City Council
259 N. Wilma Avenue
Ripon, CA 95366
MEMO
To: Honorable City Council
From: Ken Zuidervaart, Planning Director
Date: 04/11/2023
Subject: Request for Proposals - City's 6th Cycle Housing Element RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Authorize staff to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) to contract a planning consultant to prepare the City of Ripon’s 6th Cycle Housing Element update.
BACKGROUND:
Since 1969, the State of California has required all cities and counties adequately plan to meet the housing needs of the community. Cities comply with this requirement by updating their housing elements on regular cycles defined by the State. The housing element is part of the City’s General Plan which is the long-range planning document delineating how the city will evolve and develop in the future.
The City’s existing Housing Element for the 5th Cycle (2015-2023) planning period was adopted by the Ripon City Council on April 12, 2016, and certified by the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) on August 29, 2016. The City’s existing Housing Element is available on the City’s website at: https://cdnsm5- hosted.civiclive.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_1080027/File/City%20Hall/City%20Government /Documents/Development/Resolution%2016-24%20Housing%20Element.pdf The 6th Cycle Housing Element is due to HCD by December 31, 2023. Staff plans to publish this RFP for the update of Ripon’s Housing Element immediately to elicit interest from qualified planning consultants.
DISCUSSION/ANALYSIS:
The update to the City’s Housing Element will include the following: (1) analysis of the effectiveness of existing housing programs, goals, and policies; (2) the production of housing units at all income categories and identify any potential barriers to housing production; (3) housing characteristics; (4) housing needs assessment; (5) constraints on housing; (6) regional housing needs assessment (RHNA); (7) updated opportunity sites inventory based on RHNA; (8) compliance with recently adopted legislation related to housing elements; and (9) the review of current General Plan policies to determine internal consistency and compliance with newly adopted legislation. The full scope of work for the City’s Housing Element Update which will be incorporated in the RFP is included as Attachment 1 - City of Ripon 6th Cycle Housing Element RFP.
A city’s housing needs are determined through a process called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). The State of California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is responsible for assessing the Regional Housing Need Determination (RHND) for each region’s Council of Governments (COG). The City of Ripon participates in the San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG) which includes all jurisdictions within San Joaquin County. HCD assigns RHND units to each COG by applying a formula based on demographic and population information from the California Department of Finance. Each COG is then required to develop a RHNA methodology to distribute the regional housing allocation to local jurisdictions.
Once each jurisdiction is allocated their RHNA units, the jurisdictions are required to update their housing elements and identify sites to accommodate the units under current zoning. If the RHNA units cannot be accommodated under the current zoning, the housing element must identify areas to be rezoned to ensure appropriate densities to accommodate all the units assigned to the jurisdiction.
Housing law establishes factors to use in the RHNA allocation methodology. The methodology must address allocation of housing units by jurisdiction, housing units by income group, and must address 12 housing‐related factors. The 12 RHNA factors for consideration when creating a distribution methodology include:
1. Jobs and Housing Relationship
2. Opportunities and constraints to development of additional housing, including capacity for sewer and water service, availability of land suitable for development, lands preserved or protected from development, and county policies to preserve prime agricultural land.
3. Opportunities to maximize transit and existing transportation infrastructure
4. Policies directing growth toward incorporated areas
5. Loss of units contained in assisted housing developments
6. High housing cost burdens
7. Rate of Overcrowding
8. Housing needs of farmworkers
9. Housing needs of UC and Cal State students
10. Loss of units during an emergency
11. SB 375 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets
12. Other factors adopted by Council of Governments (COGs) In July of 2022 SJCOG passed a resolution adopting the Draft Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) for the 6th Cycle Housing Element for all jurisdictions within San Joaquin County. The 6th Cycle significantly increased the amount of housing a region must accommodate. This increase was due to recent legislative changes (SB 828 (2018), AB 1771 (2018), and AB 686 (2018)), which altered HCD RHNA determinations in the following ways:
Adjusts RHNA up by setting a target “healthy” vacancy rate of no less than 5%; Adjusts RHNA up by accounting for existing overcrowding and redistributing overcrowding into new housing units;
Adjusts RHNA upwards based on comparing the difference in cost‐ burden, by income group, for the region to the cost burden by income group for comparable regions, and adjusting the very‐low and low income housing need upwards accordingly;
Prohibits the use of previous underproduction of housing or stable population growth to reduce housing development goals;
Requires RHNA methodologies to promote fair housing, and reduce income and racial segregation when allocating housing of various income types.
SJCOG was assigned 40,360 units in the 5th cycle. In the 6th housing cycle, the required units increased to 52,719. These increases are typical throughout the State of California.
Based on approved methodology by SJCOG and concurrence from HCD the City of Ripon was allocated 1,424 units for the 6th Cycle Housing Element as compared to 1,480 units for the City’s current 5th Cycle Housing Element. The only slight difference between the 5th Cycle RHNA numbers and the 6th Cycle RHNA numbers is the number of units required for each income category.
5 th Cycle (current) 6th Cycle (proposed)
Extremely Low Income 154 155
Very Low Income 154 156
Low 215 254
Moderate 231 263
Above Moderate 726 596
The amount of units Ripon received in this 6th Cycle is 2.7% of the total units allocated to San Joaquin County. In comparison Ripon’s population represents 2.04% of the total population of San Joaquin County.
Schedule: All jurisdictions are required to submit the 6th Cycle Housing Elements to HCD by December 31, 2023. Due to constraints on availability of consultants it will likely be difficult to meet the State’s December deadline, however staff will not know for certain until we receive responses on our RFP. The City’s tentative schedule for the RFP is as follows:
Publish RFP April 12, 2023
RFP Deadline May 31, 2023
Select Consultant June 13, 2023 City Council Meeting
Notice of Intent to Proceed no later than June 30, 2023 FISCAL IMPACT:
The City of Ripon received a REAP grant through SJCOG for $45,713 that can be used for the Housing Element Update. Cost beyond the $45,713 will be covered through the City of Ripon’s affordable housing fund. Based on conversation with other local jurisdictions, the likely prices will be in the range of $110K to $140K.
Attachments:
1. Attachment 1 - City of Ripon 6th Cycle Housing Element RFP
2. Appendix A - Professional Services Agreement