By Charles M. Kelly
The Avalon City Council this week received and filed the Annual Progress Report on Housing Element Annual Progress Report. Technically, the council was acting as the city’s Housing Authority. Now the report goes to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
The report is required by state law, according to the staff report by Michael Parmer, assistant city manager and acting planning director.
This item was part of the council’s Consent Calendar. Items on the Consent Calendar are voted on collectively without discussion unless they are pulled for separate consideration. Nothing was pulled from this week’s Consent Calendar.
“State law requires all local government’s (cities, general law and charter, and counties) General Plans include a Housing Element that adequately plans to meet the housing needs for everyone in the community,” Parmer wrote.
Cities on the mainland are also dealing with mandates to either report on or update their Housing Elements.
“Providing a copy of the [Annual Progress Report] to HCD fulfills statutory requirements to report certain housing information, including the local agency’s progress in meeting its share of regional housing needs and local efforts to remove governmental constraints to the development of housing,” Parmer wrote.
“Prior to submission to the State, City Council must accept the annual progress report,” Parmer wrote.
Highlights from the city’s annual report include the following.
“The City funded 7 First Time Homebuyer purchases between 2013-2014,” according to the annual report.
The homebuyer program is on hold while the city works on developing a multi-family housing project, according to the report.
As for affordable housing, according to the report, the city’s Housing Authority is working with a developer to rehab two housing developments. “The project has a total of 36 housing units and two unrestricted manager units,” according to the report.
The state government also requires cities to plan for the “Regional Housing Needs Assessment.” In people-speak, that’s an allotment of housing units the city is required to make plans for, but isn’t required to build.
In an email, Assistant City Manager Parmer reported Avalon’s RHNA allotment is 27 residential units. “ This is broken down as follows:
“• Very-low income: 8
“• Low income: 5
“• Moderate income: 3
“• Above-moderate income: 11.”
“Unfortunately, the City of Avalon, as with many cities throughout California, have a number of challenges to development, despite adopting detailed statutory requirements, regulatory frameworks and systems, and other policies to encourage housing development, and particularly affordable housing,” Parmer wrote in a separate email.
“One major challenge to development is the lack of available land; however, other factors includes the scarcity of water and water allocations, the high cost of building on the island, among others,” Parmer wrote.