Land use: housing element: regional housing need.

The Planning and Zoning Law authorizes the Department of Housing and Community Development to allow a city or county to substitute the provision of units for up to 25% of the city's or county's obligation to identify adequate sites for any income category in its housing element, if the city or county includes in its housing element a program committing the city or county to provide units in that income category within the city or county that will be made available through the provision of committed assistance, during the planning period covered by the element, to very low and low-income households at affordable housing costs or affordable rents, as defined. In order for a unit to qualify for inclusion in the program, it must meet one of several, specified criteria. This bill would authorize a city or county to reduce its share of the regional housing need by the number of units built between the start of the projection period and the deadline for adoption of the housing element, and would require a jurisdiction that does so to identify in the housing element the methodology for assigning these units to an income category based on actual or projected sales price, rent levels, or other mechanisms establishing affordability.