California Cities Miss Mark on Housing Targets

A new report by Beacon Economics and think tank Next 10 reveals many California cities are falling behind on their low-income housing production targets. The study finds California’s housing goals are exacerbating a housing crisis, and notes at the current pace of development, certain jurisdictions in California will not meet their low-income housing production targets for more than 1,000 years.

The state’s 539 jurisdictions were graded on progress toward meeting current Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) goals. The study finds most regions are chronically behind on permitting new housing units, and 100 of the 539 jurisdictions have not been participating in the reporting process at all.

California Report Card

The report provides a detailed analysis of performance against housing targets. Yet, one of the most striking aspects of the findings is that the targets themselves may be lacking. Across California, some jurisdictions are earning high grades only because they have very low targets for housing units relative to local population, and performance grades actually decreased as the number of units assigned relative to population increased.

The nine jurisdictions that earned an A+ on RHNA progress had an average of only 0.7 units assigned per 100 persons in the jurisdiction’s population. On the other hand, jurisdictions that earned an F had an average of 3.3 units assigned per 100 persons. In the Bay Area, Marin and Napa counties, which both received a B+, have the lowest total RHNA allocation as a percentage of 2017 population (0.9% and 1.1%, respectively) compared to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) average of 2.4%.

At the current pace of very-low income housing permitting, San Francisco and Oakland will meet their very low-income goal around 2030, Los Angeles and Long Beach won’t meet their goals until closer to 2040, Palo Alto won’t hit theirs until 2063, while Santa Clara won’t hit their target until beyond 2500.

Other key findings:
– Lack of reporting may be due to local capacity constraints, as the majority of jurisdictions that have never submitted an APR are lower-income areas of Southeast Los Angeles County and the Central Valley.
– Only 25.9% of the allocated units state-wide have been permitted across all income levels, even though the current RHNA cycle is more than half over.
– The percentage permitted is progressively worse the lower the income level for housing units.
– 45.6% of above moderate-income units have been permitted, whereas only 19% of moderate, 9.8% of low income, and 7.3% of very low-income units have been permitted.
– 52% of jurisdictions that have submitted an APR have permitted zero units for the very low-income category.

For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Dennis Kaiser