State Housing Mandates FAQ

Yes. Since 1969, California has required each city and county to plan for its share of the state’s housing needs at all levels of affordability. Through the State’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process, each local jurisdiction is assigned a number of new housing units that its land use policies must support. The RHNA allocation occurs every eight years and, in the Bay Area, the allocation is managed by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the regional planning agency. The purpose is to assign each local jurisdiction with its “fair share” of regional housing needs. Once cities and counties have received their RHNA allocation, they must adopt programs and policies to support development of the new housing units they have been assigned. This planning is done by updating their General Plan Housing Element, which is subject to detailed statutory requirements as well as mandatory review and approval by the State’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). The most recent Housing Element covers the period 2023-2031.

California’s housing laws and policies have changed substantially in recent years to boost overall housing production and supply at all affordability levels. Concurrently, the estimate of the state’s existing and projected housing needs has grown significantly. In 2021, the state determined that the Bay Area must plan for 441,176 new housing units between 2023-2031, compared to 187,800 housing units identified in the prior eight-year planning period.

Based on the state’s projection of the Bay Area’s housing needs, ABAG pegged Sausalito’s allocation at 724 new housing units, more than nine times the 79 units assigned in the previous eight-year housing element cycle. The allocation is based on regional population and growth assumptions, and accounts for prospective development sites as well as Sausalito’s proximity to employment centers. The allocation does not consider a city or county’s actual capacity for growth, availability of water and sewer to serve new growth, school capacity to serve new growth or constraints to growth, including natural disasters such as wildfire, emergency evacuation, flooding and landslides.

Yes. In 2021, Sausalito was one of 28 Bay Area jurisdictions that appealed its RHNA allocation to ABAG, citing "significant physical and environmental barriers to housing production.” Sausalito’s appeal to ABAG was directed by the City Council and signed by the city manager. The appeal maintained that an allocation of 125 or 145 units, almost all in the low or very low-income categories, would be a more appropriate target. All 28 appeals to ABAG – including Sausalito’s – were denied, with the exception that the County of Contra Costa’s appeal was partially granted.

Of the 724 new housing units allocated to Sausalito:

• 200 are to be affordable for very-low income (0-50% of Area Median Income)
• 115 are to be affordable for low income (50-80% of Area Median Income)
• 114 are to be afford for moderate income (80-120% of Area Median Income)
• 295 are to be above moderate Income (120% or more of Area Median Income)

The Sausalito City Council adopted the 2023-2031 Housing Element in January 2023 as an update to the city’s General Plan. The State Department of Housing and Community Development approved the document in April 2023. As required, the document establishes goals, policies, and identifies future actions to address the city’s existing and projected housing needs, including the special housing needs of segments of the population. Per state law, Sausalito’s Housing Element identifies a sufficient number of undeveloped or underdeveloped sites – termed opportunity sites – to accommodate the city’s housing allocation. The Housing Element reflects input from City Council and Planning Commission study sessions, as well as feedback from the Housing Element Advisory Committee, community workshops and surveys, and public hearings. The required inventory of potential housing sites has the capacity to accommodate 908 housing units vs. Sausalito’s RHNA allocation of 724. The additional capacity provides a buffer if sites are not developed with the projected amount of very low, low and moderate-income housing.

The City of Sausalito is now in the process of amending its adopted Housing Element to ensure that the City is prepared to meet the future housing needs of Sausalito for the planning period from 2023 through 2031 while ensuring and prioritizing the preservation of the City’s historic district and sustainable waterfront development. The draft amendments reduce densities and scale on some sites (and eliminating an unworkable site owned by Caltrans) while adding and re-allocating densities to other sites to assure Sausalito can continue to meet its required housing allocation.

The adopted Housing Element contains a number of programs and policies to provide Sausalito with the development opportunities necessary to meet its RHNA mandate by 2031. These programs and policies include the identification of 48 parcels as housing opportunities sites for residential development at higher maximum and minimum densities. They also include, per state law: streamlining and simplifying the processing of residential development applications; limiting the number of hearings per project; and ensuring that objective standards and findings are applied to residential project applications, among other provisions.

Yes. To meet Sausalito’s assigned RHNA allocation, the adopted Housing Element identifies 48 parcels as housing opportunity sites. These parcels require rezoning to higher minimum and maximum residential development to generate the required new housing units. Many of these sites can be rezoned with a vote by the City Council; however, some are subject to local Ordinance 1022 (the Fair Traffic Initiative, which restricts changes to allowable floor area ratio and residential uses) and one opportunity site, the Martin Luther King Jr. site, is subject to Ordinance 1128, which restricts changes to the use of public parks. Rezoning of opportunity sites affected by the two local ordinances requires a vote of the electorate.

Sausalito has proposed a two-phase adoption of the proposed zoning changes. A number of the opportunity sites are not subject to restrictions under initiatives and do not require a vote of the electorate to rezone. The rezoning of these sites can be approved by a vote of the City Council. The rezoning of the remaining sites (final sites to be verified in the amended Housing Element based on Council decision), which are zoned industrial, waterfront or commercial, is to occur in conjunction with a public vote in late 2024 to amend Ordinances 1022 and 1128.

