After months of labor by its workers to come up with a state-mandated regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) methodology that may cross muster with the state’s Division of Housing and Group Growth, the board of the Related Monterey Bay Space Governments adopted a technique on Jan. 12. It’s one the board believes can stand up to scrutiny from state housing officers.
RHNA cycles, as they’re known as, come up each eight years. Within the course of, regional companies like AMBAG map out housing allocations for each jurisdiction. These numbers of recent housing items per metropolis characterize a mandate for every jurisdiction to zone properties to satisfy these housing objectives.
And for cities on the Monterey Peninsula, zoning for the proposed allotted items will characterize a frightening problem. Within the draft methodology adopted by AMBAG, the town of Monterey, for instance, should zone for 3,654 items in subsequent eight-year cycle, Pacific Grove may have 1,125 and Carmel may have 349 whereas Seaside, essentially the most populous metropolis on the county’s coast, will solely should zone for 616 items. (Two of the no votes on the AMBAG board got here from Monterey councilmember Ed Smith and Carmel councilmember Karen Ferlito.)
The vast break up is due largely to Meeting Invoice 686, handed in 2018 to advertise equity and deal with systemic racism and segregation in housing points. That gave beginning to a brand new acronym, AFFH – Affirmatively Furthering Honest Housing – that state officers prioritized in order that native jurisdictions might meet the goals of AB 686, which basically seeks to push extra housing into prosperous areas.
AMBAG workers met with state Housing and Group Growth workers on Jan. 4 to go over the plans they’d mentioned with the AMBAG board, and have been basically informed that none of them can be accredited by HCD as a result of they didn’t put sufficient emphasis on truthful housing. The choice the board finally accredited, in a 19-5 vote, is one which AMBAG workers do consider shall be accredited by HCD.
A handful of board members expressed frustration over the aggressive housing numbers, however one level of rivalry was that this was basically an unfunded mandate, and that whereas one arm of state authorities received’t let the Peninsula put in new water meters, one other arm is demanding it zone for brand new housing with the specter of monetary penalties.
“This might probably flip right into a punitive end result, and all the cities on the Peninsula are going to have an unimaginable time assembly any of those numbers,” Smith mentioned. He known as his no vote a “protest vote.” Ferlito mentioned that whereas Carmel generates hospitality jobs due to tourism, these jobs could possibly be threatened if the town zones for the housing the state desires.
“Sure, we in all probability might enhance from single-story to two-story or three-story,” Ferlito mentioned, “however in doing that, would we be really damaging the village [of Carmel] to the purpose the place we’d not be capable to generate these jobs?”
