SANTA MONICA—The Southern California Association of Governments recommended on Thursday, November 7 that the state require Santa Monica among other Los Angeles cities to construct new housing units between 2021 and 2029.
This proposal would be a modified plan for the sixth cycle of the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process. This process helps to distribute a state mandated 1.34 million units in a six county region over an eight-year period. The state of California required cities to construct new housing units every 8 years for the past 50 years. The city of Santa Monica would be required to build 10,000 housing units in the next decade, doubling what was required under the previous plan.
Santa Monica has built more housing units than other cities like Beverly Hills, but is still behind according to a recent report. Santa Monica has only built 1,700 housing units in the past 8 fiscal years. Under the new plan, 30 percent of the new units would have to accommodate low to middle income individuals as required by Proposition R.
This plan will go to California Department of Housing and Community Development for approval. The plan could be finalized as soon as January 2020 or February 2020. In a press release, SCAG stated that this new plan would promote greater housing development near jobs and transit areas than earlier methodology proposals. SCAG added that this new methodology, “takes into account a variety of factors, including growth projections and social equity considerations.”
SCAG’s Executive Director Kome Ajise said that the association values, “the high level of engagement we’ve had during the RHNA process. How we move forward in addressing the region’s housing affordability crisis is a major policy imperative that the SCAG board takes seriously.”
