Peer Cohorts are designed to connect community planners sharing similar challenges, to provide targeted technical assistance and facilitate longer term peer-to-peer networking. Work Groups are short-term, issue-specific trainings and work sessions for jurisdictions adopting similar legislation or working on similar projects. Cohorts and Work Groups will be staffed and funded at the regional level by ABAG.

Making Middle Housing Work

This work group is for local planning and housing staff interested in learning about "missing middle" housing and how to develop and implement a middle housing strategy. In six sessions, the work group will cover definitions, case studies, market data, design issues, regulatory strategies, development standards, affordability, communication tools and how to consider middle housing toward a jurisdiction’s RHNA allocation. The work group began on August 26, 2021. Materials from each session, including session recordings, slide decks, notes and custom tools (a market study, a zoning guidebook, etc.) will be posted here and available to participants and others via ABAG's housing technical assistance web portal.

• Session 1: What is the Missing Middle?
• Session 2: The Middle Housing Market
• Session 3: Making Middle Housing Happen
• Session 4: Making Middle Housing Affordable
• Session 5: Projecting Middle Housing Production

Wildfires – How to Preserve and Protect Housing

This work group is for local planning and housing staff interested in learning about how the emerging regular reality of wildfires can be included in agencies land use planning efforts including Housing Elements and Safety Elements. The work group will hold four virtual workshops with experts presenting current information and best practices, case studies, and recent experiences. These sessions will help local agencies gain a better understanding of the evolution and behavior of wildfires, defensible space, home hardening, evacuations (new laws, practical approaches, and new models), and responsive land use planning in the (WUI) Wildfire/Urban Interface. Each session will have Resource Guides with practical take away information and references to key documents and helpful background materials.

View details about all four Wildfires work group sessions, or see details for each of the sessions below:

• Session 1: Wildfires & Housing 101
• Session 2: Defensible Space & Home Hardening with CAL FIRE Updates
• Session 3: Evacuations – The Law, Practical Approaches & Technology Tools
• Session 4: Land Use Planning in the WUI including ADUs

Questions?

Contact Cathy Capriola, project consultant
Email: capriola.consulting@outlook.com
Telephone: (916) 257-3287)

Check back for information on the next Work Groups and Peer Cohorts to get underway.

Peer Cohorts and Work Groups Contact:

Grecia Mannah-Ayon, Assistant Regional Housing Planner
Email: gmannah-ayon@bayareametro.gov
Phone: (415) 820-7935