Taft Planning Commission votes to recommend council accept 2024 housing-element annual progress report

The City of Taft Planning Commission on Feb. 5 voted to recommend that the City Council accept the city’s 2024 annual progress report on its housing element and transmit the report to state agencies for compliance review.

The recommendation follows a staff presentation on the required annual submittal to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. Planning staff told the commission that "The 2024 calendar year is the first year of the current housing element cycle of 2023 to 2031." The report documents housing activity for the 2024 calendar year and the forms and definitions HCD requires.

Planning staff said the city recorded four building permits in 2024. The presentation described one permit that converted an office building on Kern Street back to a single-family dwelling and added an accessory dwelling unit (ADU), a separate ADU on Kern Street, and a single-family home in the southern part of town on Eighth Street. Staff also described a heavily fire-damaged home that required demolition permits; replacement construction for that site, permitted after demolition, is expected to appear on next year’s report. Staff noted that the HCD tables require some entries to appear in multiple rows (for example, one permit counted as both a single-family unit and an ADU on the report’s table format).

The staff report explained the submission process: California Government Code section 65400 requires jurisdictions to prepare an annual progress report on housing-element implementation using HCD forms and definitions, and housing element annual reports are due April 1 to HCD and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. The planning director told the commission the item will be brought to the City Council at its first March meeting for formal receipt and transmission to the state.

Commissioners moved to "recommend the city council accept the annual housing element progress report for the 2024 calendar year" and to find the project exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) under the general rule (CEQA Guidelines section 15061(b)(3)). The motion passed on a recorded voice vote: Commissioner Daven, Commissioner Johnson, Vice Chair Schertz and Chairman Livingston voted yes; no ayes or noes were recorded and one seat was absent.

Commission members and staff also described work still to do in the city’s housing program: reporting out programs associated with the adopted housing element, ongoing ordinance updates to meet state requirements, and the need to attract builders to stalled projects such as Sandy Creek Estates and planned multifamily sites downtown. Staff said many of the programs in the previous element will expand once the city adopts the new element and that the next year’s report will reflect those additional programs.

Next steps: the commission’s recommendation will be placed on the City Council agenda for action in March and staff will transmit the HCD annual report and associated spreadsheets to state agencies as required.