Thread by @CSElmendorf

@California_HCD has finalized its emergency "Prohousing Designation Regulation" and is now accepting applications. All the goods are here:
hcd.ca.gov/community-deve…

1/n

Little changed between the draft and final regs. Here's my breakdown of the draft regs. 2/n

https://twitter.com/CSElmendorf/status/1402701522736082944

. .

Under state APA procedure for emergency regs, HCD must accept comment for another 45 days, then has 1 year to promulgate the final, non-emergency version of the regs. 3/n

If you want to weigh in, email your comments to [e-mail], w/ subject line “Comments on Emergency Regulations” 4/n

Biggest problem w/ regs is that prohousing designation will be "permanent unless revoked," yet it's earned based on stated commitment to adopt policies, not outcomes. 5/n

HCD is not well positioned to judge ex ante how well a given policy will work in a given jurisdiction, especially b/c policies are not scored (per the regs) based on portion of city's territory or number of potential housing units that they affect. 6/n

HCD justifiex the "permanent unless revoked" status of the designation w/ reference to resource constraints. Not enough staff. 7/n

hcd.ca.gov/community-deve…

This concern is legitimate, but the long-game is a two-track designation regime in which cities may be certified as prohousing based on outcomes (yay!) or commitments to adopt reforms. Regs should be written with the long-game in view. 8/n

Ideally, cities certified as prohousing under "commitment to reforms" track would lose their designation after a few years if the reforms don't materially improve city's performance. 9/n

In the near term, the easiest fix is to amend s. 6607 so that department at least has authority to revoke a prohousing designation based on poor performance relative to peer jurisdictions. That would buy HCD time to figure out how to score cities based on outcomes. 10/end