| Agency Name: | Department of Housing and Community Development |
| Type: | Department |
| Seal: | California Department of Housing and Community Development seal.png |
| Jurisdiction: | Government of California |
| Headquarters: | 2020 W El Camino Ave. Sacramento, CA |
| Chief1 Name: | Gustavo Velasquez |
| Chief1 Position: | Director |
| Parent Agency: | California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency |
The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is a department within the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency 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.[1]
The HCD was created on 17 September 1965.[2] 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.[3] It inherited the housing portion of the Division of Immigration and Housing of the Californian Department of Industrial Relations.
In addition to the California Housing Finance Agency, the Department is assisted by a Disability Advisory Committee.
The HCD Housing Assistance Program (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 Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990.
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.[4] [5] [6]
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.
Since the passage of AB 72 in 2017, the HCD has been granted express enforcement authority with respect to four statutes: the HAA, State Density Bonus Law, fair housing law (Section 65008 of the Government Code) and the "no net loss" requirements for replacing housing element sites that are not developed as projected (Section 65863 of the Government Code). Other bills were passed to similar effect in the following years, including SB 35 (2017), SB 330 (2019) and AB 2011 (2022).
As of the signing of AB 434 in 2023, the HCD is empowered to enforce the streamlining of HOME Act (SB 9) 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) and AB 1218 (2023), and requires the department to notify both a local government and the Attorney General of the local government's specified violation of the aforementioned laws as well as need for enforcement.[7] [8]