Oxnard-- The City Council’s approval of its Sixth Cycle Housing Element continues with public comments from Barbra Macri-Ortiz, who said HCD’s review the standards changed and they put the approval levels higher.
THE City Council, Tuesday, October 4, approved the amended 2021-2029 sixth cycle housing element as chapter 8 within the City plan.
“More effort had to go into it, particularly for the Affirmative Fair Housing issues,” she said. “This is really the first time that any jurisdiction had to deal with that. I was very pleased because, as Kathleen (Mallory) said, everybody got letters from HCD (Department of Housing and Development), and they were all really long. Ours weren’t as long as some of the others in terms of what they were asking the jurisdictions to do. HCD is very serious now; they have an enforcement unit, so all the cities will be held to the standards, objectives, and programs within the housing element.”
She said approving the element is one factor, and the challenge will be to stick on the programs that follow the timing to get the job done during the planning period.
“I would say, at this point, Oxnard is really a leader in this,” she…
