State Says Goleta Housing Element Revision Complies With State Law

The two-year process of creating and updating the City of Goleta Housing Element for 2023-2031 is closer to the finish line with a positive letter from the State of California on Monday. The State Department of Housing and Community Development sent a letter dated October 16 that the latest round of revisions aligns with California housing law.

The letter, signed by Paul McDougall, a Senior Program Manager with the state’s Housing and Community Development department (sometimes referred to by the acronym HCD), was addressed to Peter Imhof, the City of Goleta’s Director of Planning and Environmental Review and thanked the city’s staff for work over the past revisions. “HCD appreciates the hard work and dedication of the housing element update team, especially Anne Wells and Andy Newkirk. Their efforts and commitment to effectively plan for Goleta’s existing and future housing needs are commendable. HCD looks forward to receiving the City’s adopted housing element.”

The next steps in the process to adopt revisions to the Housing Element will include both the Planning Commission and the City Council in the next two months. The latest revisions to Housing Element 2023-2031 from October 12 and the related site rezoning will return to the Planning Commission in November and the City Council in December for adoption. The city will continue to post meetings on the City of Goleta Housing Element 2023-2031 page. Anyone can subscribe on the city web page to receive texts or emails for all city news, including information about future meetings about the Housing Element. For more information about the City of Goleta Planning Commission and other citizen advisory boards and commissions, see the City of Goleta Boards and Commissions page.

After the City Council adopts the revisions, the Housing Element will be re-transmitted to the state for final certification.

The Goleta General Plan/Coastal Land Use Plan Housing Element covers the 2023 to 2031 planning period, which state planning law calls the “6th cycle.” It contains updated information, policies, and specific actions that the City of Goleta commits to undertake to address housing needs. The state’s Housing Element process has gotten more specific and more strict after new legislation in recent years. The process requires cities and counties to increase the amount of land available for housing to make up for years of little or no development across the state.

Public workshops in this Housing Element process began in early 2022, and after several review cycles with the public, the planning commission, and the city council, the City of Goleta first submitted an adopted Housing Element 2023-2031 to the state Housing and Community Development department on January 23, 2023, well before the February 15, 2023 deadline. But the state’s feedback in March 2023 required several changes. All of these steps in the process are documented on the City of Goleta Housing Element 2023-2031 page.

At a series of three marathon workshops in July, planning commissioners and city council members looked at parcels for increasing residential zoning density, meeting with City of Goleta planning staff and hearing from members of the public including neighbors, property owners, and other organizations. At those meetings, City of Goleta staff and city council described that they look for ways to use the tools that the state allows to keep development processes in the control of the city instead of the state, wherever possible, so they can work in a way that’s right for the city.

For this latest review, which resulted in positive feedback, the California Department of Housing and Community Development reviewed:

• The draft received for review on August 21.
• Revisions on October 12, based on preliminary input the state provided, and also made available to the public for seven days.
• Comments from the public.

State law includes more steps for cities like Goleta to complete so that compliance of the Housing Element isn’t revoked. According to the letter, programs to make prior identified sites available or rezone sites to accommodate the regional housing need allocation (also referred to as RHNA) must be completed no later than one year from the statutory deadline (February 15, 2023), which means February 15, 2024.

Cities that are out of compliance risk losing opportunities for funding from programs including the CalTrans Senate Bill 1 Sustainable Communities grant, the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program, and the Permanent Local Housing Allocation. State law also takes away local control for cities with non-compliant Housing Elements with the so-called “builder’s remedy” law that allows developers to bypass a city’s zoning code—if a bare minimum of 20% of the residential units are set aside as affordable monthly housing payments for lower-income households.