California Department of Housing and Community Development

The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is a department within the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (BCSH) that develops housing policy and building codes (i.e. the California Building Standards Code), regulates manufactured homes and mobile home parks, and administers housing finance, economic development and community development programs.

Department of Housing and Community Development

Department overview
Formed	September 17, 1965; 59 years ago (1965-09-17)
Jurisdiction	Government of California
Headquarters	2020 W El Camino Ave. Sacramento, CA
Department executive	Gustavo Velasquez, Director
Parent Department	California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency
Website	hcd.ca.gov

History

The HCD was created on 17 September 1965. The Zenovich–Moscone–Chacon Housing and Home Finance Act of 1975 permanently established and reorganized the HCD, as well as created the California Housing Finance Agency. It inherited the housing portion of the Division of Immigration and Housing of the Californian Department of Industrial Relations. The HCD was brought under the BCSH in 2012.

In 2025, as part of the reorganization of the BCSH within the budget, Governor Gavin Newsom proposed spinning off the Department, along with the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, California Housing Finance Agency and the Civil Rights Department, into a separate cabinet-level superagency, the California Housing and Homelessness Agency (CHHA), as well as the creation of a Housing Development and Finance Committee (HDFC) within the agency to streamline policies on affordable housing funds. The Terner Center for Housing and Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley assessed the proposal as a potential improvement over the fragmentation and bureaucracy of housing finance in the state government, but viewed the exclusion of two tax credit award agencies (the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (TCAC) and California Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC)) from the proposal as a potential impediment.

Structure

In addition to the California Housing Finance Agency, the Department is assisted by a Disability Advisory Committee.

Programs

Funding and housing management

The HCD (HAP) acts as the local housing authority for 12 rural counties: Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Colusa, Glenn, Inyo, Modoc, Mono, Sierra, Siskiyou, Trinity, and Tuolumne. One of the primary purposes of housing authorities is to manage Section 8 housing, but other activities include Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) entitlements and HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME) funding. The HCD has administered CDBG program for non-entitlement cities and counties (cities and counties under a specified population level that do not automatically receive CDBG funds directly from the federal government) since 1983, and administers HOME funding for cities and counties that do not receive HOME allocations directly from the federal government since the of 1990.

Streamlining of zoning reform

Since the passage of AB 2853 in 1980, the HCD has been empowered to review housing elements drafted by each region's Council of Governments through the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA), which must be adopted by the jurisdiction which is then responsible for ensuring there are enough sites and proper zoning to accommodate its RHNA allocation.

Several state laws have been passed since 2016 to streamline the construction of housing statewide, many of which have increased the enforcement authority of the HCD to notify the California Department of Justice regarding violations of said laws by local governments.

As of 2024, the HCD is required to notify the Attorney General and an offending local agency of that local agency's violation of any of the following laws:

• Housing Element Law
• HAA (1982)
• State Density Bonus Law (1979)
• fair housing law (Section 65008 of the Government Code)
• the "no net loss" requirements for replacing housing element sites that are not developed as projected (Section 65863 of the Government Code).
• Permit Streamlining Act (1977)
• Surplus Lands Act (1968)
• The Rental Inclusionary Zoning policies of AB 1505 (2017)
• SB 35 (2017)
• SB 330 (2019)
• AB 2011 (2022)
• HOME Act (SB 9, 2021) projects concerning ministerial processing of lot splits in single-family residential zones, along with the streamlining of projects which fall under the
• ADU law
• SB 6 (2022)
• SB 4 (2023)
• SB 684 (2023)
• AB 1218 (2023)
• Housing Crisis Act (2019)
• AFFH policies (AB 686, 2018)
• Permanent Supportive Housing streamlining (AB 2162, 2018)
• Low Barrier Navigation Center streamlining (AB 101, 2019)

See also

• United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
• California Housing Finance Agency

References

1. "Governor's Budget - 2240 Dept of Housing & Community Development". California Department of Finance. Archived from the original on 24 August 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2012.
2. California Statutes of 1965 (Vol. 3), Chapter 1222, signed on 14 July 1965
3. California Statutes 1975 1st Ex. Sess. (Vol. 2), Ch. 1, pg. 3855
4. "BCSH - Reorganization". bcsh.ca.gov. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
5. "CSAC Supports Proposed Reorg to Create State Agency Focused on Housing and Homelessness". California State Association of Counties. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
6. "GRP 1: Governor's reorganization plan: reorganization of executive branch of state government. | Digital Democracy". calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
7. "Definitions". Statewide Housing Plan. California Department of Housing & Community Development. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
8. "Regional Housing Needs FAQ". SCAG. Southern California Association of Governments. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
9. "Frequently Asked Questions about RHNA" (PDF). Regional Housing Needs Allocation. Association of Bay Area Governments. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
10. "California's 2024 Housing Laws: What You Need to Know | Insights | Holland & Knight". www.hklaw.com. Retrieved 2024-11-28.
11. "Accountability and Enforcement | California Department of Housing and Community Development". www.hcd.ca.gov. Retrieved 2024-12-03.

External links

• Official website
• Housing and Community Development in the California Code of Regulations