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Regional Housing Needs Assessment Appeal (RHNA)
The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) has scheduled the City of Torrance’s Appeal hearing for January 13, 2021. The virtual format public hearings was held at 9:00 am.
The Agenda Packet for the meeting is available at this link:
https://scag.ca.gov/sites/main/files/file-attachments/rhna-abph011321fullagn.pdf?1609982784
Written Public Comments on the appeal may be submitted to SCAG by emailing: housing@scag.ca.gov by 5pm on Tuesday January 12, 2021. Written comments received after this deadline will be announced and included as part of the official record of the meeting.
On October 20th, the City of Torrance City Council approved a letter which detailed the basis of the City’s appeal.
The City’s appeal may be found at this link:
Final Torrance RHNA Appeal Letter.
Background information:
The Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) is a process required by State law as part of the periodic update of the City’s Housing Element. The RHNA quantifies the number of housing units that a city must plan for during an eight year cycle. The 6th Cycle RHNA allocation will cover the October 2021 to October 2029 planning period.
The RHNA allocation allows cities to plan for future housing needs based on existing need, population growth and proximity to jobs. State law requires that each Housing Element provide an inventory identifying suitable sites to accommodate residential uses at the assigned RHNA number. Although the City is not obligated to construct their RHNA allocation within the planning period, it does need to demonstrate that the allocation can be accommodated through zoning.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) allocated approximately 1.34 million housing units to the six county Southern California Association of Government (SCAG) region. SCAG is the agency responsible for developing the RHNA methodology and allocating the 1.34 million housing units to each jurisdiction located within the region. For the 6th Cycle period on September 4, 2020, Torrance was allocated at total of 4,928 units, compared to 1,450 units for the 5th Cycle period. The process allows cities to appeal their draft RHNA allocation. The City of Torrance filed its appeal with SCAG in October of 2020.