California Government Code section 65400 requires the planning agency for certain cities and all 58 counties to submit an annual report to their legislative body (city council or board of supervisors, respectively), OPR, and HCD on the status of their General Plan and progress on its implementation. The annual report provides the local legislative body with information regarding the status of its General Plan and gives OPR the opportunity to identify statewide trends in land use decision making, including how local planning and development activities relate to statewide planning goals and policies. Additionally, it enables OPR to track progress on a local jurisdiction's General Plan in terms of its comprehensiveness and consistency with the current OPR General Plan Guidelines and other State mandates.  
  
There is no standardized form or format for preparation of the General Plan Annual Progress Report. OPR allows each jurisdiction to determine which locally-relevant issues are important to include, but does suggest general content to cover within the report. The attached report covering calendar year 2021 follows the general guidance of OPR in terms of content.  
  
Staff notes that under a separate section of the Government Code, all local jurisdictions are required to submit a report to HCD on certain housing-related information, including the jurisdiction's progress in meeting its share of regional housing needs and local efforts to remove governmental constraints to development of housing. On March 29, 2022, the Board is scheduled to consider accepting the County's General Plan Housing Element Progress Report for 2021. Information in that report is incorporated into the attached General Plan APR.  
  
Staff calls the Board's attention to the County's progress in meeting its share of regional housing needs. Current data indicates that through calendar year 2021, the seventh year of the current Housing Element cycle, the County has issued building permits for 176.2 percent of its allocated share of the region's housing needs. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was the lowest year of housing production for the County in this cycle, but 2021 saw a resurgence in production. In 2021, the County issued permits for 36 units affordable to very-low-income households, 33 units affordable to low-income households, 36 units affordable to moderate-income households, and 422 affordable to above-moderate-income households for a total of 527 units. This is a significant increase over 2020’s production, where permits were issued for 137 units affordable to above-moderate-income households. The County is on pace to exceed its allocation for the above-moderate-income and low-income categories. Fulfilling the very-low-income and moderate-income allocations appears unlikely given the outstanding number of units and lack of projects in the development pipeline that propose units at these income levels.

State law requires DCD to submit the General Plan APR to the Board of Supervisors prior to submittal to OPR and HCD. The purpose of this report is to provide an update to the Board of Supervisors on implementation of the County General Plan. Negative action would result in the County being out of compliance with California Government Code section 65400. Lack of compliance could result in various consequences, such as becoming ineligible for certain grants.