Carpinteria is well on track to complete its Housing Element drafting process, proving to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) that it could accommodate the state-allocated figure of 901 housing units over the next eight-year cycle from 2023 to 2031.
While the number is one of the smaller chunks of the countywide Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA, pronounced "ree-na") of 24,856 units — for comparison, Goleta must account for 1,837, and Santa Barbara needs to find a way to accommodate 8,001 units — Carpinteria’s challenge is how to account for more than five times as many units as the previous cycle.
During the last cycle — the fifth California Housing Element cycle — Santa Barbara County was allocated just more than 11,000 units, and Carpinteria’s portion was 163. But during this upcoming sixth cycle, the county number more than doubled, forcing city leaders to consider how to accommodate for more units than ever before.