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WORKING DRAFT FOR HCD REVIEW <br />INTRODUCTION 1-3 SAN LEANDRO HOUSING ELEMENT <br />population. This includes opportunities for first-time homebuyers, new rental housing, and housing that is <br />especially designed for people with special needs, such as the elderly and disabled. <br /> <br />The Housing Element also supports state and regional sustainable development goals. In 2007-2008, San <br />Leandro received over $20 million in State grants to facilitate housing development in the Downtown <br />BART station area. Subsequent plans and investments in infrastructure have helped lead to several major <br />development proposals, including a corporate tech campus and a 200-unit affordable housing <br />development expected to break ground by the end of 2014. In this regard, the Housing Element provides <br />an essential link to other public policy goals related to greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and <br />reducing dependency on private automobiles. <br /> <br />the regional housing needs allocation (RHNA) process <br /> <br />State law has established a process for assigning the responsibility for affordable housing production in <br />California to individual cities and counties. This process is known as the Regional Housing Needs <br />Allocation (RHNA), or the “fair share” allocation process. The fundamental premise is that each <br />community in the region has an obligation to accommodate a share of the region’s need for housing, <br />including housing for low- and moderate-income residents. <br /> <br />The fair share process for the 2015-2023 Element began several years ago, when the State Department of <br />Housing and Community Development determined that the nine-county Bay Area needed to produce <br />187,990 new housing units to satisfy regional demand.1 The Association of Bay Area Governments <br />(ABAG) developed a formula to allocate these units to the Bay Area’s nine counties and 101 cities. The <br />formula is based on a weighted average which considers projected household growth, job growth, land <br />supply, infrastructure and environmental constraints, real estate market conditions, and the availability of <br />public transit (especially rail stations). <br /> <br />In addition to identifying the total number of units to be assigned to each community, the formula <br />indicates how many of these units need to be affordable to very low, low, moderate, and above moderate <br />income households. This distribution attempts to more evenly balance lower income housing within the <br />region. Communities with relatively small existing percentages of low and very low income residents are <br />assigned higher percentages of housing for such residents in their RHNA allocations. In San Leandro’s <br />case, the income allocations are weighted more heavily toward above moderate income housing since the <br />City’s median income is lower than the regional average. <br /> <br />The Draft RHNA numbers were published in July 2012. Eight jurisdictions appealed their allocations <br />(San Leandro did not), and a process was initiated to hear and resolve each appeal. This process was <br />completed in July 2013 when the ABAG Executive Board finalized the fair share numbers. At that point, <br />local governments throughout the region were instructed to update their Housing Elements and <br />demonstrate the steps they would take to accommodate their assignments. <br /> <br />1 The RHNA period is 2014-2022 but the “planning period” is 2015-2023. Thus, cities are expected to meet their <br />2014-2022 needs during a time period that includes 2014 and extends until January 31, 2023.