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fter an hour of debate, Herb Perez had had enough.

Perez, a councilman in the Bay Area suburb of Foster City, was tired of planning for the construction of new homes to comply with a 50-year-old state law designed to help all Californians live affordably.

Everyone knows, Perez told the crowd at a 2015 City Council meeting, that the law is a failure. It requires cities and counties to develop plans every eight years for new home building in their communities. After more than a year of work and spending nearly $50,000, Foster City had an 87-page housing plan that proposed hundreds of new homes, mapped where they would go and detailed the many ways the city could help make the construction happen. But a crucial element was missing: Foster City was never going to approve all the building called for in the voluminous proposal, Perez said.

“What I’m seeing here is an elaborate shell game,” Perez said. “Because we’re kind of lying. It’s the only word I can come up with. We have no intention of actually building the units.”

“We’re kind of lying”: Foster City city councilman says his city won’t approve the homebuilding it’s planning for

Perez’s prediction came true. Despite soaring demand for housing in the Bay Area, the city hasn’t approved any new development projects in more than five years.

Foster City’s experience is shared by governments across California: The law requires cities and counties to produce prodigious reports to plan for housing — but it doesn’t hold them accountable for any resulting home building.

The law, passed in 1967, is the state’s primary tool to encourage housing development and address a statewide shortage of homes that drives California’s affordability problems.

Now, a bill from Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would, for the first time, force cities and counties that have fallen behind on their housing goals to take steps to eliminate some of the hurdles they put in front of development, such as multiple planning reviews for individual projects. Wiener’s legislation passed the state Senate this month and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly as part of a package of bills aimed at addressing the state’s housing problems.

“ The law has been completely ineffective at addressing the issue of housing affordability. ” —Paavo Monkkonen, UCLA professor Share this quote

“The system is so broken,” Wiener said. “It gives the public a false sense that a step has been taken toward having more housing when in fact it’s just an illusion.”

One of the main criticisms of the law is that it hasn’t spurred enough new home building. Fewer than half of the 1.5 million new homes the law said developers would need to build over eight years leading up to 2014 — the law’s most recent reporting period — were built.

In addition, state officials don’t know if cities and counties have met their housing goals. Local governments are supposed to give the state information on home building each year, but many don’t. As a result, there is no reliable measure of how many houses are being built in California for low-, middle- and upper-income residents.

State lawmakers have known about the law’s weaknesses for decades but haven’t fixed them. They have added dozens of new planning requirements to the process but have not provided any incentive, such as a greater share of tax dollars, for local governments to meet their housing goals.

“The law has been completely ineffective at addressing the issue of housing affordability,” said Paavo Monkkonen, an associate professor of urban planning at UCLA. “If anything, it’s a waste of people’s time.”

Prison beds and student dormitories count as low-income housing?

California’s housing affordability troubles have contributed to the state’s poverty rate, which is the highest in the nation. It also has burdened millions with high rents and, according to a recent study by the McKinsey Global Institute, created a more than $100-billion annual drag on the state economy by lowering disposable incomes and limiting construction jobs.

Ben Metcalf, the state’s top housing official, has said the affordability problems are as bad as they’ve ever been in California’s history. And the state is expected to add an additional 6.5 million people over the next two decades.

The primary driver of the affordability problem is a lack of home building. Developers in California need to roughly double the 100,000 homes they build each year to stabilize housing costs, according to the McKinsey study and reports from the state Department of Housing and Community Development and nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

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Home construction depends on complex factors including the cost of land, materials and labor, the availability of financing for developers and interest rates on mortgages for homeowners. But decisions made by California’s cities and counties are important, too, and many of those local governments have made it even more difficult to build new housing.

More than two-thirds of California’s coastal communities have adopted measures — such as caps on population or housing growth, or building height limits — aimed at limiting residential development, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. A UC Berkeley study of California’s local land-use regulations found that every growth-control policy a city puts in place raises housing costs by as much as 5% there.

