4.1 Introduction

The Plan Bay Area 2050 Final Blueprint forecasts that the nine-county within the Bay Area will add 1.4 million new households between 2015 and 2050. For the eight-year time frame covered by this Housing Element Update, the HCD has identified the region’s housing need as 441,176 units. As introduced in previous chapters, the total number of housing units assigned by HCD is separated into four income categories that cover housing types for all income levels, from very low-income households to market rate housing. This calculation, known as the RHNA is based on population projections produced by the California Department of Finance as well as adjustments that incorporate the region’s existing housing need. The adjustments result from recent legislation requiring HCD to apply additional adjustment factors to the baseline growth projection from California Department of Finance, in order for the regions to get closer to healthy housing markets. To this end, adjustments focus on the region’s vacancy rate, level of overcrowding and the share of cost burdened households, and seek to bring the region more in line with comparable ones. These new laws governing the methodology for how HCD calculates the RHNA resulted in a significantly higher number of housing units for which the Bay Area must plan compared to previous cycles.