California Recognizes Three Prohousing Cities for Working to Dismantle Barriers to Housing Development

The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) today announced Napa, San Leandro, and Walnut Creek as the three most recent cities to earn the coveted Prohousing Designation. The Department also announced nearly $15.3 million in incentives to help 19 previously recognized Prohousing communities scale up their efforts to promote development of housing at all income levels.

The Prohousing Designation Program (PDP) administered by HCD recognizes cities and counties that demonstrate a commitment to enacting proactive policy changes and providing incentives and support to break down barriers to housing development. By earning the Prohousing Designation, communities receive exclusive access to Prohousing Incentive Program (PIP) grants and additional points in the scoring of competitive housing, community development, and infrastructure funding programs administered by HCD. Fifty California communities have now earned this distinction.

"I am thrilled to see the commitment to breaking down barriers to housing from all of these Prohousing cities up and down our state," said Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency Secretary Tomiquia Moss. "I applaud these cities for their hard work and dedication to ensuring all members of our communities can achieve greater housing stability and, with it, more opportunities to succeed and thrive."

"It is so encouraging to me to see 50 communities have put in the work to earn the title of 'Prohousing,' and that many others are working to establish policies and practices that expedite the approval and creation of housing faster and at the adequate scale," said HCD Director Gustavo Velasquez. "It will take the concerted effort of forward-thinking community leaders to address housing need at all incomes levels today and into the future."

In its Prohousing application, the City of Napa highlighted several innovative programs to help generate new housing and streamline affordable developments. As part of their work with the ADU Center of Napa and Sonoma, the city provides property owners with easy access to dozens of low-cost, off-the-shelf, pre-approved accessory dwelling unit (ADU) plans, saving thousands of dollars and months of time over a custom design. The city also manages a "Rental and Owner Occupied" rehabilitation program that provides grants and loans to help low-income households remain in their current homes and avoid displacement. Similarly, the city has established both an Affordable Housing Trust Fund and a 1% Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) Fund specifically for supporting the development of affordable housing. TOT funds have a demonstrated history of affirmatively furthering fair housing, and Napa is one of the first cities to implement this innovative funding mechanism.

The City of San Leandro developed a Priority Development Area to allow for higher densities and greater floor area ratios and to remove height limits for infill housing near transit, resulting in an additional 2,500 homes. In addition, most housing projects are now subject to ministerial review without discretionary public hearings, accounting for a reduction of 9-12 months for entitlement of applications. The city has used modular construction for 200 affordable homes, utilizing prefabricated and inspected units that are assembled on site. Construction timelines were reduced by 40-50 percent, saving developers 15-20 percent in costs. Finally, the city has utilized $7.4 million in redevelopment agency housing loan repayments to subsidize operating and construction costs for 214 housing developments.

The City of Walnut Creek's PDP application demonstrates a commitment to accelerating affordable housing development. The city adopted the Community Benefits program, which provides opportunities for developers to receive additional height limits, greater floor area ratio, and density bonuses for a project in exchange for providing amenities desired by the city and greater development intensity. In the past five years, the city has approved many residential projects that utilized statutory and categorical exemptions as authorized by applicable law, which has allowed for greater unit outcomes. Finally, the city utilizes local funding sources sufficient to facilitate and support the development of housing for lower-income households. It has adopted ordinances on commercial linkage and housing in-lieu fees that are allocated for affordable housing development.

Due to the flexible nature of PIP awards, local governments can use PIP funding to expand their own prohousing programs, preserve existing affordable housing within their jurisdictions, bridge financial gaps for affordable housing projects, or even pay operating costs associated with running permanent supportive housing programs such as Homekey, No Place Like Home, or the new housing investments made possible through voter approval of Proposition 1.

The cities approved for Round 2 PIP awards are:

• Berkeley - $1,250,000
• Brea - $660,000
• Citrus Heights - $960,000
• Crescent City - $650,000
• Eureka - $630,000)
• Fairfield - $774,253
• Fontana - $1,090,000
• Healdsburg - $560,000
• Mountain View - $870,000
• Petaluma - $840,000
• Pinole - $650,000
• Rohnert Park - $670,000
• Rancho Cucamonga - $1,150,000
• San Luis Obispo - $750,000
• Santa Cruz - $500,000
• Santa Monica - $1,000,000
• South Lake Tahoe - $620,000
• South San Francisco - $890,000
• West Hollywood - $750,000

Visit HCD's website to learn more about the Prohousing Designation Program and the Prohousing Investment Program.