The housing supply law, known formally as the “housing element,” is supposed to help knock down local barriers to development by requiring cities to plan for new housing that would accommodate children born in California and people expected to relocate to the state. Over an eight-year period, state officials send estimates of housing needed to meet projected population growth to 19 regional agencies, including the Southern California Assn. of Governments in the Los Angeles area.

These agencies outline how many new homes are needed across four income levels: very low, low, moderate and above-moderate. So, in theory, all cities and counties would receive their fair share of growth. Local governments must show they’ve zoned enough land for the new housing — and the state must sign off on those plans. But the state doesn’t hold cities accountable for the goals they set, and the plans are often ignored.

Even so, city and county officials resent the law, arguing it unfairly takes away their power over development in their communities. To avoid complying, local governments have over the years asked state lawmakers to, among other things, count prison beds and student dormitories as low-income housing and allow cities that place foster children in their communities to reduce the number of low-income homes they need to plan for.

In one case, La Habra Heights, in Los Angeles County, asked that it be exempted from the law because the city was too hilly for apartment complexes.

‘People want to be with people who are like them’

At the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, the affluent bedroom community of La Cañada Flintridge has few apartment or condominium complexes — and many of the city’s 20,000 residents and public officials want to keep it that way.

Four years ago, city leaders wrote a plan to make room for multifamily housing in several sections of the city. But, to discourage developers, they chose areas already occupied by single-family homes and, in one case, a big-box retailer. As a result, developers would have needed to buy up the homes one by one or, in the case of the retailer, purchase the commercial real estate and force the store out. In devising the plan, city officials assured concerned residents that it would be prohibitively expensive for developers.

“ People like people of their own tribe. I think the attempt to change it is ludicrous. ” —Herand Der Sarkissian, a former La Cañada Flintridge planning commissioner Share this quote

“Everybody on this dais and that’s here is on the same page,” Planning Commission Chairman Rick Gunter told the audience at a November 2013 hearing on the housing plan. “We like living here. We like the way it is now.”

Herand Der Sarkissian, a former La Cañada Flintridge planning commissioner who approved the city’s housing plan, said in an interview it didn’t make sense for the state to try to force low-income housing into La Cañada Flintridge because the city’s high land costs made it fiscally irresponsible. He added that any state efforts to integrate housing of all income levels into wealthy communities are doomed.

“People like people of their own tribe,” Der Sarkissian said. “I think the attempt to change it is ludicrous. Be it black, be it white. People want to be with people who are like them. To force people through legislation to change in that way is impractical.”

None of the multifamily housing called for in the La Cañada Flintridge housing plan has been built.

In Redondo Beach, officials told the state in 2014 they would work toward the city’s housing goal by supporting a proposed commercial and residential development with 180 apartments — nine of them reserved for very poor families — to replace a run-down strip mall and parking lot along the Pacific Coast Highway. The city zoned the land for that amount of housing.

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But in numerous hearings over the next two years, planning commissioners and council members argued the development was too big, and the city ultimately approved 115 apartments with none set aside for low-income residents. The developer has since sued Redondo Beach and the project remains in limbo.

La Cañada Flintridge and Redondo Beach did not report housing construction data to the state from 2006 to ‘14. Some new homes were built in both cities, according to permit information, but far fewer than were outlined in the cities’ plans over that period.

These and similar examples across California show that the housing law is a “complete farce,” Wiener said. His legislation would do away with some planning reviews that are often levied on projects in cities that haven’t kept pace with their housing goals.

“Many local communities basically run a scam where they spend all sorts of time — lots of public hearings, lots of public discussion — and then it’s over and you have this collection of paper sitting on a shelf,” Wiener said. “It doesn’t result in any additional housing.”

‘With this living situation, I can’t even think of having children right now’

Sandwiched between wealthier communities to the north and south and more industrial areas to the east, the coastal Los Angeles County city of Torrance has swaths of single-family neighborhoods and lots of land for commercial and industrial business.

“A city should be allowed to say we’re full”: Torrance city councilman argues against new homebuilding

“At some point, a city should be allowed to say we’re full,” Bill Sutherland, then a Torrance city councilman, grumbled before voting for the city’s most recent housing plan in 2013. “I think we are actually at that point.”

