On January 10, he Clovis City Council voiced concerns about two topics within the housing department.
City of Clovis staff presented two different reports to the Council on the status of the housing element process and possible participation in a multi-jurisdictional element effort.
The Housing Element process is used to identify and analyze the housing needs of a jurisdiction in order to maintain, improve, and create homes for all economic segments of the community. This is required by all cities and counties.
The process is overseen by the State Housing and Community Development (HCD) and is handled in cycles that must be updated every eight years.
Clovis is currently in it’s sixth Housing Element cycle. This process is due for completion and must be submitted to the HCD by 2023.
To fully understand how many homes are needed for the sixth cycle, the City received a proposed allocation methodology from the RHNA subcommittee.
This subcommittee is made up of 13 jurisdictions, including Clovis, who deliberate on the methodology for allocation of each local government’s fair share of the region’s total housing needs. The subcommittee met six times in 2021 and came up with a methodology draft.
For the City of Clovis specifically, their preliminary regional housing needs for allocation are as follows (each category is broken down by income level):
- Very low: 33% or 3007 units
- Low: 17% or 1593 units
- Moderate: 16% or 1473 units
- Above moderate: 34% or 3105 units
- Total: 9179 housing units
These numbers could change since this is a preliminary draft. However, there are still some concerns by the council.
The biggest concern from the council is the financial aspect of these housing projections. Mayor Jose Flores expressed what he sees in these projections.
“This is what your goals are [California], and the City of Clovis has no…we have no incentive to reach 9,179, that’s their goal,” Mayor Flores said. “Our goal is to have a very smart city that grows according to what we can service. They want 9,179 units whether we can afford it or not.”
Mayor Flores emphasized that he and the council would love to achieve this projection, but there needs to be the incentives to achieve it.
This projection of housing allocation transitioned staff into presenting the proposal of participating in a multi-jurisdictional element effort.
A multi-jurisdictional housing element is a coordinated work product prepared by a single consulting team that covers the mandatory requirements that apply to multiple agencies.
The Fresno Council of Governments (FCOG) requested that jurisdictions involved in the RHNA subcommittee provide a response to participate in the multi-jurisdictional housing element during Monday evening’s meeting.
To give insight on the pros and cons of the City of Clovis’s participation in this element, City staff presented a list showing key points on both sides.
This participation elicited concerns by the council similarly to the housing allocation projections.
Councilmember Lynne Ashbeck gave her overall insight on this action that the rest of the council agreed with.
“I think we’re going to do it on our own, we’re going to take the risks that go with that, if we lose out on some negotiation because we’re not at the table, we can’t go ‘Oh shoot we should have stayed,’” Ashbeck said. “Either we’re in or we’re out, but I don’t think we’re in the middle of helping this city but not that city.”
The council agreed unanimously to work independently from FCOG and not participate in the multi-jurisdictional housing element.
To view the entire presentation of the housing element cycle and the multi-jurisdictional element effort, you can visit the City of Clovis YouTube page. You can also visit the City of Clovis website and click on the “Agendas” page under “Government”.