The City is required by State law to update its Housing Element every eight years. Camarillo’s current certified 5th cycle Housing Element covers the 2013-2021 planning period. The City is now in the process of updating the 6th cycle Housing Element for the 2021-2029 planning period. Additionally, the State has enacted significant new guidance and legislation regarding General Plans.  In response to California’s worsening affordable housing crisis, the State legislature has enacted a over a dozen new bills aimed at increasing production, promoting affordability and creating greater accountability for localities, all of which will need to be addressed in the updated Housing Element.  

California’s population has continued to grow by approximately 500,000 each year, translating to an annual need for about 220,000 new units. State housing element law requires each city and county to plan for their “fair share” of the State’s housing growth needs through quantity and affordability level.   The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is the regional agency responsible for defining the fair share allocation among its six counties (Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura), and 191 cities in the Southern California region. Based on economic and demographic forecasts, the State has determined that the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) region needs to accommodate 1,341,827 housing units between 2021 and 2029 to meet housing demand. 

SCAG has allocated the region’s 1,341,827 housing unit growth needs to each city and county through a process called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). Camarillo’s draft RHNA for the 2021-2029 planning period (6th RHNA cycle) is 1,372 units, distributed among the following income categories[1]:

The RHNA represents the minimum number of housing units Camarillo is required to plan for in its housing element by providing “adequate sites” through general plan and zoning.  The State requires that jurisdictions create a sufficient buffer in the Housing Element sites inventory beyond that required by the RHNA to ensure adequate site capacity exists throughout the planning period.

The City’s RHNA represents a planning target and is not a building quota.  However, the City must identify sufficient sites to meet the RHNA allocation based on criteria specified in State housing law; those sites must be realistic and probable for housing development within the prescribed timeframe, and the City cannot later impose undue constraints to development of housing, particularly among those sites identified.

[1] https://www.hcd.ca.gov/grants-funding/income-limits/state-and-federal-income-limits/docs/Income-Limits-2020.pdf

Housing Element law provides for the use of “default densities” to assess affordability when evaluating the adequacy of sites to address the RHNA affordability targets. Based on its population within Ventura County, Camarillo falls within the default density of 20 units per acre for providing sites suitable for development of housing for very low- and low-income households.  This is generally consistent with the default density approach that applied when the City updated the Housing Element in 2013, except that for this new 6th RHNA cycle housing sites will need to be designated and zoned with a minimum allowable density at these levels to count toward the associated lower income categories.

There are several potential consequences, the greatest of which is the risk of litigation based on a legally inadequate General Plan. Courts can impose a range of sanctions if they rule the housing element invalid, including a moratorium on all development and local land use authority until the housing element is brought into compliance. Furthermore, the jurisdiction is responsible for paying the litigant’s attorney fees. Settlement agreements between the parties often include stipulations for mandatory rezoning and affordable housing production requirements. State housing and related parks and infrastructure funds typically require housing element compliance for eligibility, so failure to secure an HCD approved element can result in a loss of funding. And where a jurisdiction’s prior housing element failed to identify adequate sites to address the RHNA, this unmet RHNA carry over to future housing element cycles, rendering HCD compliance in future housing element cycles extremely difficult.

AB 72 now expands HCDs enforcement authority to refer non-compliant jurisdictions to the State Attorney General’s Office for litigation, as evidenced by the recent lawsuit the State brought against the City of Huntington Beach.

The Housing Element update is a community-based process that will include a variety of public engagement opportunities. This will include:

• Public Workshops beginning in August of 2020
• Public study sessions before the Planning Commission and City Council
• Public hearings before Planning Commission and City Council

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