SCAG's Proposed Regional HOusing Needs Assessment is Too low.

The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is the regional planning organization for entire SoCal region minus San Diego County. One of SCAG's major roles is to develop a regional housing needs assessment (RHNA)-- an estimate of how many housing units the LA Metro area will need in the next 8 years-- and then distribute those homes over the cities in the region. There are methodologies and formulas and... Yes, it is complicated and dry, but...

HERE'S WHY IT MATTERS: Those assigned RHNA numbers become the basis for holding cities accountable to allow for housing development. Cities have to plan for their assigned number of units through their required Housing Element, and implement it -- actually make room for the homes-- by zoning sufficient land to accommodate that number. In cities that are built out, that means infill projects-- town homes, apartments and condos; i.e. density. NIMBYs regularly fight multi-family housing development. Neighborhood push back is a major barrier to new housing development and contributes to the housing shortage.

Ending the housing crisis starts with having a target number that reflects the magnitude of the shortage. We believe SCAG has missed the mark. The current regional target is too low and assigned in the wrong place. We have joined together with LA's YIMBY org, Abundant Housing LA to advocate for 1) a higher regional estimate and 2) a distribution of new housing that reflects where the jobs are. You can send your comments to SCAG using this form. 

p4hoc_rhna_letter_hcd.pdf
File Size:	67 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---