By Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) : paloaltoonline – excerpt
A case for reforming California’s housing allocation process
As my colleagues and I enter the final weeks of the legislative session, housing is rightly at the center of our attention. But as high-profile bills move across the floor, I keep returning to an elephant in the room: our broken Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) process. It is the very mechanism meant to drive housing production, but it is too costly and confusing to do the job we ask of it.
RHNA is how the state tells cities how much and what kind of housing to plan for. In theory, it should be a pragmatic, data-driven way to match housing supply with demand. In practice it has become a logistical nightmare for many communities on the Peninsula. Smaller cities are being forced to overhaul complex land-use and zoning codes through consultant-driven processes that are expensive in both dollars and staff time.
Across my district, expenditures on consultants and related implementation work have run into the millions. Local governments here have spent roughly $25 million on the sixth RHNA cycle alone, and individual cities have diverted as much as 10–15% of constrained local budgets to compliance rather than construction. That’s money that could have gone to shovel-ready projects, infrastructure improvements, or the services residents rely on every day…. (more)
These costs compound real on-the-ground obstacles that RHNA does not adequately account for: high interest rates, labor shortages, and the stark reality that the region’s major employers have not always followed through on ambitious housing commitments. Meanwhile, cities report moving goal posts, shifting criteria, and deadlines that are not aligned with the long timelines of actual development. The result is frustrated local officials, stalled projects, and a growing perception that the process is more punitive than productive.
And yet the outcomes are uneven in ways that defy simple narratives. San Mateo County, for example, dedicated a larger percentage of its recent RHNA allocation to low-income units than some larger cities — including San Francisco. That tells me two things: local leadership and available tools matter, and a one-size-fits-all compliance regime is not capturing regional realities or rewarding the places that are making hard choices.
Perhaps the biggest irony is that the state reports nearly 45,000 affordable housing projects that have been approved but remain unfunded. We have approvals on paper but a disconnection between planning and delivery. If the RHNA process is draining city resources and creating confusion while approved projects sit waiting for financing, we should pause and ask whether our current approach is the smartest way to get homes built.
We need a RHNA process that does three things well: sets realistic, locally informed targets; provides clear, consistent guidance that reduces consultant costs and staff burden; and offers flexible tools and funding to help cities turn plans into built homes. That means aligning state expectations with the realities of development timelines and market pressures, simplifying requirements that add little value, and directing funding toward projects that are ready to break ground.
Housing policy should lift cities up, not punish them. If we want cities to plan ambitiously, we must also give them the resources, technical help, and predictable rules to succeed. Otherwise, we risk continuing a cycle in which compliance consumes scarce local capacity while the work of building homes grinds forward too slowly.
California’s housing crisis is solvable — but only if our statewide tools are smart, fair, and efficient. Reforming RHNA can be a big part of the solution. In the weeks ahead, I’ll be pushing for changes that respect local circumstances, reward real production, and get us out of the planning labyrinth and back to building homes. The Peninsula is ready to do its part; it’s time the state made it easier, not harder, for us to deliver… (more)