Recognizing that the draft Regional Housing Needs Plan (RHNP) did not reflect the process, committee input, board input or public input, and failed to meet the statutory objectives required by California Department of Housing and Community Development, the HCAOG Policy Advisory Committee (PAC), which includes the HCAOG Board, voted with staff recommendation to restart a process that should have started in September of 2007.  This is the second time since December 2008 that the Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) process has been restarted.

According to the timeline distributed at the meeting, alternative methodologies will be displayed on June 1, staff will recommend one of the alternative methodologies on June 10, and the draft proposed RHNA Methodology and Corresponding Allocation Plan public hearing will occur on June 18.  The 60-day public review period will end August 17 and the Board will adopt the final RHNP on Aug 28, 3 days before Housing Elements that must be based on this plan are due for all the jurisdictions.

The RHNA is a process by which the State determines how much housing and what mix of affordability Humboldt County needs to plan for, and HCAOG determines how much of that housing should go to each jurisdiction (the seven cities and the County).  Each jurisdiction then must draft a Housing Element, which is a plan for how to accommodate that housing. In the past, over half the housing has been targeted to the unincorporated County, resulting in sprawling conversion of wild and working lands to residential, placing people further from jobs, shopping and services, and costing the region more in infrastructure costs.

Healthy Humboldt and Green Wheels are pushing for a methodology that heavily weights putting housing where the jobs are, so future development can shorten commutes and give more people the option to walk or bike to work, shopping and other needs.