Changing the Script on Housing Futility

For many decades cities across California participated in a grand charade every 8 years known as the RHNA (pronounced Ree-na) process. RHNA stands for Regional Housing Needs Assessment and is the process by which California calculates how much housing it will need in the future and how much each city and county must plan for. For most of its existence the RHNA process barely passed the laugh test; the State consistently low balled the demand for housing and local governments produced Housing Elements full of housing sites that were completely infeasible to develop, and round and round we went.

That all changed in 2018 when the Bay Area Council sponsored SB 828, which for the first time created an actual scientific method for calculating actual housing demand and mandated that local governments create genuine plans to accommodate their fair share of the new and much higher projections. In the 2015-2023 RHNA cycle the Bay Area’s projected demand was 187,000 homes, whereas in the post SB 828 cycle that number jumped to 441,000. To paraphrase Albert Einstein; you cannot solve a problem using the same thinking that created it.  

Last week the Bay Area Council stood with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and other city leaders at the launch of San Francisco’s “Family Zoning Plan” to fulfill its RHNA obligation for 82,069 new homes. Unlike previous plans that crammed all future growth into undeveloped corners of the city, this plan spreads the obligation across many more neighborhoods and opens up the opportunity for more homes all across San Francisco, primarily on high traffic merchant corridors.

For the first time San Francisco has a genuine plan to meet its extensive housing needs but not only that, city planners have crafted a proposal that will help its many diverse neighborhoods grow and prosper.

If you are a San Francisco resident we encourage you to voice Your Support for the Family Zoning Plan!