Trinity County supervisors direct staff to pursue state Pro Housing designation, potentially unlocking grants

The Trinity County Board of Supervisors on Oct. 21 directed staff to pursue the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s Pro Housing designation and to prepare an application for the program’s incentive funding.

Drew Plavani, interim planning director, introduced the item and turned the presentation over to Ryan Lester of the consultant team Inter Harnish. Lester said the designation is “not a competitive thing. Any jurisdiction that can meet the threshold requirements, gets the designation,” and that achieving it brings priority processing and additional points on several state grants as well as eligibility for a separate incentive fund.

The designation requires the county to adopt zoning code updates for state-law consistency identified in the county’s recently certified housing element and to document specific changes and policies in an application to HCD. Lester said the county’s housing element inventory and adopted policies already put Trinity in a strong position to reach the 30-point threshold HCD requires for designation; he estimated a minimum incentive “bonus” could be in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars if the county secures points and the regional pot is not oversubscribed.

Supervisors asked about allowable uses of funds, matching requirements and beneficiaries. Lester said the incentive funding is administered to the jurisdiction (the county) and can be used for predevelopment, infrastructure tied directly to housing, rehabilitation, first-time buyer programs, accessibility modifications and other housing-related purposes up to 120% of area median income as defined by state calculations. He said HCD indicated there is generally no local match required and that HCD offers technical assistance to jurisdictions pursuing the designation.

Board members and staff discussed cost and timing. County staff and the consultant proposed a timetable that would draft required ordinance updates in October, hold hearings in November, release the applications for public review in December and, if adopted by the board in early January, submit both the designation application and the incentive application before HCD deadlines. The consultants proposed sharing application workload with county staff and indicated the county’s existing general plan/zoning update contract could absorb much of the downstream code work.

Supervisor comments emphasized the low downside and potential for significant funds to implement the housing element. Supervisors unanimously indicated they would give direction to staff to move forward; staff said available general-plan grant funds (the general plan account) could cover the estimated additional consulting cost of about $25,000.

Trinity County will proceed to draft ordinance updates, release the proposed application for public review and return to the board for the formal adoption necessary to submit applications to HCD.