The City of Beverly Hills currently faces the daunting goal of enabling construction of 3,096 units of housing in a City of slightly less than 34,000 residents. This number, known as the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA), and the methodology behind it have become a source of contention in Beverly Hills and other cities in California who say that Sacramento has set impossible housing expectations for them. At the Dec. 1 Regular Meeting, the Beverly Hills City Council unanimously ratified a letter to the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) requesting a special closed meeting of the SCAG Regional Council. The letter points to data that contradicts the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and suggests a much lower housing need in the State. The special closed meeting would consider the possibility of SCAG launching a legal challenge against the HCD in an effort to reevaluate the housing burden across the State.
“In analyzing information provided in September 2020 by Freddie Mac and the Embarcadero Institute, it is clear HCD’s determination of the overall housing shortage in California is flawed,” the letter, written by City Manager George Chavez, says. “For these reasons, the City of Beverly Hills supports a special closed meeting of the SCAG Regional Council be convened in order to discuss the RHNA Litigation Committee’s recommendation.”
