The City of Brea has earned the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) Prohousing Designation for its efforts to encourage development of housing at all income levels. This designation comes with funding incentives and additional resources to help housing production. Brea is the first city in Orange County to earn the coveted Prohousing Designation.
To receive the Prohousing Designation, Brea demonstrated that we actively work to implement state housing laws and follow best practices that go above and beyond minimum requirements. We encourage ADU production, provide incentives for housing, and established a local trust fund. The City recently adopted an ordinance with zoning code provisions for ADUs that go beyond state requirements by allowing more than one ADU per lot. To encourage the assemblage of smaller existing parcels into larger parcels that can be more efficiently developed into mixed-use projects, the City’s zoning code includes a Parcel Consolidation Incentive Program provision. The City’s budget now includes an Affordable Housing Trust Fund which is used exclusively for the development or maintenance of housing affordable to low- and moderate-income households. Lastly, the City offers an interest-free, deferred-payment rehabilitation loan program for single-family homeowners earning up to 80 percent of Area Median Income. Those efforts went toward earning the Prohousing Designation which rewards communities willing to reduce construction and development costs, and create housing policies with a growth mindset by providing funding incentives and additional resources for innovative efforts.