California Department of Housing and Community Development

CALIFORNIA STATE AUDITOR 43 Report 2024-109 | January 2026 Table 1 The Median time Spent on the Housing Element Approval Process More Than Doubled in the Sixth Cycle CHANGE FIFTH SIXTH PERCENT HOUSING ELEMENT MEDIANS BETWEEN CYCLE CYCLE CHANGE CYCLES Median Number of Drafts Local Jurisdictions Submitted 2 3 1 50% Median Cumulative Days Across All Drafts Attributed to 83 210 127 153% Local Jurisdictions Median Cumulative Days Across All Drafts Attributed to HCD’s Review 82.5 177 94.5 115% Median Total Days in Approval Process 171 387 216 126% Source: Auditor analysis of HCD’s housing element tracking system data as of November 2024. Notes: This table includes local jurisdictions that had yet to achieve a compliant and adopted housing element as of November 2024. We derived the individual median values for each cycle independent of all other categories, and thus, the values across categories do not necessarily correspond to a single local jurisdiction. Accordingly, the sum of the median cumulative days attributed to local jurisdictions and HCD may not equal the median total days to achieve a compliant and adopted housing element because they may belong to different local jurisdictions.