Step 5: Determination of Consistency with Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing…

NEW Pursuant to AB 686, for housing elements due on or after January 1, 2021, sites must be identified throughout the community in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing opportunities (Government Code Section 65583(c)(10)).

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing means “taking meaningful actions, in addition to combating discrimination, that overcome patterns of segregation and fosters inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics. Specifically, affirmatively furthering fair housing means taking meaningful actions that, taken together, address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws. The duty to affirmatively further fair housing extends to all of a public agency’s[3]

3 Public Agencies include the state, including every state office, officer, department, division, bureau, board, and commission, including the California State University, a city, including a charter city, county, including a charter county, city and county, and a redevelopment successor agency, a public housing authority created pursuant to the Housing Authorities Law, a public housing agency, and any other political subdivision of the state that is a grantee or subgrantee receiving funds provided by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (Government Code section 8899.5(a)(2).

Site Inventory Guidebook

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May 2020

activities and programs relating to housing and community development.” (Government Code section 8899.50(a)(1)).

For purposes of the housing element site inventory, this means that sites identified to accommodate the lower-income need are not concentrated in low-resourced areas (lack of access to high performing schools, proximity to jobs, location disproportionately exposed to pollution or other health impacts) or areas of segregation and concentrations of poverty. Instead, sites identified to accommodate the lower income RHNA must be distributed throughout the community in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing. One resource the jurisdiction could use when completing this analysis is the California Tax Credit Allocation/California Department of Housing and Community Development Opportunity Maps, which can be accessed at https://www.treasurer.ca.gov/ctcac/opportunity.asp. Particularly, the jurisdiction should consider the barriers and opportunities identified in its assessment of fair housing pursuant to Government Code section 65583(c)(10). HCD plans to release a technical assistance memo to assist jurisdictions in addressing AB 686 requirements in their housing element in the Summer of 2020.

Jurisdictions should also consider integrating this analysis with the requirements of Government Code 65302(h), as added by SB 1000 (Statutes of 2016), which requires the preparation and adoption of an Environmental Justice element or equivalent environmental justice-related policies, objectives, and goals throughout other elements of their general plan, to address the needs of disadvantaged communities. More information on Environmental Justice elements can be found on the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research Website.