RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Assessment)

 

Department of Finance (DOF) Population Projections and HCD RHNA numbers

 

Catalysts Town Hall, February 8, 2024 with Marc Verville

 “RHNA: FAILURE FOR CONSTITUENTS; SUCCESS FOR DEVELOPERS & INVESTORS.”

Slides for this presentation are available here.

Palo Alto Town Hall on Housing – January 21, 2024

Hosted by Lydia Kou, former Mayor, Palo Alto

Presentations by Eric Filseth, former Mayor, Palo Alto; Michael Barnes, former Mayor, Albany; Pam Lee, Attorney, Aleshire & Wynder; Anita Enander, former Mayor, Los Altos

Catalysts Call, November 27, 2023 with Amy Kalish

“How Housing Laws Sabotage Affordable Unit Production And How to Calculate the Damage.”

This presentation shows:

    • RHNA doesn’t creating affordable housing; it’s a “market rate machine,” as described by Marc Verville
    • How to easily calculate the bloating of your town’s RHNA with 20% and 10% inclusionary units
    • How you can explain the problems to others using real world examples

Slides for this presentation are available here.

Catalysts Town Hall, November 15, 2023 with Marc Verville

“The Housing Supply Crisis: The State’s False Narrative That Supports Investor Profits.”

You will learn how:

  • The state determines housing needs (RHNA) by using“Projected” and “Existing” Need.
  • The Dept. of Finance provides“Projected” need based on population projections, including birth, deaths, and migration rates.
  • The Housing and Community Development (HCD) Department sets “Existing” need based on measures without standardized definition or measurement such as vacancy rates, overcrowding, and cost-burdening.
  • The combined “Projected”and “Existing” needs fail to meet the need for affordable housing!
  • The RHNA process has been captured by special interests and the public has been shut out.

Marc Verville, a Santa Monica native and former VP of finance and business at the Walt Disney Company and Warner Brothers Entertainment, is challenging the state’s housing narrative.  He reveals the shortcomings of the fundamental premises of the state’s claim “we have a housing crisis.”  The crisis is not supply, but affordability. Verville, relying on his background in financial projections, modeling, charting, and analysis, presents evidence of the false narrative.

Marc Verville exposes the RHNA (Regional Housing Need Allocation) as a special interest policy that is unrelated to solving the problem of housing affordability. It benefits investor profits at the expense of sound planning, community safety, and financial health. The situation calls on informed constituents to take action.

Slides for this presentation are available here.

Presentation by Marc Verville, Catalysts Call , October 2, 2023.

Presentation by Gaetan Lion, Catalysts Call , July 24, 2023

For those who are collecting data on the cost of various jurisdictions preparing their Housing Element, we have compiled the tables of RHNA allocations for the various cities and counties: