Healthy and Safe Communities

Summary of Objective Implementation Status

In addition to implementing new State laws to promote affordable housing development in Sonoma County, staffs continue to work on creating incentives for developers for affordable housing production. County staffs have been meeting with County stakeholders regularly throughout 2022 to identify key strategies and incentives for the production of affordable housing, particularly in updating the County’s Housing Element and Housing Sites Inventory. A key program in the County’s draft Housing Element is to create objective design and development standards for multifamily developments. Additionally, County staffs are making progress to complete three Specific Plans, which include key incentives for developers to promote affordable housing development in unincorporated Sonoma County.

Key Milestone Update

1. Number of units built before and after policy implementation
   
   n/a
   
   
2. Reduction in the cost of developing multifamily and affordable housing by reducing permitting timeframes

Four strategies were implemented:

Permit Sonoma has completed online migration of planning application submittals. Starting in 2023, customers will be able to submit complete planning applications virtually, thereby reducing permitting and review times. Staff continues to implement additional measures to reduce permitting timeframes.

The Community Development Commission (CDC) is planning a mid-year/off cycle Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for CDBG, HOME and CDBG-CV funds.  Normally there is only one NOFA per year for these funds, but there were more opportunities this year.  The NOFA is planned for late summer/early fall and will increase the opportunities for developers to access funds for affordable housing development.

The CDC is developing the HOME-ARP allocation plan in order to issue a NOFA later this year for these funds.  This is another opportunity for developers to access funds for housing development.  Directly in line with the item in Green below, the plan development process has included an affordable housing developer focus group with about 6 participating developers.

In addition to improving monitoring, Permit Sonoma is working with cities to assist cities in monitoring cities’ Affordable Housing Agreements (AHAs) and related covenants to ensure current and long-term compliance (thus protecting existing affordable units – both ownership and rental).  This came out of the Board’s action in December 2021 to encourage stronger oversight of AHAs and covenants regionwide.

Coordination and Partnership Update

County staffs have been meeting with County stakeholders regularly throughout 2022 to identify key strategies and incentives for the production of affordable housing, particularly in updating the County’s Housing Element and Housing Sites Inventory. A key program in the County’s draft Housing Element is to create objective design and development standards for multifamily developments. County staffs are also making progress to complete three Specific Plans, which include key incentives for developers to promote affordable housing development in unincorporated Sonoma County.

Community, Equity, and Climate Update

Staff has established two key committees: the Housing Working Group which consists of each Sonoma County Planning Director and meets every two months; Housing Advisory Committee consists of key County constituents and has helped guide the development of Housing Element update.  Both efforts have been critical to informing policies and programs in the draft Housing Element published in November 2022.

Funding Narrative

Staff continue to achieve this objective through already-secured funding and on-going staff resources.