Torrance’s growth has slowed. Less than half of 1,828 houses called for in the city’s previous housing plan were built, according to construction permit data.

The lack of home building has had consequences.

Nearly 40% of Torrance’s 147,000 residents now pay more than 30% of their incomes on housing, according to federal data. In 2014, Toyota Motor Corp. decided to relocate its North American headquarters — and 3,000 jobs — from Torrance to Plano, Texas, citing as one factor the Lone Star State’s lower cost of living.

High costs have left housing in Torrance out of reach for Azucena Gutierrez and other workers in the city.

Every weekday, Gutierrez goes into Torrance homes to teach prenatal and infant care to new and expectant parents. Gutierrez, 38, earns less than $15 an hour.

She lives in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood, crowding into a two-bedroom apartment with her husband, who is a substitute teacher, their 14-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. Steep housing costs have forced Gutierrez’s older sister to move in with them too.

Gutierrez would like to live near her job and for her children to attend Torrance’s better rated schools. But the $1,600-a-month rent she saw advertised for a one-bedroom apartment in Torrance was more than the $1,500 she pays now for more room across town.

Azucena Gutierrez, 38, leaves her home before sunrise in Boyle Heights and heads to her job in Torrance. Gutierrez lives with her husband, children and sister and pays $1,500 a month for her two-bedroom apartment. A one-bedroom in Torrance would cost her $1,600 per month. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

“I waste a lot of time in traffic,” Gutierrez said. “Time, I can’t get it back. I’m spending close to two hours driving every day. That’s 10 hours [a week] I could be spending with my family.”

Gutierrez’s colleagues share her struggles. Georgina Romero, 28, makes $13.50 an hour teaching toddlers and pays $600 a month to live with her boyfriend, mother, two younger siblings and her sister’s boyfriend in a three-bedroom house in Watts.

She moved there in March to help her mother with her housing costs. Before that, Romero paid $300 a month to live with her boyfriend in a 400-square-foot garage behind his parents’ house in Lawndale.

“I would love to have children,” Romero said. “But with this living situation, I can’t even think of having children right now. I don’t feel like I’m stable enough.”

Georgina Romero, 28, used to live with her boyfriend in a garage behind his parents’ home in Lawndale. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) Romero works at a head start office in Torrance and said she wants children but doesn’t feel stable enough in her living situation. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Torrance Mayor Patrick Furey said he’s sympathetic to those who can’t afford to live in his city. But, he added, Torrance shouldn’t have to make changes to the character of its neighborhoods to accommodate new housing.

Instead of Torrance, he said, nearby cities should take on the needed growth.

“You won’t have the ZIP Code you want,” Furey said, “but it’s close enough.”

‘No intention of facing up to housing responsibilities’

The state’s housing law faced problems from the start.

In 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the law, which had a simple goal: Cities and counties would have to plan “for the housing needs of all economic segments of the community.” But just five months after the first plans were due in July 1969, state officials realized local governments were ignoring the law, with a report warning about “discouraging indications” that a number of communities had “no intention of facing up to housing responsibilities.”

Over the years, legislators passed numerous bills adding detailed rules to local government housing plans. But things only got worse.

Torrance workers struggle to find nearby housing

By 1993, the law’s increased paperwork requirements turned it into “an energy- and money-guzzling bureaucratic maze,” said Timothy Coyle, then-director of the Department of Housing and Community Development, at a legislative oversight hearing that year. He called the law “broken” because it did nothing to encourage cities to permit more homes.

Coyle said in a recent interview that the law “was destined to fail.”

Today, the state lacks basic information on the law’s effectiveness. More than a quarter of California’s 539 cities and counties failed to tell the state how many homes were built within their boundaries over the eight-year period leading up to 2014, according to a Times review of housing department data.

Wiener’s legislation would require all cities and counties to turn in home-building data and remove some of their ability to review and block new development if they fall behind their housing goals.

Gov. Jerry Brown has also said he’d also support tying state financial aid to whether local governments met their housing goals. Still, if the state plans to hold cities and counties accountable for meeting those targets, the targets themselves might require reevaluation.

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Bay Area counties are on track to meet their overall home-building goals for the eight-year reporting period ending in 2023, the Legislative Analyst’s Office found recently.

But developers aren’t building nearly enough homes to affect affordability, the analyst’s office also said. The Bay Area has added half a million more jobs than houses since 2011, and other fast-growing parts of the country — around Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore.; and Raleigh, N.C. — are building homes at more than twice the rate of the Bay Area.

Perez, the Foster City councilman, believes the state is ignoring the housing law’s problems.

Developers have built more than 500 homes in Foster City since the council approved its housing plan in 2015, a number that already exceeds the new houses called for under the plan through 2023.

But all those new homes came from projects approved before 2012 that home builders are just now putting on the market. And the city has turned away other developers interested in building housing where the city’s plan said they could, Perez said.

Since early 2015, Foster City’s median home value has increased 13% to a record $1.5 million, more than seven times the national average.

Perez believes state politicians should hold cities accountable for approving new housing projects by providing money to local governments that do, and penalizing those that don’t. Otherwise, he said, cities will continue to act as he said Foster City did — signing off on plans to appease state regulators but blocking housing from being built.

“I think the most important part of this is that there’s complicity on the part of the state,” Perez said. “They created this fake thing that they know no one has any intention of doing, and then they say they’ve done something about housing.”

How many homes were built in your city? Less than half the new homes called for in California’s most recent eight-year housing plan, which ended in 2014, were built, according to permit data from the construction industry. See how building stacked up compared to state targets, and whether cities and counties reported their homebuilding to state regulators. City or county New homes built/needed Percentage met of housing goal Data sent to state Alameda 259 / 2046 Albany 123 / 276 Berkeley 2097 / 2431 Dublin 3666 / 3330 Emeryville 1277 / 1137 Fremont 2531 / 4380 Hayward 2226 / 3393 Livermore 809 / 3394 Newark 307 / 863 Oakland 3540 / 14629 Piedmont 367 / 40 Pleasanton 925 / 3277 San Leandro 256 / 1630 Union City 793 / 1944 Unincorporated Alameda County 595 / 2167 Alpine County 62 / 68 Amador City 1 / 13 Ione 175 / 228 Jackson 20 / 261 Plymouth 1 / 67 Sutter Creek 19 / 189 Unincorporated Amador County 338 / 1413 Biggs 0 / 155 Chico 2104 / 5716 Gridley 59 / 1068 Oroville 300 / 2363 Paradise 189 / 1240 Unincorporated Butte County 1351 / 3402 Angels 30 / 201 Unincorporated Calaveras County 647 / 2344 Colusa 104 / 523 Williams 82 / 468 Unincorporated Colusa County 147 / 902 Antioch 1194 / 2282 Brentwood 1952 / 2705 Clayton 16 / 151 Concord 238 / 3043 Danville 266 / 583 El Cerrito 77 / 431 Hercules 188 / 453 Lafayette 230 / 361 Martinez 146 / 1060 Moraga 201 / 234 Oakley 1584 / 775 Orinda 215 / 218 Pinole 143 / 323 Pittsburg 1635 / 1772 Pleasant Hill 66 / 628 Richmond 501 / 2826 San Pablo 134 / 298 San Ramon 650 / 3463 Walnut Creek 951 / 1958 Unincorporated Contra Costa County 4791 / 3508 Crescent City 54 / 314 Unincorporated Del Norte County 375 / 1569 Placerville 132 / 388 South Lake Tahoe 517 / 218 Unincorporated El Dorado County 2946 / 8044 Clovis 4659 / 15383 Coalinga 153 / 114 Firebaugh 203 / 380 Fowler 345 / 551 Fresno 12616 / 20967 Huron 152 / 476 Kerman 600 / 2425 Kingsburg 149 / 1213 Mendota 244 / 359 Orange Cove 307 / 781 Parlier 296 / 640 Reedley 683 / 1350 San Joaquin 91 / 200 Sanger 584 / 2351 Selma 477 / 2167 Unincorporated Fresno County 1518 / 2784 Orland 233 / 621 Willows 122 / 487 Unincorporated Glenn County 125 / 1108 Arcata 216 / 811 Blue Lake 19 / 20 Eureka 104 / 880 Ferndale 9 / 52 Fortuna 127 / 586 Rio Dell 38 / 138 Trinidad 252 / 11 Unincorporated Humboldt County 1102 / 2249 Brawley 661 / 3088 Calexico 604 / 2498 Calipatria 103 / 202 El Centro 598 / 2908 Holtville 7 / 139 Imperial 1731 / 1810 Westmorland 23 / 256 Unincorporated Imperial County 1145 / 13426 Bishop 15 / 110 Unincorporated Inyo County 50 / 457 Arvin 782 / 532 Bakersfield 13148 / 27252 California City 957 / 407 Delano 581 / 1817 Maricopa 19 / 16 McFarland 537 / 775 Ridgecrest 485 / 379 Shafter 594 / 502 Taft 29 / 62 Tehachapi 455 / 454 Wasco 1059 / 858 Unincorporated Kern County 5349 / 8586 Avenal 108 / 711 Corcoran 332 / 905 Hanford 1073 / 5758 Lemoore 747 / 3021 Unincorporated Kings County 294 / 1094 Clearlake 237 / 1228 Lakeport 65 / 430 Unincorporated Lake County 570 / 3847 Susanville 63 / 705 Unincorporated Lassen County 135 / 1333 Agoura Hills 93 / 110 Alhambra 626 / 1546 Arcadia 1123 / 2149 Artesia 171 / 132 Avalon 7 / 148 Azusa 1031 / 745 Baldwin Park 226 / 744 Bell 50 / 47 Bell Gardens 199 / 122 Bellflower 348 / 1067 Beverly Hills 577 / 554 Bradbury 30 / 35 Burbank 931 / 3786 Calabasas 231 / 521 Carson 496 / 1812 Cerritos 483 / 95 Claremont 621 / 457 Commerce 30 / 64 Compton 346 / 69 Covina 169 / 1337 Cudahy 41 / 399 Culver City 98 / 504 Diamond Bar 250 / 1090 Downey 214 / 1108 Duarte 145 / 367 El Monte 708 / 2208 El Segundo 121 / 168 Gardena 357 / 1105 Glendale 3455 / 3131 Glendora 957 / 744 Hawaiian Gardens 24 / 145 Hawthorne 1154 / 910 Hermosa Beach 335 / 562 Hidden Hills 31 / 34 Huntington Park 24 / 1013 Industry 9 / 6 Inglewood 439 / 1658 Irwindale 13 / 68 La Cañada Flintridge 126 / 235 La Habra Heights 40 / 80 La Mirada 47 / 1751 La Puente 107 / 807 La Verne 457 / 854 Lakewood 91 / 673 Lancaster 4096 / 12799 Lawndale 101 / 468 Lomita 103 / 346 Long Beach 2071 / 9583 Los Angeles 76942 / 112876 Lynwood 275 / 363 Malibu 175 / 441 Manhattan Beach 789 / 895 Maywood 50 / 22 Monrovia 416 / 567 Montebello 213 / 502 Monterey Park 429 / 1141 Norwalk 47 / 297 Palmdale 3854 / 17910 Palos Verdes Estates 128 / 72 Paramount 105 / 1017 Pasadena 2659 / 2869 Pico Rivera 85 / 855 Pomona 1039 / 3678 Rancho Palos Verdes 125 / 60 Redondo Beach 913 / 2234 Rolling Hills 25 / 22 Rolling Hills Estates 61 / 26 Rosemead 292 / 780 San Dimas 267 / 625 San Fernando 113 / 251 San Gabriel 204 / 827 San Marino 59 / 26 Santa Clarita 1536 / 9598 Santa Fe Springs 528 / 460 Santa Monica 2692 / 662 Sierra Madre 28 / 139 Signal Hill 183 / 222 South El Monte 225 / 202 South Gate 410 / 1313 South Pasadena 78 / 166 Temple City 716 / 987 Torrance 822 / 1828 Vernon 90 / 0 Walnut 332 / 587 West Covina 707 / 2461 West Hollywood 762 / 584 Westlake Village 10 / 52 Whittier 234 / 892 Unincorporated Los Angeles County 9223 / 57180 Chowchilla 247 / 1375 Madera 917 / 6298 Unincorporated Madera County 788 / 9474 Belvedere 18 / 17 Corte Madera 189 / 244 Fairfax 10 / 108 Larkspur 156 / 382 Mill Valley 206 / 292 Novato 198 / 1241 Ross 5 / 27 San Anselmo 39 / 113 San Rafael 143 / 1403 Sausalito 27 / 165 Tiburon 53 / 117 Unincorporated Marin County 249 / 773 Unincorporated Mariposa County 338 / 1084 Fort Bragg 67 / 256 Point Arena 3 / 19 Ukiah 61 / 459 Willits 115 / 209 Unincorporated Mendocino County 750 / 2552 Atwater 121 / 2381 Dos Palos 26 / 185 Gustine 55 / 202 Livingston 232 / 375 Los Banos 450 / 3000 Merced 405 / 3076 Unincorporated Merced County 818 / 7364 Alturas 4 / 41 Unincorporated Modoc County 90 / 99 Mammoth Lakes 66 / 279 Unincorporated Mono County 131 / 292 Carmel-by-the-Sea 75 / 32 Del Rey Oaks 8 / 150 Gonzales 48 / 689 Greenfield 218 / 538 King City 123 / 571 Marina 188 / 1913 Monterey 54 / 657 Pacific Grove 76 / 120 Salinas 670 / 4076 Sand City 0 / 120 Seaside 82 / 598 Soledad 534 / 897 Unincorporated Monterey County 1103 / 1554 American Canyon 264 / 728 Calistoga 29 / 94 Napa 739 / 2024 St. Helena 80 / 121 Yountville 53 / 87 Unincorporated Napa County 330 / 651 Grass Valley 179 / 1094 Nevada City 0 / 131 Truckee 565 / 1259 Unincorporated Nevada County 821 / 2988 Aliso Viejo 822 / 919 Anaheim 4622 / 9498 Brea 985 / 2048 Buena Park 646 / 676 Costa Mesa 1373 / 1682 Cypress 224 / 451 Dana Point 204 / 68 Fountain Valley 358 / 467 Fullerton 1365 / 1909 Garden Grove 826 / 560 Huntington Beach 3221 / 2092 Irvine 22884 / 35660 La Habra 281 / 257 La Palma 18 / 16 Laguna Beach 229 / 30 Laguna Hills 299 / 8 Laguna Niguel 918 / 356 Laguna Woods 136 / 135 Lake Forest 950 / 29 Los Alamitos 41 / 41 Mission Viejo 695 / 147 Newport Beach 1594 / 1914 Orange 1754 / 5079 Placentia 360 / 97 Rancho Santa Margarita 72 / 123 San Clemente 921 / 584 San Juan Capistrano 802 / 1063 Santa Ana 1058 / 3394 Seal Beach 89 / 57 Stanton 348 / 818 Tustin 2446 / 2381 Villa Park 33 / 11 Westminster 437 / 147 Yorba Linda 1618 / 2039 Unincorporated Orange County 3322 / 7980 Auburn 177 / 307 Colfax 64 / 69 Lincoln 2385 / 10095 Loomis 65 / 148 Rocklin 2469 / 2238 Roseville 5602 / 8933 Unincorporated Placer County 2679 / 6229 Portola 26 / 25 Unincorporated Plumas County 367 / 152 Banning 77 / 3841 Beaumont 4864 / 7071 Blythe 126 / 778 Calimesa 204 / 2271 Canyon Lake 63 / 100 Cathedral City 371 / 3329 Coachella 1551 / 5733 Corona 2667 / 3307 Desert Hot Springs 903 / 9924 Eastvale 1750 / 1549 Hemet 1948 / 11243 Indian Wells 350 / 244 Indio 5123 / 4143 Jurupa Valley 216 / 0 La Quinta 2977 / 4326 Lake Elsinore 4394 / 5590 Menifee 2622 / 2734 Moreno Valley 3720 / 7474 Murrieta 1306 / 6303 Norco 21 / 949 Palm Desert 2549 / 4586 Palm Springs 1442 / 2261 Perris 3014 / 4163 Rancho Mirage 386 / 3208 Riverside 3887 / 11381 San Jacinto 1947 / 12026 Temecula 4663 / 4085 Wildomar 1322 / 1471 Unincorporated Riverside County 19374 / 50615 Citrus Heights 191 / 262 Elk Grove 4107 / 11314 Folsom 1884 / 3601 Galt 403 / 635 Isleton 21 / 77 Rancho Cordova 2776 / 10395 Sacramento 8799 / 17650 Unincorporated Sacramento County 2898 / 15160 Hollister 408 / 3050 San Juan Bautista 17 / 49 Unincorporated San Benito County 111 / 1655 Adelanto 860 / 9323 Apple Valley 1577 / 3886 Barstow 308 / 4478 Big Bear Lake 295 / 496 Chino 4331 / 3045 Chino Hills 903 / 1040 Colton 349 / 3705 Fontana 3964 / 5699 Grand Terrace 244 / 329 Hesperia 2046 / 9095 Highland 354 / 2784 Loma Linda 476 / 2646 Montclair 559 / 1810 Needles 41 / 66 Ontario 1870 / 7661 Rancho Cucamonga 4353 / 1282 Redlands 716 / 2845 Rialto 806 / 4323 San Bernardino 921 / 5687 Twentynine Palms 574 / 3077 Upland 727 / 1995 Victorville 6099 / 8617 Yucaipa 664 / 2819 Yucca Valley 576 / 2509 Unincorporated San Bernardino County 5603 / 20626 Carlsbad 6470 / 8376 Chula Vista 11722 / 17224 Coronado 561 / 64 Del Mar 99 / 25 El Cajon 395 / 621 Encinitas 1100 / 1712 Escondido 2575 / 2437 Imperial Beach 175 / 87 La Mesa 1034 / 396 Lemon Grove 144 / 242 National City 1061 / 319 Oceanside 3644 / 6423 Poway 620 / 1242 San Diego 31031 / 45742 San Marcos 6844 / 6254 Santee 1689 / 1381 Solana Beach 152 / 131 Vista 915 / 2267 Unincorporated San Diego County 15753 / 12357 San Francisco 19896 / 31193 Escalon 92 / 495 Lathrop 871 / 1326 Lodi 95 / 3892 Manteca 2957 / 4053 Ripon 333 / 951 Stockton 1673 / 16540 Tracy 762 / 4887 Unincorporated San Joaquin County 2552 / 6075 Arroyo Grande 221 / 362 Atascadero 657 / 462 El Paso de Robles (Paso Robles) 78 / 646 Grover Beach 138 / 193 Morro Bay 452 / 180 Pismo Beach 289 / 411 San Luis Obispo 678 / 1590 Unincorporated San Luis Obispo County 2413 / 1295 Atherton 184 / 83 Belmont 42 / 399 Brisbane 97 / 401 Burlingame 283 / 650 Colma 2 / 65 Daly City 434 / 1207 East Palo Alto 36 / 630 Foster City 576 / 486 Half Moon Bay 302 / 276 Hillsborough 117 / 86 Menlo Park 407 / 993 Millbrae 236 / 452 Pacifica 143 / 275 Portola Valley 54 / 74 Redwood City 1889 / 1856 San Bruno 470 / 973 San Carlos 195 / 599 San Mateo 923 / 3051 South San Francisco 260 / 1635 Woodside 118 / 41 Unincorporated San Mateo County 655 / 1506 Buellton 14 / 278 Carpinteria 162 / 305 Goleta 675 / 1641 Guadalupe 0 / 88 Lompoc 352 / 516 Santa Barbara 549 / 4388 Santa Maria 967 / 3200 Solvang 226 / 171 Unincorporated Santa Barbara County 1201 / 1014 Campbell 297 / 892 Cupertino 702 / 1170 Gilroy 1133 / 1615 Los Altos 905 / 317 Los Altos Hills 185 / 81 Los Gatos 303 / 562 Milpitas 3283 / 2487 Monte Sereno 67 / 41 Morgan Hill 1574 / 1312 Mountain View 2706 / 2599 Palo Alto 1499 / 2860 San Jose 19916 / 34721 Santa Clara 3212 / 5873 Saratoga 387 / 292 Sunnyvale 3620 / 4426 Unincorporated Santa Clara County 704 / 1090 Capitola 152 / 143 Santa Cruz 638 / 672 Scotts Valley 46 / 188 Watsonville 212 / 923 Unincorporated Santa Cruz County 642 / 1289 Anderson 228 / 767 Redding 1379 / 7538 Shasta Lake 164 / 742 Unincorporated Shasta County 793 / 3958 Loyalton 2 / 21 Unincorporated Sierra County 51 / 124 Dorris 5 / 13 Dunsmuir 11 / 29 Etna 7 / 12 Fort Jones 5 / 10 Montague 6 / 25 Mount Shasta 22 / 58 Tulelake 2 / 15 Weed 10 / 47 Yreka 41 / 117 Unincorporated Siskiyou County 407 / 394 Benicia 97 / 532 Dixon 165 / 728 Fairfield 1516 / 3796 Rio Vista 650 / 1219 Suisun City 205 / 610 Vacaville 1870 / 2901 Vallejo 278 / 3100 Unincorporated Solano County 135 / 99 Cloverdale 107 / 417 Cotati 12 / 257 Healdsburg 196 / 331 Petaluma 1060 / 1945 Rohnert Park 26 / 1554 Santa Rosa 2584 / 6534 Sebastopol 98 / 176 Sonoma 152 / 353 Windsor 261 / 719 Unincorporated Sonoma County 1278 / 1364 Ceres 278 / 1819 Hughson 184 / 282 Modesto 902 / 11130 Newman 215 / 421 Oakdale 552 / 983 Patterson 90 / 686 Riverbank 293 / 894 Turlock 775 / 3461 Waterford 89 / 357 Unincorporated Stanislaus County 693 / 5568 Live Oak 204 / 625 Yuba City 652 / 4740 Unincorporated Sutter County 189 / 313 Corning 113 / 411 Red Bluff 136 / 878 Tehama 0 / 25 Unincorporated Tehama County 489 / 2206 Trinity County 243 / 750 Dinuba 916 / 1087 Exeter 90 / 781 Farmersville 257 / 556 Lindsay 389 / 394 Porterville 966 / 5474 Tulare 1911 / 5643 Visalia 3526 / 13835 Woodlake 690 / 282 Unincorporated Tulare County 1562 / 7035 Sonora 17 / 246 Unincorporated Tuolumne County 514 / 2581 Camarillo 1125 / 3340 Fillmore 213 / 985 Moorpark 889 / 1617 Ojai 45 / 433 Oxnard 3498 / 7093 Port Hueneme 135 / 180 San Buenaventura 1152 / 4011 Santa Paula 327 / 2241 Simi Valley 601 / 3383 Thousand Oaks 637 / 1847 Unincorporated Ventura County 680 / 1404 Davis 450 / 498 West Sacramento 2107 / 5347 Winters 111 / 403 Woodland 1526 / 1871 Unincorporated Yolo County 281 / 1403 Marysville 31 / 137 Wheatland 4 / 916 Unincorporated Yuba County 2345 / 6636 Home construction depends on complex factors, such as the costs to build and mortgage interest rates for prospective homeowners. Researchers contend that local government regulations play a larger role in the housing supply of California's coastal communities than those inland. The data reflect the state's varied housing cycles for different regions of the state. Data from the San Diego region is from 2003-11; Sacramento, Fresno and Kern 2006-13; Los Angeles and greater Southern California 2006-14; Bay Area and the remaining jurisdictions 2007-14.