Marini J: Marin Voice: Marin’s first step — meet California affordable housing law

Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed 15 bills to promote housing and address homelessness. One, Senate Bill 35, has the most potential to bring affordable housing to Marin County. For too long, affordable housing developers have avoided Marin because of our reputation for NIMBYism and the great difficulty of getting any project approved. The Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative — MEHC — believes SB 35 is a good first step toward improving the prospects for desperately needed affordable housing in Marin. California counties, cities and towns are required to include and regularly update a housing element within their general plans. The housing element must include policies that promote the production of housing to meet the localities’ fair share of the region’s housing needs, as established by, in Marin’s case, the Association of Bay Area Governments. So, as required from time to time, ABAG establishes a Regional Housing Needs Allocation — RHNA — which sets housing production goals by price categories for each jurisdiction within the region.