Santa Clara County officials warn RHNA assignment and ABAG process leave county with few credits for housing units

Santa Clara County officials told the Hewlett Committee on Sept. 18 that the county’s sixth-cycle housing element obligations were magnified by regional methodology choices and by rules that limit how many RHNA credits the county receives when parcels in unincorporated areas are annexed by cities.

“From the very outset…our regional housing need allocation increased by over a thousand percent,” Deputy County Executive Sylvia Gallegos said, describing the 2020 ABAG methodology and the county’s large rural land base. She said ABAG and the methodology use a population baseline that dramatically raised Santa Clara County’s assigned units compared with peer jurisdictions.

The county’s planning director, Jacqueline Anciano, and staff described efforts to seek legislative relief and to identify additional buildable sites. “We were disadvantaged,” Gallegos said. She told the committee the county is pursuing both programmatic responses — additional site inventory and consultant help on code amendments — and legislative solutions to reduce the county’s exposure.

Why it matters: Committee members were presented with a technical explanation of how ABAG allocates RHNA and transfer-credit mechanics that,…