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San Benito County is one step closer to meeting one of California’s most important housing requirements: adopting a state-approved Housing Element as part of its General Plan. At an April 30 meeting, the county Planning Commission unanimously approved the 300-page document, which county staff had been working on for more than four years. 

To receive full certification from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), the San Benito Board of Supervisors will need to approve the document. After that, the county must rezone parcels to accommodate the more than 700 units it’s required to plan for in its unincorporated areas. Only then will HCD certify the county’s Housing Element.

Under state law, every city and county must indicate, every eight years, how they will meet the housing needs of residents at all income levels. Known as the Housing Element, it’s the only General Plan component that is regularly updated. This is because, as consultant Bryant de la Torre of the planning consultants Kimley-Horn told the planning commissioners, the housing market changes over time, and the document is meant to show the county’s ability to plan for future growth.

The county was supposed to submit its Housing Element by December 2023, but missed the deadline. Today it’s one of the 102 jurisdictions in California—out of 539—without one. The delay has triggered a provision in state law, known as “builder’s remedy,” which limits the ability of jurisdictions to reject developments that provide affordable housing, even if they violate zoning rules. As a result, there are two projects, each with more than 100 units, planned for lands designated as agricultural or rural, bypassing current zoning restrictions.

De la Torre said that besides making the county eligible for state housing funding, the primary reason for certifying the housing element is to eliminate the builder’s remedy.

“When you are certified, you aren’t subject to the builder’s remedy,” he told the commissioners. “This gives you full control over development patterns in the community.”

From 2023 to 2031, San Benito County must plan for 754 new housing units, according to the Regional Housing Needs Allocation numbers established by HCD along with the Council of San Benito County Governments. The majority of those—more than 70%—must serve very low to moderate income households.

“This is really who we’re planning for,” said de la Torre. “It’s teachers and teachers’ assistants, police officers, firefighters, healthcare support roles, county staff, retail and food employees, office and administrative staff, childcare providers, laborers, and construction and agriculture workers.”

To meet that mandate, the county has to rezone certain parcels to allow for residential use. After more than a year of discussion involving the Planning Commission, Board of Supervisors and community members, county staff and their consultants selected 12 parcels ranging from less than an acre to 20 acres.

The green sites represent parcels the county plans to rezone, while the yellow ones are what the county calls “pipeline projects”—developments already in the planning process; some have been approved and others are still under review.

De la Torre said they used three criteria to select the parcels: access to transportation and utilities, ability to accommodate many units and general location—they are in what urban planners call “county islands,” pockets of county land surrounded by the city of Hollister.

“It just makes sense,” de la Torre said. “Everything around it is developed, so it would make sense to add some houses.”

The planning commissioners approved the housing element and the proposed rezoning without major objections. They also added an amendment to the Land Use Element of the county General Plan, proposed by members of the Nor Cal Carpenters Union, encouraging developers and contractors to consider hiring local labor.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to review the Housing Element for final approval on May 20.

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