Housing policies and programs are the strategies and laws that cities and counties legally have at their disposal to produce more and preserve existing affordable housing, as well as protect existing residents from getting displaced from their homes and communities.
Local housing policies and programs, as part of a housing element, have significant impacts on a city or county reaching its affordable housing goals. Each additional housing policy has a significant impact on the residents who are most in need of affordable housing. However, the number of policies or programs that a jurisdiction includes in their housing element is not meant to imply how well a city or county is addressing local housing needs since the quality and impact of each will need to be determined as well. Policies and programs listed here from jurisdictions’ Housing Elements are intended to allow readers to review the text themselves and see if a city or county is doing all they can to reach their affordable housing goals.
To further policy innovation and local action, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) contacted all of the region's jurisdictions to track the adoption of key housing policies throughout the nine county Bay Area in four major categories Protect, Preserve, Produce, and Prevent. This data is from ABAG’s Policies and Program list and was last updated in 2018/2019.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development tracks all of the ongoing and completed programs from 2018 onward and can be seen in the table below.
YEAR | PROGRAM NAME | PROGRAM OBJECTIVE | STATUS | ACCOMPLISHED DATE | HOUSING CYCLE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Action1.1-5 | Ensure that any amendments to the Housing Element or other General Plan elements maintain internal consistency with the General Plan as a whole. | All amendments were reviewed to ensure consistency with the General Plan as a whole. There have been no amendments since that time. | Timeframe: Ongoing. | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A1.3-4 | Periodically review and update development-related impact fees to ensure that fees are commensurate with the cost to the City for providing required infrastructure. | Modify to include considerations for fee reductions for 100% affordable housing projects | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A4.1-4 | Collaborate with Napa County and non-profit organizations to assess the needs of the homeless by participating in efforts to survey this population and providing funding or other support to ensure the provision of shelters on a regional basis. | Retain. The City provides annual funding to Community Action Napa Valley to support homeless services. | Timeframe: Ongoing. | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A4.2-3 | Use loan repayments from the CDBG account to fund programs and projects that benefit special-needs population groups. | Retain | Timeframe: Ongoing. | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A7.1-1 | Provide bilingual information about fair housing at public locations, including displaying printed materials at City Hall, providing printed materials to the UpValley Family Center, and including links to fair housing resources on the Housing Resources page of the City’s web site. | Retain. The City has provided bilingual information about fair housing at prescribed locations. | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A8.1-2 | Ensure efficient water use for irrigation by adopting the State’s standards for water-efficient landscape design. | Retain. The City enforces state standards for water-efficient landscape design. | Timeframe: Within one year of Housing Element certification | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A1.2-1 | Encourage new residential development to be built with no less than 50 percent of the maximum number of dwelling units prescribed by the General Plan for specific properties, subject to conformance with the City’s residential design guidelines and the General Plan’s residential design policies. | Retain | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A2.1-3 | Maintain the City’s Affordable Housing Fund as a source of funding for affordable housing to extremely low-, low- and moderate-income households. | Retain | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A2.1-4 | Allocate, as economic resources permit, a portion of any tax revenue resulting from new development, including transient occupancy tax (TOT), to support housing opportunities for extremely low-, low- and moderate-income households, including for use in land banking, development of affordable housing, or other uses that will lead to more affordable housing. | Retain. Within two years of Housing Element certification, pursue the purchase of property for the construction of affordable and/or special-needs housing. | Timeframe: Ongoing. | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action 2.3-2 | Assess affordable housing linkage fees on nonresidential development that are deposited in the Affordable Housing Fund to be used, in part, to increase the supply of affordable housing. Periodically review and revise the fees as necessary. | Retain. Provided by CMC Section 17.08.020(B) | Timeframe: Ongoing; | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A4.2-2 | Allocate, as economic resources permit, a portion of any tax revenue resulting from new development, including transient occupancy tax (TOT), to support housing opportunities for special-needs population groups. | Retain | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A5.3-1 | The City’s residential design standards and the General Plan’s Character Area Overlay Districts shall be considered in the review of proposed residential projects. | Modify to include reference to objective design standards. Design and Character Area standards are considered during review of residential projects. | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action 2.2-2 | Assist developers in seeking funding for affordable housing from at least three sources: (1) local banks seeking to meet their obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act, (2) investors seeking Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, and (3) federal and state funds, including those available under the HOME program. | Retain | Timeframe: Ongoing. | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A3.2-1 | Monitor deed-restricted affordable housing projects to ensure compliance with affordability requirements and restrictions. | Retain. Monitoring reports verifying rents and household incomes completed by Housing Authority of the City of Napa annually. | Timeframe: Ongoing. | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A4.3-1 | Use local funding to leverage funding available from federal, state, county and private funding sources for special needs groups. | Retain | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A4.4-3 | Seek grants to retrofit existing housing to provide disabled accessibility. | Retain | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A5.1-4 | Develop and adopt a procedure as part of the City’s Code Enforcement Program for the City to intervene when a property is becoming seriously deteriorated, especially if it is of historic significance. | Retain. City is recruiting for an additional full-time Code Enforcement Officer who will be tasked with citations for unsafe living conditions. | Timeframe: Within three years of Housing Element certification | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A5.1-5 | Maintain an annual inspection program to enforce health and safety codes and abate unsafe living conditions in the City’s multi-family housing complexes and mobile home parks. | Retain. The City inspects one mobile home park annually and all multi-family housing is inspected annually. Mobile home parks are also inspected when repairs that require turning off the water lines are needed. | Timeframe: Ongoing. | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | Action A6.1-1 | Allow use of the Historic Building Code to facilitate the rehabilitation of historic residences. | Retain. The Historic Building Code was used when appropriate. | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |
| 2022 | A1.2-4 | Allow alternative housing arrangements through the approval of property rezoning to a Planned Development District. | Modify to allow alternative housing arrangements through by-right housing instead of limiting to Planned Development District. One application submitted and pending for Yellow Rose Ranch | Timeframe: Ongoing | 5th cycle, 2013 to 2022 |