Two Sacramento-area communities can fast-track affordable housing with new state designation

Sacramento and Placer counties gained an advantage in securing state funding for affordable housing on Friday when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration announced that they received a planning designation intended to speed up those projects.

“The Prohousing Designation is the result of communities stepping up and being proactive when it comes to their commitment to build more housing, faster in California,” Newsom said in a statement.

Newsom’s office said Sacramento County stood out in the applications because it had modified standards to promote density, created development impact fee reductions for residential housing and used “holistic” planning to reduce commuting.

Placer County received the designation after streamlining the process for zoning and development.

In December last year, the City of Roseville also received the designation, which it credited with fast-tracking 1,200 new homes.

The “designation allows our community development staff and our development partners to be as competitive as possible to capture grant dollars for construction and maintain affordability for homebuyers,” said Supervisor Jim Holmes, chair of the Board of Supervisors, in a statement.