HCAOG will host a workshop at the Wharfinger on the many-times-postponed Regional Housing Needs Allocation.  This process determines how we allocate planned growth in the cities and the county.  Should we

Recognizing that the draft Regional Housing Needs Plan (RHNP) did not reflect the process, committee input, board input or public input, and failed to meet the statutory objectives required by California Department of Housing and Community Development, the HCAOG Policy Advisory Committee (PAC), which includes the HCAOG Board, voted with staff recommendation to restart a process that should have started in September of 2007.  This is the second time since December 2008 that the Regional Hou

It's a fun video anyway, and makes some good points.

Continued townhall-style meeting on the Land Use Element of Humboldt County's General Plan Update at College of the Redwoods.  It's in the Forum Theatre (Bldg # 16) which is the closest building to the bus stop.

This Thursday's Town Hall meeting on the Land Use Element of Humboldt County's General Plan Update is sure to be lively.  The Land Use Element is critical to forging a path toward balanced and sustainable transportation in the future.  You won't likely walk or bike to the grocery store if it is five miles away, even if the road is bike-friendly.  Land use policy makes proximity possible, and that makes walking, biking and trasnit more cost and time effective.  If we invest in compact mixed-use development, we can get there.  If we don't we won't.

Details on the meeting below.  Hope to see you there.

At its board meeting last Thursday, Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG) staff released a draft housing needs plan that allocates over half the housing to the unincorporated portions of Humboldt County over the wishes of many of the participants in the January meeting intended to inform the draft. The draft was released in hardcopy form at the meeting, rather than several days before so the Board and public could review it and has yet to be posted on the HCAOG website, although we have posted it here.

The plan allocates 2,505 housing units, 52.8% of Humboldt County’s state-mandated housing share, to the unincorporated county, a quantity of development which could cause continued sprawl impacts, such as conversion of agricultural and timberlands to residential development, increased traffic, and reduced access to infrastructure such as sidewalks and municipal sewage disposal.

The Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG) will release the draft Regional Housing Needs Plan (RHNP) this Thursday at its 7pm board meeting.  This plan will allocate housing targets for the seven cities and the unincorporated county.  Past RHNPs have allocated over half the growth in housing to the unincorporated county, resulting in conversion of farmland and timberlands to residential sprawl, placing housing further from jobs, shopping and services, and increasing driving and traffic congestion.

The Healthy Humboldt Coalition, of which Green Wheels is a member submitted a proposed methodolgy that puts more housing where there are more jobs, so more people have an opportunity to live close to work.  It remains to be seen whether HCAOG will put forward a similar methodology, or fall back to the old method of directing housing out onto our resource lands while downtown Eureka retains it's vacant lots on the waterfront.

Stefan Pellegrini's Form-Based Codes presentation in Fortuna last week is now available online, so if you missed the presentation, you can check it out in all it's designeresque glory!

There are lots of other related planning presentations here with relevance to our area.