SACRAMENTO – Michael S. Tilden, the acting California state auditor, issued a critique of the Department of Housing and Community Development and its Regional Housing Needs Assessments Thursday, March 17.The auditor found problems in the HCD methodology that may have inflated RHNA requirements by hundreds of thousands of housing units, overshadowing the smaller cases of undercounting in the report. The auditor concluded that “The Department of Housing and Community Development must improve its processes to ensure that communities can adequately plan for housing.”In his letter to the governor and legislative leaders, the auditor also said, “Overall, our audit determined that HCD does not ensure that its needs assessments are accurate and adequately supported.“This in
