Have a Look at the City's Housing and Jobs Projections

Anybody paying close attention to mandated housing needs in Novato might want to check out the attached document being circulated by Marin County officials. There are some interesting predictions about how this city will change in the next 30 years.

At the March 20 meeting of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, the Community Development Agency presented an assessment of the Association of Bay Area Governments' Draft Jobs-Housing Connection Scenario and Draft Regional Housing Needs Allocation (what people commonly refer to as RHNA or "reena numbers"). Both processes relate to state legislative mandates to plan for growth in the Bay Area in a sustainable and equitable manner.

Supervisors Judy Arnold and Steve Kinsey, who represent Novato residents on the board, requested the update. Novato went through a traumatic housing debate in 2010-11 because of its general plan update requires the pinpointing of properties that could be future locations for housing sites, including some low-income, high-density units. Hundreds of residents spoke out against zoning for such housing developments in their neighborhoods.

The Jobs-Housing Connection is the latest strategy from ABAG and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The scenario shows the Bay Area adding 700,000 households and 1.1 million jobs by 2040. In Marin, the projection is 11,000 new households, including 890 in Novato. ABAG estimates Novato will have 3,390 new jobs in that time span.

Marin has the lowest job and housing growth forecasts in the Bay Area, but households in the county are expected to increase by 11 percent over 2010 levels over the next 30 years.

While ABAG reduced some growth estimates in this latest scenario, projected job growth for Marin may still be overly ambitious, county officials said. The supervisors agreed that the projections of housing, populations and economics are problematic and in flux, and requested that staff prepare a letter to ABAG calling for an independent peer review of regional jobs projections, and possibly include a local jobs analysis to support staff’s comments.

Do you think the numbers will pan out? Share a comment below.