Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA)

The Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) is the target number of homes across income levels each city and county need to plan for as part of their Housing Element.

The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) sets housing targets for each region of our state.  Marin’s region includes the nine Bay Area counties. The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) oversees the process of splitting the regional target across the 109 cities and counties in the Bay Area.  For the current cycle, the targets are:

• Region (Bay Area): 441,176 units
• Marin County (overall): 14,210 units
• Unincorporated Marin: 3,569 units

We are required to show HCD how we are going to meet this target through our Housing Element plan. HCD also requires us to submit Annual Progress Reports to make sure we are staying on track. The State can impose fines on us if we do not meet our targets.

The RHNA considers many things like:

• Public input, surveys, trends, and population analysis
• Population and business growth predictions
• Zoning changes
• Understanding affordable housing needs by location
• Impact of long commutes on our environment
• The benefits of increased housing density
• Access to jobs
• Addressing historic patterns of segregation with a focus on fair housing 
• Encouraging lower-income housing in higher-resourced areas

• 1,100 units (37%) for households earning a very-low income and under
• 634 units (14%) for households earning a low-income
• 512 units (18%) for households earning a moderate-income
• 1,323 units (31%) for households earning an above moderate-income

The 2024 Marin County income limits by household size shows the latest annual income thresholds for the categories above in Marin County.

Check out our progress in meeting the RHNA through our Creation of New Housing Open Data page.