Description: Residential development activity, including pipeline projects (those in planning, permitting, and construction phases) and newly completed projects (those receiving certificates of occupancy), is developed to support SCAG’s growth forecasting and to enhance information database available to SCAG member jurisdictions and stakeholders. Because residential projects that enter the development pipeline typically complete within three years,[1] we extracted data for projects that received entitlements or building permits in 2022, 2023, and 2024 from local jurisdictions’ APRs, as well as housing units that received a certificate of occupancy or other form of readiness in 2024. Government Code section 65400 requires that local jurisdiction prepare an APR on the status of the housing element of its general plan and progress in its implementation, using forms and definitions adopted by the HCD. A primary function of the housing element APR data is to allow HCD to track each local government’s annual progress towards meeting its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) over the 5- or 8-year planning cycle. Table A2 of the APR requires local jurisdictions to report all new housing units and developments that received either an entitlement, a building permit, or a certificate of occupancy during the reporting year. For projects with development activity spanning multiple years, local jurisdictions are instructed to include the project if any activity occurred within the reporting year. Consequently, the same project may appear in multiple APRs. For example, a project included in the 2022 APR for receiving an entitlement would also appear in the 2023 APR for receiving a building permit. In many cases, previous activity information is reported alongside (e.g., entitlement date, units entitled). APR data are not built with unique project identifiers, meaning that a list of residential activity must rely on this repeated information in order to identify duplicate records across years. SCAG staff retrieved the APR data for 2022, 2023, and 2024 and systematically examined the records for duplicates, which were primarily identified by matching the activity dates, project types, tenure, and total units within each jurisdiction. Additional duplicates were identified through careful review of large developments. Due to missing data, potential data entry errors in APRs, and other reporting inconsistencies, some duplicates will likely remain. After removing duplicates, SCAG used three approaches to map the residential developments. First, to address variation in reporting formats, staff standardized the APN field where available. For projects associated with multiple APNs, the first reported APN was designated as the primary APN, and parcel centroid coordinates were used to map the projects with APNs matching SCAG’s parcel-level land use data. Second, staff geocoded project addresses in GIS and used the resulting coordinates when APN matching was not possible (e.g., a development project was not associated with an extant APN). Third, for large developments (50 units or more) that could not be reliably located through APN matching or geocoding, SCAG staff obtained the coordinates by searching the reported addresses in Google Map or consulting publicly available planning documents. The identified coordinates, derived from APN centroids, geocoding, or manual review, reflect approximate project locations and do not represent the exact placement of the development site.Note: This dataset is intended for planning purposes only, and SCAG shall incur no responsibility or liability as to the completeness, currentness, or accuracy of this information. SCAG assumes no responsibility arising from use of this information by individuals, businesses, or other public entities. The information is provided with no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Users should consult with each local jurisdiction directly to obtain the official residential development information.[1] Recent analysis of proprietary data of current and prospective development projects over the last two decades finds that, from planning to delivery, a multifamily project takes an average of 30.2 months in the U.S. Census Bureau's West Region, which includes California. See Cunninham & Orlando (2024), How Long Does It Take to Building Multifamily Housing? Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
Copyright Text: California Department of Housing and Community Development, SCAG