Housing Element Update

East Palo Alto 2023-2031 Housing Element

The Housing Element is a chapter of the City’s Vista 2035 General Plan and covers the planning period from 2023-2031. It is required to be approved by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). As required by state law, the Housing Element includes policies and programs to preserve and rehabilitate existing housing units and identifies sites (referred to the Regional Housing Needs Allocation or “RHNA”) to accommodate the City's future residential needs. The Housing Element also includes an Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) assessment with policies and programs to address fair housing and equity issues.

The City of East Palo Alto's Housing Element was certified on April 19, 2024.

Housing Element Adoption

The East Palo Alto City Council initially adopted the 2023-2031 Housing Element on February 21, 2023. Following adoption and subsequent review by HCD, revisions were determined to be necessary in order to obtain HCD approval of the Housing Element. On February 20, 2024, HCD found the Revised Housing Element to be in substantial compliance with California’s Housing Element Law pending adoption of the revised document by the City Council.

On April 29, 2024, HCD approved and certified the Revised Housing Element finding that it is substantially compliant with Housing Element Law.

On March 19, 2024, the City Council adopted the Revised Housing Element and the document was transmitted to HCD for final approval.

On March 11, 2024, the Planning Commission approved the General Plan Amendment findings and recommended that the City Council adopt the Revised Housing Element.

Additionally, on February 6, 2024, the City Council adopted a Five-Year Affordable Housing Strategy (2024-2028) that provides further direction for implementing the policies, programs, and numerical targets in the Revised Housing Element.

For any inquiries or questions, please email housing@cityofepa.org and include the subject line "Housing Element.”

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Every eight years, jurisdictions throughout California update their Housing Element. The Housing Element is a chapter of the city's General Plan that contains a plan for how to meet the City's housing production target (Regional Housing Needs Assessment, or RHNA) housing policies and programs to meet the community's housing need. The Housing Element update is a multi-year community process. The Housing Element update takes place in parallel with each new RHNA cycle, a timeframe that starts when jurisdictions receive their state-mandated RHNA allocation. To view the City's previous 2025–2023 Housing Element (for the RHNA 5 cycle), click here. The new RHNA cycle, RHNA Cycle 6, began in 2023.