That the City Council receive and file the Annual Report on the implementation of the City of La Habra General Plan for calendar year 2025, and authorize the Director of Community and Economic Development to forward the document to the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI) and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) 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:

•    Chapter 1: Introduction
•    Chapter 2: Community Development (Land Use, Conservation, Open Space, Housing)
•    Chapter 3: Mobility (Circulation)
•    Chapter 4: Infrastructure (Circulation, Conservation)
•    Chapter 5: Community Services (Open Space, Safety)
•    Chapter 6: Conservation/Natural Resources (Conservation, Open Space)
•    Chapter 7: Community Safety (Noise, Safety)
•    Chapter 8: Implementation Manual
•    Appendix A: Addressing Climate Change
•    Appendix B: Addressing Healthy Communities
•    Appendix C: Glossary of Terms
•    Appendix D: Climate Change Vulnerabilities
•    Appendix E: Health and Environmental Justice

 

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. 

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 Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI) and the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). The annual report gives LCI 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 on 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 LCI 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 fifth 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 four years of the 6th Housing Cycle.
 

City of La Habra Housing Units Permitted and/or constructed between 2021-2025 during the 6th Housing Element Cycle
Income Level	RHNA Allocation	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	RHNA Remaining Units
Acutely Low Income (0-15% MFI)	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	0	-
Extremely Low Income (16-30% MFI)	n/a	2	0	0	0	0	-
Very Low Income (31-50% MFI)	192	3	0	0	0	0	187
Low Income (51-80% MFI)	116	12	44	26	47	25	-
Moderate Income (81-120% MFI)	130	0	0	0	12	7	111
Above Moderate Income	366	3	12	51	58	19	223
Total	804	20	56	77	117	51	521

MFI: Median Family Income 
* Acutely Low Income and Extremely Low Income are not RHNA allocation categories, but are a required sub-analyses within the Very Low category for the Housing Element. 

As shown in the table above, a total of 51 housing units received building permits and/or were constructed in 2025. The 25 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)." Of the remaining 26 housing units that received building permits and/or were constructed in 2025, 18 are attributed to the permits issued between the 22-unit City Ventures Development at 310 East Whittier Blvd and the 22-unit townhome project by Bonanni Development at 300 South Walnut Street, of which seven will be affordable to "Moderate Income" households. The remaining 19 units will not be restricted to moderate- or lower-income households; and, therefore by default, are classified as "Above Moderate Income" units.

Since its adoption in April 2021, five projects totaling 102 units have been approved under the City’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. In 2024, the City approved the 18-unit "City Ventures Development at 120 East Whittier Blvd", the 22-unit "City Ventures Development at 310 East Whittier Blvd", and the 19-unit apartment complex at 1002 Stearns Ave. In 2025, the City approved a 21-unit apartment complex by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange at 920 West La Habra Boulevard and the aforementioned 22-unit townhome project by Bonanni Development at 300 South Walnut Street. Building permits for 14 of the 59 units approved in 2024 were issued in 2025 and building permits for four of the 43 units approved in 2025 were issued as of March 2026. The building permits for the remaining 84 units are anticipated to be issued in 2026. Additionally, a multi-unit residential project proposing the development of 28 rental units, that will be subject to the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance by either providing affordable units or paying the City's in-lieu fee, will be processed in 2026. Lastly, Lennar has revised their Westridge Hills project for the development of 534 dwelling units, now consisting of 282 single-unit homes and 142 duplex residences, which would not be income restricted ("Above Moderate Income"), along with 110 senior apartment units restricted to "Low Income" households. Staff deemed this project application complete in January 2024, and is in the process of preparing an Environmental Impact Report to analyze the physical impacts of the proposed project on the environment.

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 LCI 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 adopted operating budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026.

The Annual Report demonstrates the City’s progress toward the implementation of the La Habra General Plan. It 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 outlined in the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA).