A new report from by the office of State Auditor Elaine Howle criticizes California’s procedures for managing and promoting construction of new affordable housing across the board, blaming lengthy approval processes and a lack of enforcement for local jurisdictions issuing just 11 percent of building permits as of June 2019.
The four agencies specifically named in the report are the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), California Housing Finance Agency, California Tax Credit Allocation Committee and the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC). Much of the audit centered on the role of HCD, which is required under state law to develop and publish the state’s housing plan every four years. The report found that the agency’s most recent plan in 2018 failed to account for how state financial resources would be used. A lack of a cohesive plan allowed CDLAC to let $2.7 billion in bond authority expire with little scrutiny.
