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San Francisco Bay Area Draft Regional Housing Needs Allocation, 41h Revision Household growth is used as a factor, as opposed to existing units or total units, to ensure that additional housing is not planned where there are existing concentrations of homes in the region, but rather where growth is anticipated to occur. In this way household growth as a factor in the methodology ensures that the allocation is consistent with both local plans for growth and with regional growth policies, as those areas that are planning for household growth would receive a higher allocation than those areas not planning for growth. B. Employment, 40 percent (Existing Employment, 20 percent; Growth, 20 percent) Each local jurisdiction should plan for housing to accommodate existing employment (2007) and regionally projected employment growth (2007-2014) within its boundaries during the RHNA planning period. This would ensure that the need allocation gives jurisdictions with both eXlstlOg concentrations of jobs and planned job growth a share of the regional housing need. This would direct housing to existing job centers and to areas with anticipated employment growth. These jobs allocation factors may be effective in addressing regional jobs-housing imbalance. These factors would also facilitate access by proximity, for housing would be directed to communities with jobs and planned jobs, which may reduce vehicle miles traveled due to reduced inter- and intra-regional commuting. As a factor, employment has the ability to assign regional housing needs to jurisdictions in a way that provides a better balance between housing and employment. In the Bay Area, as in many metropolitan areas, employment centers have historically not produced enough housing to match job growth. Limited housing production near existing jobs and in areas with continued employment growth has escalated Bay Area housing costs and has triggered increased housing production in outlying Bay Area communities and in surrounding counties, including San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and San Benito. This has led to longer commutes on increasingly congested freeways, inefficient use of public transportation infrastructure and land capacity, and negative impacts on health, equity, air quality, the environment and overall quality of life in the Bay Area. In the allocation methodology, employment can be used in varying degrees of aggressiveness to address regional jobs-housing imbalance. The HMC considered three options: I) employment growth, 2) existing jobs (2007) and 3) total jobs in the RHNA period (existing jobs in 2007 and growth from 2007 to 2014). Employment growth as a factor would assure that jurisdictions that are planning for employment growth also plan for commensurate housing. However, this would be ineffective in addressing historic regional jobs-housing imbalances, and therefore it is the least aggressive option. Existing jobs as an allocation factor would give relatively higher allocations to existing job centers and would therefore be the most aggressive toward historic jobs-housing imbalances; however it does not take into account future job growth. Total jobs as a factor would give relatively higher allocations to both jurisdictions that are currently job centers and those with planned job growth. Therefore, this is a moderately aggressive approach relative to the other two options. The HMC recommends a balance between the least and most aggressive options by separately weighting employment growth and existing employment. This would attempt to address historic jobs-housing imbalances and would seek to avert future imbalances. While an aggressive approach, it is relatively less aggressive than the use of total jobs as a factor. A total jobs factor would primarily direct growth to existing job centers, which would receive November 2006, Page 8