ABAG launched its Regional Housing Technical Assistance program to aid local jurisdictions in adopting and implementing compliant Housing Elements, ensuring that Bay Area jurisdictions remain competitive for various state funding programs to increase housing opportunities.

To avoid duplication of effort, assistance includes development of regionally applicable products that can be customized by local staff to meet their respective needs.

The Housing Element Site Selection (HESS) Tool

This tool identifies potential sites in all Bay Area jurisdictions for Housing Element site inventories, and flags those that will likely require rezoning to be used under new state laws. By using a variety of datasets, HESS allows planners to visualize and screen sites based on HCD’s minimum zoning and density requirements, natural hazards, proximity to transit, access to opportunity and much more. Recent updates to the tool include data layers identified in HCD’s Guidance Memo on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) and Housing Element Site Inventory Guidebook.

The tool also automatically populates many sections of HCD’s new mandatory electronic reporting form.

Local planning staff who have not yet accessed the HESS Tool can create a HESS Tool account. Please note that it may take a couple of business days for the ABAG-MTC team to verify and activate the account. If your jurisdiction has a consultant working on your Housing Element update, you may request direct access to the HESS Tool and Housing Needs Data Packet on their behalf by emailing HousingTA@bayareametro.gov.

Local Housing Element Data Packets

These are editable data packets compiled by ABAG staff for all 109 Bay Area jurisdictions. The data packets contain tables, figures, and accompanying text for over 60 data points that can be placed directly into the Housing Needs section of each jurisdiction’s housing element. The data packets also include some data related to the state’s requirement to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH). The data packets have been pre-reviewed by HCD for consistency with state requirements. Download the PDF versions of the Housing Needs Data Packets, as well the underlying data tables in Excel, for all 109 jurisdictions. Local planning staff can also download an editable Word Document version of their respective jurisdiction’s Housing Needs Data Packet from the Housing Element Site Selection (HESS) Tool.

Data Webinar Recordings

For a full listing of webinars and resources from the webinars see the RHTA Training page

• 10/19/21 HESS Tool 1.0 Tutorial Webinar This virtual tutorial walked local planning staff and consultants through the HESS Tool 1.0 interface. It also demonstrated how to perform the actions to assist with building a Site Inventory.
• 3/23/2021: ABAG Housing Element Series: Using Data Effectively in Housing Element Updates: Webinar video recording and Webinar presentation. This webinar introduces the ABAG housing needs data packets and provides information on accessing the U.S. Census.
• 3/9/2021: ABAG Housing Element Series: Creating Capacity: An Overview of the Sites Inventory: Webinar video recording and Webinar presentation
• 10/29/2020: Planning Innovations Webinar: Regional Data Tools for the Housing Element: Webinar video recording and Webinar presentation

For more information about Regional Data Products contact:

Joshua Croff, GIS Planner/Analyst
Email: jcroff@bayareametro.gov
Phone: 415-778-6618