After months of labor by its workers to come up with a state-mandated regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) methodology that will 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 face up to scrutiny from state housing officers.
RHNA cycles, as they’re known as, come up each eight years. Within the course of, regional businesses like AMBAG map out housing allocations for each jurisdiction. These numbers of recent housing models per metropolis symbolize 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 models will symbolize a frightening problem. Within the draft methodology adopted by AMBAG, the town of Monterey, for instance, should zone for 3,654 models in subsequent eight-year cycle, Pacific Grove could have 1,125 and Carmel could have 349 whereas Seaside, probably the most populous metropolis on the county’s coast, will solely need to zone for 616 models. (Two of the no votes on the AMBAG board got here from Monterey councilmember Ed Smith and Carmel councilmember Karen Ferlito.)
The vast cut 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 may meet the targets of AB 686, which primarily 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 that they had mentioned with the AMBAG board, and had been primarily instructed that none of them can be permitted by HCD as a result of they didn’t put sufficient emphasis on truthful housing. The choice the board in the end permitted, in a 19-5 vote, is one which AMBAG workers do imagine can be permitted by HCD.
A handful of board members expressed frustration over the aggressive housing numbers, however one level of rivalry was that this was primarily an unfunded mandate, and that whereas one arm of state authorities gained’t let the Peninsula put in new water meters, one other arm is demanding it zone for brand spanking new housing with the specter of monetary penalties.
“This might doubtlessly flip right into a punitive end result, and all the cities on the Peninsula are going to have an inconceivable time assembly any of those numbers,” Smith stated. He known as his no vote a “protest vote.” Ferlito stated that whereas Carmel generates hospitality jobs due to tourism, these jobs might be threatened if the town zones for the housing the state desires.
“Sure, we in all probability may improve from single-story to two-story or three-story,” Ferlito stated, “however in doing that, would we be truly damaging the village [of Carmel] to the purpose the place we might now not be capable of generate these jobs?”
