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

Eureka City Hall, Room 207

HCAOG will adopt its Draft Regional Housing Needs Plan at this meeting.  This will have far reaching effects on Humboldt County's future land use.

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

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.

The Humboldt County Association of Goverments just made the Regional Housing Needs Allocation Methodology Alternatives available today on their website.  The final methodology will determine how much housing each jurisdiction (the 7 cities and the unincorportated County) will need to plan for over the next 5 years in their housing elements.  Almost every jurisdiction needs these numbers to complete their Housing Elements by August 31 or potentially loose some big sources offunding.  At the January 21 mee

Yesterday's 2pm meeting at the Municipal Water District Office was a contentious, packed house affair, but participants managed to move things forward.

On Tuesday evening, Eureka will receive a report from Glen Campora, Senior Policy Advisor for California Department of Housing and Community Development, on the Regional Housing Needs Allocation process under way at HCAOG.  The RHNA process took a step backward in December, and is now starting up again with greater opportunity for public input.  Eureka is a critical player in the process, since it has the largest jobs-housing imbalance in the county (i.e. lots of jobs and not enough housing).  This will take place the night before the first critical HCAOG RHNA committee meeting on Wednesday.  The city council meeting starts at 6:30 pm at Eureka City Hall.  Here's a link to the agenda.

Earlier I posted about how we convinced HCAOG to "take a step back" in the Regional Housing Needs Allocation methodology process to include public input.  They have done so, and now the opportunity to have a say as to whether we keep directing over half our housing into the uncincorporated areas, resulting in less affordable housing, greater transportation costs, and more conversion of our wild and working lands to residential sprawl, or whether we take a different path.  One in which we facilitate proximity, so people have more opportunity to bike walk and ride transit if they choose to.

Here's the meeting announcement: