slide by today!!
    One should really laugh at the numbers projected by the state’s requirement for 82,000 housing units to be built in San Francisco in the next eight years. A few taps on a calculator at $500,000 per unit yields a total of $42 billion. Yes, billion with a capital B, and roughly $5 billion per year.
    How the state thinks this is actually going to happen is unknown, and let’s be honest, I don’t think they really care. See, the great thing about throwing numbers around, projecting future outcomes and issuing edicts is that it’s all weightless if you don’t actually have to do the heavy lifting. Later, you point fingers and blame others for not being “visionary” and “committed” as you preen for the cameras.
    Matt Bowyet, Lafayette

  6. Cassandra

    … and in the meantime no pushback from our reactive city Council.

  7. Joe

    Boom. Our neighbor to the south is going big:
    San Mateo’s City Council adopted its housing element document detailing its housing goals and policies for the coming years, with staff now submitting it to the state for review and hopeful approval.
    The housing element is a state-mandated plan for how the city will accommodate 7,015 new housing units over the next eight years for its Regional Housing Needs Allocation cycle.
    https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/san-mateo-city-council-adopts-housing-goals/article_ffe7543a-9ec4-11ed-a94b-9fb89a5c728b?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1674918013&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

  8. hollyroller@ gmail.com

    Speaking of “Housing Requirements.”
    The City of Burlingame has regularly endorsed “The Burlingame Farmer Markets.”
    Some of those products are grown less than 20 miles of “Our Fair City.” Supporting products from HMB should be Boycotted from participating at EVERY COB Endorsed Farmers Market until Basic Human Rights for the people who work to feed us get a life.
    There is a Great Article with photos of the “Homes” these people live…and pay rent.
    Check it out on Twitter.

  9. Joe

    A couple of related thoughts, holyroller:
    1. Let’s not paint every farmer/ farm operator with one broad brush. That doesn’t serve anyone and doesn’t come close to helping the problem.
    2. As noted in today’s Comicle, there were known violations of permits and code which the County conveniently ignored:
    Neither of the two Half Moon Bay farms where a gunman shot and killed seven workers last week had obtained permits required to house farmworkers, and San Mateo County officials have opened an investigation, The Chronicle has learned.
    Concord Farms also has run afoul of Planning and Building Department codes, getting a notice of violation and a stop order on new worker housing development on site in 2019, according to records reviewed by The Chronicle.
    Already under fire for what county officials called “squalid” and “deplorable” living conditions for farmworkers, the two mushroom farms now have county health officials probing why they didn’t have the registration. Such permits would have led to annual inspections, but the county has no inspection records from the health department, an official said.
    “Permits are required and have not been obtained on either property,” said Michelle Durand, San Mateo County chief communications officer.
    ——————
    Instead of ambulance chasing after the fact, how about we get all these officials to Do Their Job in the first place.

  10. Spurrina

    I’m getting real tired of companies and city governments, virtue signaling and the citizens have to pay for it. No more gas and all electric is not going to hurt the council but it’s going to hurt people want to buy affordable homes or any home with the increased cost, and the unreliability of PG&E.
    And another sign of employers taking the virtues, signaling and making the customer pay for it was when I was a Kepler’s’s book in Menlo Park. First sign is it facemask required. Second is on check out a 3% tax is added in order to pay their employers a livable wage. Well sorry I’m not their employer. If the employer wants to motivate the sales people to sell more books and maybe mark up a $10 book to $10.30.Cents. then go ahead, but don’t make me have a surprise at the cash register or I’ll just return one of the books I was going to buy and lower the sales.

  11. Peter Garrison

    The headline in the Daily Journal for Monday, January 30 is “City Cooling on Electrification“ Part of the article reads “When we look at the details of the real people these codes would impact there are too many exceptions we would have to think about, including cost equity, space, and time.“ it continues later “I’m not comfortable putting this added burden on to our middle class through mandates.” The article notes that this should be done with community members particularly the most vulnerable in mind.

  12. Spurrina

    And in another example of a city Council taking practical steps to reduce pollution, and increase the comfort of their citizens, the daily post reports that the Palo Alto City Council which has banned gas-powered leaf blowers, will now increase the enforcement and fine homeowners who continue to pollute the air and lower the city’s quality of life.

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