Ripon City planning commission adopts 6th-cycle housing element, sends it to City Council

The Ripon City Planning Commission on a voice motion adopted the city's 2023'2031 (sixth-cycle) housing element and recommended it to the City Council for final adoption and submission to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).

The housing element, presented by consultant Beth Thompson of De Novo Planning Group, sets the city's housing goals, inventories land capacity and programs to remove constraints to housing development, and tracks state requirements such as affirmatively furthering fair housing. "A housing element is one of the required elements of your general plan," Thompson told the commission during the public hearing.

The document inventories land and projects the city can rely on to meet the state-assigned Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) for the sixth cycle: 1,424 units total, including 347 units for very-low-income households, 218 low-income, 255 moderate-income and 604 above-moderate-income units. Thompson said the inventory includes about 259 units in approved projects, more than 900 units on vacant sites, and more than 700 units on underutilized parcels; the consultant noted one small typographical error in a table that lists 257 instead of 259 approved units.

Thompson described the element's three parts: a housing plan with goals and programs, a background report with data and constraint analysis, and appendices. The background report analyzes housing needs for special groups the state…