SACRAMENTO — Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that Long Beach, Moreno Valley, Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, and the Town of Windsor have been designated as Prohousing communities. Through this designation, these jurisdictions are now eligible for funding incentives and additional resources through a state grant program designed to speed housing production. To date, a total of 27 California communities are now designated as Prohousing.
Why it matters: To meet the needs of Californians and address our state’s housing crisis, each local jurisdiction must take accountability to build their share of housing. To tackle this challenge, decades in the making, it will take a concerted effort between state and local leaders in partnership with nonprofits, advocates, and developers to enact Prohousing policies.
What Governor Newsom said: “Every city and county across California needs to work together to tackle the state’s housing crisis. Rather than evade their duties, these Prohousing communities are committed to rolling up their sleeves and building more housing, faster. By working together, we are putting the needs of Californians first and seeing to it that housing gets built faster throughout the state.”
The Prohousing Designation Program was established by the 2019-20 Budget Act, as part of a package of supports, incentives, and accountability measures to help California meet its goal of building 2.5 million homes by 2030, with at least one million of those homes affordable to people at lower income levels. The Prohousing Designation Program encourages jurisdictions to pass and implement policies that accelerate housing production, promote favorable zoning and land use, reduce construction and development costs, and provide financial subsidies.
Communities that earn the Prohousing Designation receive incentives such as additional points or other preferences in the scoring of competitive funding programs administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), giving them an advantage over other jurisdictions.
Jurisdictions that earn the coveted Prohousing Designation have demonstrated a commitment to enacting Prohousing Policies to accelerate housing production and preserve affordable housing stock, and they have shown themselves to be partners with the state in combatting the housing crisis. These partners recognize that increasing the availability of housing statewide is critical to bettering quality of life for all Californians, and to ending homelessness.
“Expanding housing opportunities is critical for the social and economic well-being of working Californians, families with children, older adults, and people exiting homelessness,” said Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency Secretary Lourdes Castro Ramírez. “Under Governor Newsom’s leadership, we have provided more tools and incentives than ever before for communities to design policies and programs to build more housing in the right places. Congratulations to the five jurisdictions announced today. They join 22 others that have done the hard work to remove barriers to housing so that homes can be created that are accessible to all Californians.”
“Creative efforts to enhance state and local partnerships are essential to meeting ambitious and necessary state housing goals,” said HCD Director Gustavo Velasquez. “We recognize today local governments that are breaking down barriers to affordable housing – and reward those good actors with incentives to enhance the work they are already doing.”
