The City is in the process of updating its Housing Element, a required chapter of the City’s General Plan. State Law requires that all cities in California designate sites and create policies to accommodate their share of the regional housing need for households of all income levels.

Housing Elements are a mandatory part of the General Plan because providing housing for all Californians is of vital statewide importance. In particular, the State legislature has made housing production a priority in recent years, adopting dozens of new laws that have made this Housing Element update substantially more challenging than in previous cycles.

The Regional Housing Needs Assessment or RHNA, is a state mandate set by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) which determines the total number of new housing units needed for each region in California. The City of Seal Beach is a member of the six-county Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) region. SCAG, as the regional planning body, is responsible for distributing the RHNA among its member cities and counties. Seal Beach’s RHNA allocation is 1,243 units at varying income levels.

To meet the State mandate, the City needs to designate sites where housing can be developed without additional approvals from the Planning Commission or the City Council. The City calls these “housing opportunity sites” and there are 11 such sites throughout Seal Beach. Any opportunity site not currently zoned to allow housing must be re-zoned.

No. It is the property owner’s choice whether to build housing. Any property owner wishing to build must present a development application to the City.

No. The private market is responsible for any development that occurs.

It is unknown if any property owners will choose to develop or redevelop their property. The State mandate requires only that the City allow for residential development at the opportunity sites if a project proposed by the property owner.