Housing Element Site Inventory Requirements

Scarcity of land with adequately zoned capacity is a significant contributor to increased land prices and housing development costs. A lack of adequately zoned sites exacerbates the already significant deficit of housing affordable to lower income households. An effective housing element provides the necessary conditions for conserving, preserving and producing an adequate supply of housing affordable at a variety of income levels and provides a vehicle for establishing and updating housing and land-use strategies to reflect changing needs, resources, and conditions. Among other things, the housing element establishes a jurisdiction’s strategy to plan for and facilitate the development of housing over the five-to-eight year planning period by providing an inventory of land adequately zoned or planned to be zoned for housing and programs to implement the strategy.

The purpose of the housing element’s site inventory is to identify and analyze specific land (sites) that is available and suitable for residential development in order to determine the jurisdiction’s capacity to accommodate residential development and reconcile that capacity with the jurisdiction’s Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA). The available and suitable sites are referred to as “adequate sites” throughout this Guidebook. The site inventory enables the jurisdiction to determine whether there are sufficient adequate sites to accommodate the RHNA by income category. A site inventory and analysis will determine whether program actions must be adopted to “make sites available” with appropriate zoning, development standards, and infrastructure capacity to accommodate the new development need.

Sites are suitable for residential development if zoned appropriately and available for residential use during the planning period. If the inventory demonstrates that there are insufficient sites to accommodate the RHNA for each income category, the inventory must identify sites for rezoning to be included in a housing element program to identify and make available additional sites to accommodate those housing needs early within the planning period.

Other characteristics to consider when evaluating the appropriateness of sites include physical features (e.g., size and shape of the site, improvements currently on the site, slope instability or erosion, or environmental and pollution considerations), location (e.g., proximity to and access to infrastructure, transit, job centers, and public or community services), competitiveness for affordable housing funding (e.g., Low Income Housing Tax Credit scoring criteria), and likelihood or interest in development due to access to opportunities such as jobs and high performing schools[1] . When determining sites to include in the inventory to meet the lower income housing need, HCD recommends that a local government first identify development potential in high opportunity neighborhoods. This will assist the local government in meeting its requirements to affirmatively further fair housing and ensure developments are more competitive for development financing.

1 Please Note: Significant increases in the housing capacity of the residential land inventory of the housing element could also warrant planning for updating of other elements, including the land use, safety, circulation elements and inclusion of an environmental justice element or environmental justice policies. The housing element must include a program describing the means by which consistency will be achieved with other general plan elements and community goals (GC 65583(c)(8)).

Site Inventory Guidebook

Page 3

May 2020