Nevada County amends PLHA five-year plan to shift funds to housing development

The Nevada County Board of Supervisors approved an amendment to the county's Permanent Local Housing Allocation (PLHA) five-year plan at its June 9 meeting, shifting planned uses away from matching a regional housing trust fund to direct development activities.

Tyler Barrington, director of Housing and Community Services, told the board that the original plan (adopted in 2020 under SB 2/PLHA) relied in part on matching local housing trust funds that have since sunset. "Therefore, the plan amendment is necessary to select a different activity under which to continue using these PLHA funds," Barrington said. Senior administrative analyst Angela Mascor presented program details and the eligible activities defined by the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

Mascor said the amendment preserves an approximately 80/20 split between housing development and homelessness-support/navigation services while changing the development match from Activity 3 to Activity 2 (rental and owner-occupied development, acquisition or rehabilitation, including possible loans for accessory dwelling units). She said the county has allocated about $3,074,000 to projects in Western County since 2020 and that rounds 4 and 5 (roughly $808,000) will be used for rental and owner-occupied development through an RFP process in collaboration with Nevada City and Grass Valley.

Board members asked for jurisdictional breakdowns of fee revenues and the MOU expiration dates; staff agreed to provide those figures. After hearing no public comment, the board moved and unanimously approved the PLHA plan amendment on roll call.

The amendment allows the county to continue deploying PLHA funds for affordable housing projects without the prior matching source and sets staff up to release project selection requests in coordination with partner cities.