Adopted 2023-2031 Housing Element

More and more, purchasing a home is out of reach for many while renters face inaccessible rent prices. Just about every city in the region needs more housing, of all types and sizes.

• Teachers, firefighters, health care, and other essential workers are often traveling long distances to work or being forced to relocate to other cities;
• Young adults are often unable to purchase homes or even live in the communities they grew up in once they leave their childhood homes;
• Communities of color and non-English speakers - those who make up the majority of community members living in overcrowded and unsafe conditions - can’t afford to live near their jobs, schools, or families.

Creating more housing - and more diverse housing choices - means:

• Young families can find an affordable starter home;
• Young adults moving into the housing market can stay in the cities they grew up in;
• Our aging population will have more options for retirement, including downsizing, providing housing for on-site health or home care, and staying in their communities;
• Workers like our teachers, firefighters, health care workers and essential workers can find homes near job centers;
• Your children and grandchildren can stay near you in the communities they feel a part of;
• More people across income levels will have more opportunities to rent or own homes in the places they live, work and love.

In 2019 ABAG established a Housing Methodology Committee (HMC) charged with developing a distribution formula by which to allocate the cycle 6 RHND number. The HMC consists of elected officials and staff from each county, as well as stakeholders from interest groups.

Any methodology developed by the HMC must satisfy the many statutory requirements for RHNA distribution, including:

1. Increasing housing supply and mix of housing types, tenure, and affordability in all cities and counties in an equitable manner throughout the region;
2. Promoting infill development and socioeconomic equity, protecting environmental and agricultural resources, encouraging efficient development patterns, and achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions targets;
3. Promoting an improved intraregional jobs-housing relationship, including a balance between low-wage jobs and affordable housing (jobs/housing fit);
4. Balancing disproportionate household income distributions (more high-income RHNA to lower-income areas and vice-versa); and
5. Affirmatively further fair housing.

Using the above requirements as a guide, the final RHNA methodology recommended by the HMC assigns a total number of housing units to each Bay Area jurisdiction and distributes that allocation among the four affordability levels.

Public hearings at the Planning Commission are anticipated to kick off in August 2022! Upcoming meeting dates will be listed on this page once they're confirmed, and you can also sign up for meeting announcements through our Housing Element email notification list. To subscribe to the email list go to Subscribe | City of Brisbane (brisbaneca.org) and select the Housing Element 2023-2031 subscription list. If you have questions, please contact the Community Development Department, or you an also call (415) 508-2120.