Southern California passes halfway mark in eight-year housing cycle
Less than a third of California’s cities and counties are on track to permit enough “above moderate” units — the category that typically refers to market-rate housing — according to data local governments submitted to the state housing department.
The state distributes its housing targets to regions on a rolling basis. This summer, a large share of the state, including all of Southern California, passed the halfway mark of the current eight-year planning cycle.
The cycle works by assignment. Every eight years, state housing regulators give cities and counties the task of planning for new homes, and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration sets each locality’s goal at four different affordability levels. Collectively, the numbers represent the housing department’s best estimate of how many new homes are needed to match expected population growth and to chip away at the state’s decades-in-the-making shortage of affordable places to live.
CalMatters reporter Ben Christopher, in a report distributed by the Associated Press, put the results in grading terms: “If this were graded, the state would abound in D’s and F’s.”