UN4LA News - April 2022
A monthly newsletter published by United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles.
UN4LA's mission is to bring communities together to plan for a sustainable future. Growth must be shaped by community engagement, not developer dollars.
ORANGE COUNTY COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS TAKES ON STATE HOUSING DEPARTMENT
The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) has been in the news a lot lately. HCD caused a stir last year when its calculations for Regional Housing Needs Assessments (RHNA) were far higher than anyone anticipated, putting cities under pressure to undertake massive upzoning efforts to comply with the assessments. Then HCD followed up by rejecting required Housing Element updates submitted by scores of cities, with the warning that a failure to comply could result in the loss of State funding.
Many local governments have questioned HCD's methodology in calculating its RHNA numbers. The Orange County Council of Governments (OCCOG) has done more than just ask questions. They've filed a lawsuit. In June of last year, OCCOG filed a Petition for Writ of Mandate in Los Angeles Superior Court asking that the court direct HCD to vacate its RHNA determination for the area covered by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and conduct a new assessment.
In December, Judge Mary Strobel dismissed the case. In January of this year, OCCOG filed a notice of appeal. OCCOG argues that HCD’s determination of SCAG’s housing needs was clearly incorrect and was not supported by evidence. They cite three examples:
1. HCD used a population forecast from the State Department of Finance, instead of the SCAG forecast, as required by law.
2. Instead of using data from comparable regions when evaluating household overcrowding and cost-burden rates, HCD based their calculations on national averages, which is inconsistent with State law.
3. HCD based its calculations on the assumption that 5% was a healthy overall vacancy rate for the residential market. In fact, while 5% is considered a healthy vacancy rate for the rental market, the vacancy rate for owner-occupied homes is generally around 1.5%. By failing to make that distinction, HCD's calculations would inevitably skew the results.
You can read the full petition here.
OCCOG Petition for Writ of Mandate
It will be interesting to see if OCCOG has any success with the appeal, since Strobel based her decision on established case law. Citing City of Irvine v. Southern California Assn. of Governments (2009), the judge found that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. In Irvine, the court determined that, according to State law, only HCD has the authority to review its RHNA determinations, thereby barring the courts from intervening.
But on the other hand, a recent State audit of HCD found a number of problems with their process. See the following story. Will this help OCCOG make its case to the appeals court?
AUDITOR'S REPORT FINDS PROBLEMS AT THE STATE HOUSING DEPARTMENT
Cities across California were stunned by the by the sky-high numbers set by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) in its latest round of RHNA allocations. The steep jump in the amount of housing that HCD is requiring municipalities to accommodate through upzoning has caused many to ask if the Department's methodology is flawed. And it appears they were right to ask that question. A recent report from the California State Auditor found that HCD:
"does not satisfactorily review its needs assessments"
"could not demonstrate that it adequately considered all of the factors that state law requires"
"could not support its use of healthy housing vacancy rates"
This would appear to give some credence to HCD's critics. Click the link below to read the full report.
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY AT INGLEWOOD CITY HALL?
During the pandemic, cities across California have switched to holding meetings on-line. Given the risks posed by COVID, the move is understandable, but the change has also given elected officials more control over how meetings are run and whose voices are heard. Some Inglewood residents have had problems viewing City Council meetings on-line, and there are complaints that Mayor James Butts has prevented callers from speaking. Are elected officials using on-line meetings to shut down criticism? Check out the story from 2UrbanGirls for more details.
CITY OF L.A. SETTLES HOMELESS LAWSUIT
After two years of litigation, the City of LA has reached a settlement in a lawsuit over the lack of shelter and services for LA's homeless population. The controversial lawsuit, brought by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, received a good deal of media attention, in part because of the issues involved, but also because of Judge David Carter's unconventional approach. The agreement, which still needs to be approved by Judge Carter, stipulates that the City of LA will provide beds for 60% of its unsheltered residents over the next five years. LA County, which is also a defendant, is not a party to the settlement.
A 2-Year Lawsuit Demanded LA Shelter Unhoused People. Officials Have Agreed
SIERRA CLUB SPEAKS UP FOR C.E.Q.A.
A lot of people don't like the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). You may have noticed the latest round of CEQA bashing in the media, when critics bemoaned the fact that a CEQA lawsuit might prevent UC Berkeley from admitting the number of students it had planned on for the next school year. A fact that often got lost in the hysteria was that in 2005 the university had approved a plan which projected enrollment of 33,450 students by 2020, and that by 2017 it had already exceeded that number by about 30%.
CEQA became law back in 1970 because even then there was widespread concern about the degradation of California's environment. Fifty years later, the state is facing a number of environmental crises, including rising temperatures, declining water resources, devastating fires and sea-level rise. While CEQA has many critics, fortunately there are also those who understand that this landmark legislation is more important now than ever. In March the Sierra Club published the following defense.
Letter from Sacramento: Let’s Talk About CEQA
ADAPTIVE RE-USE CAN HELP FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
These days almost any developer with a project to build is going to claim it has all sorts of features that will reduce carbon emissions. While these claims are often inflated and sometimes completely false, what's worse is that the discussion almost never turns to embodied carbon, or the amount of carbon emitted in the course of extracting, processing and shipping construction materials. When embodied carbon is taken into account, it becomes clear that there are strong arguments for the adaptive re-use of existing structures. This article from TreeHugger makes the case for preserving the buildings we already have, instead of knocking them down to build bigger ones.
The Reuse Imperative: Why Saving Existing Buildings Matters More Than Ever
