California's Regional Housing Needs Assessment process is decades old, but for all the conflict it generates, there is little evidence that it has balanced housing supply and demand or made housing affordable for the majority of Californians. The state should stop performing RHNAs and instead let market forces determine the housing supply. The state government began asking and ultimately ordering local governments to prepare housing elements as part of their general plans in the late 1960s. By the 1980s, the California Department of Housing and Community Development was benchmarking these housing elements against centrally determined housing needs. During this period, Southern California experienced rapid population growth. Across the six counties overseen by the Southern California Association of Governments, decennial population growth consistently topped 12% and was as high as 26% in the 1980s. (Those counties are Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Imperial.) So, there was at least a plausible argument for government action to ensure sufficient housing production.
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- This article appeared in Orange County Register on October 8 2024. 1
- The state government began asking and ultimately ordering local 1
- Community Development was benchmarking these housing elements 1
- During this period Southern California experienced rapid population 1
- Association of Governments decennial population growth consistently 1
- Angeles Orange Riverside San Bernardino Ventura and Imperial. So 1
- But the stateʼs approach was both ineffective and unpopular. California 1
- Long Beachʼs then-Director of Planning and Building Robert Paternoster 1
- Plan element by local officials. He continued by asserting that the local 1
- Californias existing state-led housing needs process is too heavy-handed arbitrary and ineffective. It is time to abolish it. 2
- Thirty-one years later local 2
- California population growth 2
- Today SCAGʼs 197 local governments are working under HCDʼs mandate to 2
- Department of Finance demographers. They expect SCAG population to 2
- SCAGʼs RHNA housing quota is not only based on stale and overstated 2
- The result is that the state is punishing cities including Huntington Beach 2
- Housing Needs Allocation. But Norwalkʼs population has fallen 2
- Not everything about state intervention in land use is bad. Undoubtedly 2
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR 2
- Federalism and State Policy Analyst Cato Institute 2
