Rialto City council receives housing element update

On October 22, Rialto City Council accepted a status update on the mid-cycle update to the fifth cycle housing element.

During the status update, provided by Rialto’s consultant Kimley-Horn & Associates, Inc., Representative David Vargo provided the significance of what a housing element accomplishes.

“A housing element will establish Rialto’s goals and policies related to housing. It will identify housing needs in the city for all income groups, including special needs groups. It’ll also define initiatives and programs to achieve city-wide housing goals,” shared Vargo.

It was also stated that a housing element does not require a city to build housing …the city itself is still the facilitator of all forthcoming housing.

The city council expressed concern when it was recommended that Rialto add an additional 2,700 homes to the area.

“In regard to compliance is this just to ensure that we have adequate land and zoning in place to allow the building of these houses?” asked Mayor Pro-Tem Ed Scott. “The fact that in most cases is that if you built these 2,700 homes they could not sustain themselves in regard to city services. Does this get addressed in this report?”

Vargo answered by sharing that there is mitigation that would happen as development occurs, each step of the way.

“The problem is that we’ve added no police or fire fighters on and we’ve built houses. We have not added an additional city services and we still built houses. Continuing to add houses and no additional city services is going to affect the quality of life of those living in this city,” concluded Scott.

A community workshop took place on October 29 to express the state of housing conditions and share housing ideas with the city council.

“After the community workshop, a draft of the mid-cycle Update will be presented to the City Council for review and discussion at the November 12, 2019, meeting. The draft must be submitted to HCD for review by December 30, 2019. Once HCD deems the Mid-Cycle Update meets all statutory requirements, a final Mid-Cycle Update will be presented to City Council for consideration and adoption,” said Acting Public Works Director Sean Grayson.

The sixth cycle housing element is going to be completed in October 2020. For more information, visit yourrialto.com.