Thread by @aceckhouse

Listening to today's #rhnamtg & staff are reporting on engagement they did with community organizations for feedback on their priorities for RHNA & the Bay Area's housing needs

funnily enough, none of the community members brought up local control 🤔

people in the focus groups wanted more housing, everywhere, for everyone; they were interested in making sure high resource, exclusionary communities did their fair share; some had concerns about low income residents in those areas facing racism & classism #rhnamtg

homelessness, displacement, and the need for funding were commonly raised concerns

there was interest in putting homes near transit, but concern about transit quality, safety, and reliability (a public commenter asked whether those came from transit riders or drivers) #rhnamtg

we've moved on to a survey of local governments at #rhnamtg

never sure how seriously to take protestations of land availability/suitability as a barrier (mostly not)

@MattRegan10 asks why approval process was not on the list of potential barriers on the survey

now on Plan Bay Area, & why orienting growth solely around local Priority Development Areas is inadequate & inequitable

new plan: automatically identify high resource & transit rich areas for growth in jurisdictions with less than half of eligible land in PDAs #rhnamtg

lol Pat Eklund is trying to pass off her personal objection to development in high resource areas as somehow reflective of deep divisions among ABAG/MTC #rhnamtg

believe I just heard that 80% of the Bay Area's growth is happening on 3% of the land area??? sheesh #rhnamtg #missingmiddle

methodology time! I think this basic framework makes sense #rhnamtg

discussion of directly including measures of racial segregation as a factor

one concern is that the divergence index can have a hard time distinguishing between segregating & segregated communities

also a legal concern about strict scrutiny of direct racial metrics #rhnamtg

various possible ways to account for jobs in #rhnamtg: jobs-housing balance, jobs-housing fit, job proximity

I would suggest prioritizing job proximity for the total allocation, and jobs-housing fit for the share of allocation to low-income households

staff has responded to concerns raised (including by me) about past proposals for including transit access

new method: base it on a jurisdiction's share of the region's total land area within Transit Priority Areas #rhnamtg

aaaaaand my stream just cut out

I understand the basis for including this in #rhnamtg, but have real concerns about how it will play out in practice

very few cities actually lack enough low hazard land to meet their housing needs

staff made a toy to play with different priority weightings

here's what percentage growth would look like by jurisdiction if all the weighting were placed on high resource areas #rhnamtg

staff agreeing with me that most cities, even those with some hazard areas, won't have *so* much excluded land as to be unable to meet housing needs #rhnamtg

you too can play with the toy!

https://twitter.com/BetterConnecti1/status/1238179431958466561?s=20

I underweighted the total regional allocation to show the contrast better; what do you think? #rhnamtg

another take #rhnamtg

I do wonder if staff has tied allocations a bit too tightly to regional population share & might consider allowing an option to add more weight to the factors

relatedly, a thing I'd like to see added to the tool: what is each county's current regional population share? #rhnamtg

Housing Methodology Committee members have been discussing allocation factor weightings in small groups; now preparing to debrief with the whole group #rhnamtg

Blue Table: ended up with 6 factors #rhnamtg

chose jobs-housing fit over jobs-housing balance: 40%
put access to high resource areas at 20%
20% to areas where workers have long commutes in
10% to transit connectivity
10% to natural hazard risk

next #rhnamtg Table:

1 equity factor (high opportunity areas): 30%
1 jobs factor (jobs-housing balance): 30%
1 transportation factor (jobs proximity - auto): 30%
natural hazard: 10%

"driving a lot of the allocation to the major jobs centers along the Peninsula & Silicon Valley"

"another benefit: avoiding gentrification & displacement concerns by allocating growth away from communities like Richmond & East Palo Alto… ended up with strong consensus after a lot of conversation" #rhnamtg

here's what that methodology would look like (700k regional need) #rhnamtg

I like it!

Purple Table is next at #rhnamtg

struggled to avoid recreating past RHNA patterns

ended up with

high opportunity areas: 50%
jobs-housing fit: 10%
transit jobs access: 10%
jobs-housing balance: 10%
future jobs: 10%
transit connectivity: 10%

here's what that one looks like #rhnamtg

next #rhnamtg table

high opportunity: 30%
jobs-housing fit: 50%
future jobs: 10%

I'm missing 10%

Red Table up at #rhnamtg

4 factors:

high opportunity
debate on jobs-housing fit vs balance, ended up on fit
transit connectivity
natural hazards

lots of discussion on which plans would realistically see housing built

I'm missing out on getting to do dot voting at #rhnamtg due to my social distance/preemptive self quarantine : (

Pat doesn't like the population-based baseline, wants a discussion of that

(feels reminiscent to me of the CIA saboteur handbook)

another HMC member agrees

no public comment at #rhnamtg

Pat Eklund also wants to seek input from cities on the factors

still playing around with the allocation tool, decided to look at what impact the natural hazard metric has

all that green in the North Bay, especially the unincorporated parts… seems off