Staff will be presenting a summary of the projected 2021-2029 Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) for the unincorporated areas of the county to the Board of Supervisors on November 19, 2019. The RHNA allocation represents population growth and the housing units necessary to accommodate that growth for the 2021-2029 Housing Element planning period.
In light of community discussion to incorporate El Dorado Hills, the County submitted a request that the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) provide El Dorado County with the estimated number of housing units that the El Dorado Hills area could potentially be allocated based on the RHNA methodology that SACOG is developing for the 2021-2029 RHNA planning cycle. The total number of units are factored by the final RHNA methodology and distributed into four income categories and: 1) Very Low; 2) Low; 3) Moderate; and 4) Above Moderate.
SACOG determines the regional housing allocation to each jurisdiction by multiplying the proportion of 2016-2035 Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) growth projections and the Regional RHNA Determination from Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). The unincorporated area of El Dorado County, including El Dorado Hills, represents 3.27 percent of the total 2016-2035 MTP growth.
California’s Housing Element Law (Government Code, §§ 65580 et seq.) mandates that a city or county is required to zone adequate sites to accommodate their RHNA allocation. The very low and low income categories must be accommodated on land zoned for multifamily residential development. Moderate and above moderate development may be accommodated in a variety of zones that allow residential development.
Staff recently received information from SACOG that El Dorado Hills, if incorporated, could potentially receive a RHNA allocation of approximately 4,073 housing units for the 2021 to 2029 planning period based on the area’s share of the MPT regional growth. Of those units, approximately 1,764 would be in the lower income categories. The precise number of lower income units would depend on the methodology option adopted by SACOG and then would require SACOG to complete a lengthy re-calculation for all jurisdictions in the region.
The County’s west slope, including El Dorado Hills, is anticipating a total allocation of 4,994 housing units. The RHNA allocation for the west slope could potentially be reduced accordingly if El Dorado Hills was currently an incorporated city.
SACOG staff determined the vast majority of MTP/SCS growth anticipated for El Dorado County between 2016 and 2035 is located in the El Dorado Hills geographic area as depicted below:
Based upon a preliminary analysis of the vacant and underutilized land inventory zoned multifamily county-wide, staff believes the County has sufficient land use capacity to meet the anticipated RHNA allocation for the 2021-2029 planning period for very low and low income housing while providing surplus for future growth. The full analysis for the 2021-2029 Housing Element Update, including multifamily zoned land by community region, is still in progress.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. c: Don Ashton, Chief Administrative Officer
