California Calls It RHNA > Here In Mesa: Housing Community Profile

While AZ Governor Doug Dicey, the Arizona Commerce Authority, and the City of Mesa Office for Economic Development cite the over-regulatory California environment and high-cost-of-living for high-tech firms opting to move out of that state into Arizona, California has been ahead of the curve for years on local housing elements.

At yesterday's 02 Feb Mesa City Council Study Session Liz Morales, the Director for Housing & Community Development, made a presentation for a Housing Community Profile that will have a data-driven approach for updating the Housing Master Plan. This kind of data-driven approach is long-overdue and might clear up the often contending issues promulgated by special interests and politics here in Mesa if the data to be collected is reliable, representative and free of any bias.
California does it by region.

The Maricopa Association of Governments did that also in a recently released report for the MAG Demographic Viewer where some of the data, if reliable, can be used here by the selected candidate hired to get Mesa's the community housing profile in the works starting in this month through November 2017.

The MAG Demographic Viewer is a powerful and extraordinary useful resource you can find here:
http://geo.azmag.gov/maps/demographic/
Release History
The following is a release history of all of the web viewers from MAG. Click on the link to see more detail.

• Bikeways Map Viewer v3.2.0
• Employment Viewer v4.2.7
• Projections Viewer v2.2.0
• MAG Region Demographic Viewer v3.1.7
• State Demographic Viewer v2.2.10
• Land Use Viewer v3.0.1
• Neighborhood Explorer v4.0.0

Information and Details for Liz Morales' presentation to the city council can be found here in an excerpt from a post on this blog site yesterday 02 Feb 2017
Item 2-b 17-0099
Hear a presentation, discuss and provide direction on a process to update Mesa’s citywide Housing Master Plan, which is planned to include both information gathering and community engagement processes.

Here's the link to see the Power Point slide presentation:

http://mesa.legistar.com/gateway.aspx?m=l&id=/matter.aspx?key=10226

Here's the link to watch and listen to the upload of Yesterday's study session:

https://mesazona.blogspot.com/2017/02/mesa-city-council-study-session-02-feb.html
 

This will include a data-driven approach for

Phase 1: HOUSING COMMUNITY PROFILE

Timeline:  February-June 2017
Consultant has been selected - see below

Examples of data to be collected:
• Existing housing stock
• Rent and home price ranges
 • Income levels, family size, age, jobs, and education stats
 • Trends of housing for the past ten (10) years
 • Projections for the next ten (10) years that can help set the context for plan recommendations
• Council presentation on report

According to a notice on the city's website a consultant has been hired after this bid opportunity was posted with a 21-day time

Consultant – Housing Master Plan Update

Department:Business Services

Category:Intent to Award

RFP Number:2017048

Start Date:10/06/2016 8:53 AM

Close Date:10/27/2016 3:00 PM
 

Notice of Intent to Award: January 25, 2017

The evaluation committee recommends awarding the contract to the highest scored proposal from Elliott D. Pollack & Company Consulting LLC at $56,750.00, based on estimated requirements.

Richard C Merritt, seen in the image to the left, is President of the company with responsibility for real estate consulting and project management. He also serves as VP of Development for the PollCK/rAMRs Companies, a real estate and syndication firm, afflicted with EDP & Co.

Mr. Merritt has more than 25 years of experience in the fields of real estate development and consulting, city planning and project management, 20 years of which are in the Phoenix area.

He specializes in

• economic and fiscal impact analysis
• real estate and financial feasibility
• land use analysis

Readers may be interested that he recently managed

• A Class A Office Market Study of Tempe, Arizona for Property Reserve Inc. of Salt Lake City, Utah
• A Market Potential Study of the Gilbert Downtown Heritage District

Readers of this blog may also want to take note that he also supervised the economic and fiscal impact study for Rio Salado Crossing, a $1.8 Billion dollar convention, stadium, hotel-and-entertainment complex proposed here in the City of Mesa.

Other work completed by Mr. Merritt includes:

• The economic and fiscal impact of Bank One Ballpark in Downtown Phoenix
• An assessment of the economic and fiscal of multi-family housing in Arizona
• Creation of a multi-family impact model for use by the local Arizona Multihousing Association

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What is the RHNA?

The Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) is mandated by State Housing Law as part of the periodic process of updating local housing elements of the General Plan. The RHNA quantifies the need for housing within each jurisdiction during specified planning periods . . .

Communities use the RHNA in

• land use planning
• prioritizing local resource allocation
• deciding how to address identified existing and future housing needs resulting from population, employment and household growth.

The RHNA does not necessarily encourage or promote growth, but rather allows communities to anticipate growth, so that collectively the region and sub-region can grow in ways that enhance

• quality of life,
• improve access to jobs,
• promotes transportation mobility, and
• addresses social equity and fair share housing needs.

Need more information? Download the RHNA 101 Primer.