Trinity County holds housing element workshop; staff, consultants emphasize water capacity, RHNA, ADUs and disaster recovery

Trinity County planning staff and supervisors met March 4, 2025 in a special workshop to review the county's draft housing element before submission to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). Planning Director Ed Presley introduced consultant Ryan Lester, who walked supervisors and commissioners through the document and the list of implementation programs that will guide housing policy and permitting over the next five years.

The housing element is a technical, state-required plan that documents local housing needs, identifies sites and spells out programs to support production, preservation and fair housing. "It's almost 300 pages," consultant Ryan Lester told the board, adding that much of the length consists of analyses HCD requires. Lester said the draft groups roughly two dozen implementation programs into themes: constraints (for example, water and sewer capacity), incentives for affordable rental and homeownership, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), preservation and special-needs housing, and outreach and fair-housing work.

Why it matters: HCD must sign off on the housing element for the county to meet state planning requirements. The document also establishes the county's approach to seeking grants, prioritizing staff time and implementing projects that affect housing availability, local infrastructure and development rules.

Key facts and programs

- RHNA and sites inventory: Lester said Trinity County's regional housing needs assessment (RHNA) allocation for this cycle is extremely small: "the RHNA was 2 units." He explained the housing-element site's inventory is a zoning exercise to show the county has enough land capacity under HCD rules; it does not prevent other forms of…