The Rocklin City Council and Planning Commission held a special meeting on Tuesday, March 5, for the 2024 Housing Workshop.

City staff presented an update on recently passed housing legislation, with a focus on bills that could impact the Rocklin.

 Rocklin’s 2012-2029 Housing Element outlined six goals to address the housing needs of our community.

Goal 1:

• Maintain and improve the quality of existing housing and residential neighborhoods in Rocklin.

Goal 2:

• Facilitate the provision of a range of housing types to meet the diverse needs of the community.

Goal 3: 

• Provide adequate housing sites through appropriate land use and zoning designations to accommodate the City’s share of the regional housing needs.

Goal 4:

• Mitigate or remove potential governmental constraints to housing production and affordability.

Goal 5:

• Coordinate and cooperate with surrounding jurisdictions to address regional housing issues, including the supply of affordable housing.

Goal 6:

• Promote equal opportunity for all residents to reside in the housing of their choice.

City staff covered the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) state mandates and goals established to ensure cities and counties plan for enough housing in their Housing Element cycle to accommodate all economic segments in their communities. These mandates are administered by the Housing and Community Development (HCD) sector.

Rocklin is required to provide an adequate number of sites designated for potential affordable housing development to accommodate the needs laid out by RHNA mandates.

A common misconception is that cities are in charge of the development of affordable housing sites. It is integral to note Rocklin is only required to designate and zone an appropriate number of parcels with the development potential to accommodate the RHNA requirements (zoning a site for multi-residential households does not guarantee affordability). Generally, affordable units are funded through financial incentives from state and federal funding or development concessions. 

The Income Category Tables below represent RHNA requirements for Rocklin. The top graph illustrates that in Rocklin, there are a total of 5,661 units the city needs to zone for and have a general land use designation that could accommodate that many units. So far, Rocklin has a remainder of 4,379 units that still need to be accommodated for, represented in the bottom graph.

To see the meeting agenda or watch the workshop in full, click here.