Did you miss the webinar?
ABAG, in partnership with HCD, hosted a webinar on Oct. 29 with 250 attendees. The webinar discussed state data requirements for local Housing Elements, solicited input on regional data tools and trained local planners to use a site selection tool — known as the Housing Element Site Section (HESS) tool — to analyze parcel-level data and pre-populate HCD’s new site inventory form.
Did you miss the webinar?
- Watch the video recording of the webinar.
- Review the presentation from the webinar.
Jurisdiction staff and interested parties will shortly receive a link to create a HESS Tool account, and requests will be verified prior to access. If a jurisdiction would like to grant HESS Tool access to a Housing Element contracted consultant, Planning Directors or Community Development Directors can email housingTA@bayareametro.gov with the name and email address of the consultant.
We are hoping for feedback on the HESS tool either by email or via the tool’s feedback form. In particular, we are asking local planning staff to ground-truth the initial screening criteria at the local level. Eventually the tool will include a module to edit the Bay Area Spatial Information System (BASIS) data. The tool pulls from the BASIS data and depends on the accuracy of its underlying land use data.
A future “deep dive” webinar session for the HESS Tool during the beta testing period is planned. For more information, subscribe to the Housing Technical Assistance mailing list.