Should voters not approve the programs of rezoning identified in the Housing Element, the city could face some or all of the following: (1) the State Department of Housing and Community Development determines the city is substantially out of compliance with Housing Element law until rezoning is completed, and the city becomes subject to the Builder’s Remedy in the Housing Accountability Act; (2) the City is required to modify its Housing Element to identify alternative programs of rezoning that do not require voter approval, or (3) the city becomes subject to a court order requiring it to adopt necessary zoning changes to meet its RHNA without obtaining voter approval.

The limits imposed by State law apply to net new construction of 2+ housing units. 

• Net new construction of 2+ market-rate housing units: The city may not deny or reduce the density of the project so long as it is consistent with adopted Objective Design and Development Standards, unless the project creates a “specific, adverse impact” on health or safety that cannot be mitigated. The city can impose reasonable discretionary design conditions provided they do not have the effect of denying the project or reducing its density. The city must make additional findings to deny a project containing 20 percent lower-income units or 100 percent moderate-income units.
• Net new construction of 2+ multifamily housing units which meet specified standards in various state laws: The city is limited to “streamlined, ministerial” review, with no environmental review, based solely on its adopted Objective Design and Development Standards.
• Net new construction of 5+ housing units meeting certain affordability thresholds, or units restricted to senior citizens: The State Density Bonus Law entitles qualifying applicants to increased density (up to 100 percent, depending on affordability), unlimited waivers of development standards, and one to five “incentives and concessions” that reduce development costs. Consequently, in some cases, the city may lack the ability to apply its objective design and development standards to projects qualifying under the State Density Bonus Law.

State law requires cities to establish Objective Design and Development Standards (ODDS) that can be uniformly applied without involving personal or subjective judgment by public officials or decision makers. In response, Sausalito is working to create ODDS that assure that new multi-unit buildings are in alignment with the city’s character. The ODDS are only to be applied to properties that are currently zoned multi-family, commercial or public institution and would not be applicable to a single-family zoned property.

The standards are in draft form. A study session on the draft ODDS and proposed zoning amendment was held at a January 15, 2025, Planning Commission meeting. City staff anticipates holding hearings before the City Council in the coming months for adoption of the ODDS and phase one of the zoning ordinance amendment. Information on the public hearings, when available, will be posted of the Sausalito web page, under City Council Meetings and Agendas as well as on the Community Development web page, under Public Notices.

The new standards must be objective. At its January 16, 2024 study session on the Draft EIR for the Housing Element, the City Council asked whether view preservation standards were incorporated into the draft ODDS. A subcommittee of the Planning Commission, staff and outside consultants have researched and discussed potential means of objectifying view preservation standards and have yet to proposed specific criteria that were most recently heard at the January 15, 2025, Planning Commission meeting.

Similarly, questions were also raised about historic preservation standards at the City Council’s study session on January 16, 2024. The topic was also discussed by the Historic Preservation Commission and the Planning Commission. Both the city’s current historic preservation criteria and the standards outlined in the U.S. Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation rely on subjective judgment. As such, the city’s Historic Preservation Commission recommended the ODDS not include detailed architectural design standards specifying design styles of various historic reference. At its March 19, 2024, study session, the City Council asked staff to continue to pursue acceptable objective historic preservation standards and to further research state law that applies to the protection of historically significant resources. These were most recently discussed at the January 15, 2025, Planning Commission meeting.

Most new residential development will be subject to the ODDS, once adopted, depending on when the application is made. However, residential development applications that qualify under the State Density Bonus Law are eligible for unlimited waivers of development standards, unless the waiver would violate state or federal law, create an adverse impact on an historic structure, or create a “specific, adverse impact” on public health and safety. In many instances, the city may not be able to apply the ODDS to a project that contains affordable units.

Until the rezoning and ODDS are adopted, residential development proposed on sites identified in the city’s Housing Element are subject to the city’s existing Municipal Code and current zoning unless they contain 20 percent lower-income housing or 100 percent moderate-income housing, in which case the state Housing Accountability Act requires the city to allow densities consistent with the Housing Element.

The actions that are projected to come before the City Council in the coming months related to state housing laws are:

• Adoption of the Final Environmental Impact Report for Housing Element Programs
• Adoption of the amended Housing Element
• Consideration and adoption of zoning amendments and placement of a measure on the ballot to amend local Ordinance 1122 and Ordinance 1128
• Consideration and adoption of Objective Design and Development Standards

To obtain information about any development proposal that has been submitted to the city, please go to the Planning Division web page:  https://www.sausalito.gov/departments/community-development/planning-divisionand its current projects page.

The most effective way to provide feedback is to contact state legislators. Both Assemblymember Damon Connolly and State Senator Mike McGuire represent Sausalito.

To learn more about the City of Sausalito's 2023-2031 Adopted 6th Cycle Housing Element, please visit our Adopted Housing Element webpage.