That the City Council receive and file the Annual Report on the implementation of the City of La Habra General Plan for calendar year 2023, and authorize the Director of Community and Economic Development to forward the document to the Governor's Office of Planning and Research and the Department of Housing and Community Development per Government Code Section 65400.

California (“State”) law requires every city and county in the state of California to prepare and adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of said city or county. Policy and project decisions made by the City Council and Planning Commission, as well as projects that are initiated by City Departments, such as land use approvals, zoning code updates, subdivision, City projects and programs, and Capital Improvement Projects, must be consistent with the goals and policies contained within the General Plan. State law requires a city's General Plan to include the following elements: land use, circulation, housing, conservation, open space, noise, and safety. The City of La Habra General Plan includes the following eight chapters and five appendices; the state-mandated elements included in each chapter are identified in parentheses:

The La Habra General Plan was last comprehensively updated in 2014 and is available for public review on the City's website. Periodically, each of the above elements must be updated to comply with changing state law requirements. The complete text of the Housing Element is bound in a separate volume of the General Plan, separate from the housing goals and policies included in the Community Development chapter of the general plan, because of the comprehensive nature of the State law requirements for technical analysis of housing conditions and to update the Housing Element every eight years. The City Council adopted the 2021-2029 (6th Cycle) General Plan Housing Element on September 19, 2022, after a lengthy multi-year public process. As part of the adoption of the Housing Element, the City Council found that the document was substantially compliant with State law. The California State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) later certified the City's Housing Element on April 21, 2023, following some non-substantive administrative changes. 

The adoption of the Housing Element triggered amendments to Chapters 2 (Community Development), 7 (Community Safety), and 8 (Implementation Manual), and Appendix C (Glossary of Terms); and added Appendices D (Climate Change Vulnerabilities) and E (Health and Environmental Justice). The amendments were needed to provide internal consistency with the General Plan and to comply with Government Code Section 65302(G) and Senate Bill 1000 (2016) related to wildfire and emergency preparedness, climate change adaptation and environmental justice. The City Council adopted these amendments on January 16, 2024; therefore, they are not a part of this annual report.

Pursuant to Government Code Section 65400(a)(2), all cities and counties in California must submit to their legislative bodies an annual report on the progress made in the implementation of the goals and policies contained within the General Plan. In addition, the annual report must also be submitted to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) and HCD. The annual report gives OPR the opportunity to identify statewide trends in land use decision-making and local planning and development activities related to statewide planning goals and policies. Providing a copy of the annual report to HCD fulfills the statutory requirement to report the local agency’s progress in accommodating its share of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) and removing governmental constraints to the development of housing. The City’s annual report is provided as Attachment 1 to this staff report.

The annual report tracks progress using the Implementation Manual, adopted as Chapter 8 of the La Habra General Plan 2035. This Manual arranges goals and policies into sections that are based on the timing of when they should be considered for implementation. Sections include “Near term Implementation” (to be done within five years), “Annual Implementation” (to be done yearly), “Continuing Implementation” (done continuously), “Periodic Implementation” (done based on specified timelines), and “Mid- to Long-Term Implementation” (done after five years.) Within each program, policy objectives are identified along with the implementing department. As detailed in Attachment 1, the City has nearly completed all goals and policies that require near term implementation and made significant headway on goals and policies with periodic and/or extended timelines. Staff recommends the submission of this document to OPR to fulfill the City’s annual reporting requirements for its general plan.
 

Section VII of the annual report provides an update on the City’s progress towards implementing its Housing Element, using forms provided by HCD, designed to ensure standardized electronic reporting to HCD. The City is on its third year of the 6th Housing Element Cycle which runs from October 2021 through October 2029. One of the key metrics analyzed is the number of housing units that the City has accommodated through the issuance of building permits in comparison to its Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) allocation. For the 6th Housing Element Cycle, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) assigned the City of La Habra a RHNA allocation of 804 units.
Below is a breakdown of the RHNA allocation by affordability level, as well as the number of dwelling units that have received building permits during the first three years of the 6th Housing Cycle.

As shown in the table above, the City issued building permits for a total of 77 housing units in 2023. The 26 units that are shown within the "Low Income" category represent Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). In order to determine the affordability of these units, staff surveys the property owners to determine the rents that are anticipated for the units. If staff does not receive a response to this survey, staff uses the default category of “Low Income” because HCD has identified the development of ADUs as “Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing (NOAH).” The remaining 51 housing units that received building permits and/or were constructed in 2023 reflect multifamily units that will not be restricted to moderate or lower income households; and, therefore, by default, are classified as “Above Moderate Income” units. Of these 51 units, 35 are attributed to the permits issued for the 117 unit Vista Walk project (251-351 West Imperial Highway). Of the 117 units, 12 will be made available as affordable to Moderate Income Households. To date, no projects have yet been approved under the City’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance; however, there are five pending project applications proposing the development of a total of 144 units that will be subject to the ordinance by either providing affordable units or paying the City's in lieu fee. In addition, Lennar has proposed their Westridge Hills project that would develop 534 dwelling units, consisting of 286 single-family homes, 78 town homes and 60 duplex residences, that would not be income restricted (i.e., Above Moderate), along with 110 apartment units restricted to Low-Income households. Staff deemed the project application complete in January with the next step being a review of the project for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) prior to submitting it for consideration by the Planning Commission at a public hearing to be held at a future date.

Staff recommends that the City Council receive and file the annual report and authorize the Director of Community and Economic Development to submit the report to OPR and HCD.

The Annual Report is a summary of activities undertaken by the City that relate directly to the goals and policies of the General Plan 2035. The staff time and cost to prepare this report is funded through the Department’s normal adopted operating budget for Fiscal Year 2023-2024.

The Annual Report demonstrates the City’s progress towards the implementation of the La Habra General Plan and is consistent with the City Council Goal 5: Development Activity and Business Assistance, Objective M: Update, implement, and provide annual performance reports for the General Plan in compliance with State law, and Objective Q: Facilitate the development of high-quality housing, at a variety of income levels, to help meet projected demand, as set forth in the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA).