Nevada City Asks Residents Where 424 Homes Should Go

NEVADA CITY — The state has told Nevada City to plan for 424 new homes over the next eight years, and the city does not have enough land zoned to hold them. On Thursday, September 10, the city will ask residents to help decide where the room should be found.

The second community workshop for the 2027–2035 Housing Element Update runs from 6:00 to 7:30 PM at the Miners Foundry Cultural Center, 325 Spring Street. Participants will work in small groups on two questions: which sites could accommodate future multifamily housing, and how housing needs and conditions differ from one part of the city to another. The city says the input will feed directly into two required pieces of the housing element, the Sites Inventory and the Fair Housing Assessment.

Every city and county in California must include a housing element in its general plan; it is the only part of the general plan the state reviews and certifies. The element analyzes current and projected housing needs, then sets the goals, policies, and programs meant to address them. Nevada City’s current element covers 2019 through 2027, and the update now underway covers the eight years that follow.

State law also requires each city and county to plan for a share of its region’s housing need, a figure called the Regional Housing Needs Allocation. The California Department of Housing and Community Development issued Nevada City’s share in September 2025: 424 units, of which 211 must be planned at densities that could serve lower-income households, 56 for moderate-income households, and 157 for households above the moderate range. Under the state’s 2026 income limits, the median income in Nevada County is $140,400 for a household of four, and a four-person household counts as low income if it earns no more than $100,100.

The target is more than three times the 135 units Nevada City was assigned for the current cycle, and would increase the city’s current housing supply by more than 25%. The 2020 census counted 1,623 housing units inside the city limits and a population of 3,152.

The allocation does not obligate the city to build anything, but it does obligate the city to show the state that enough land is zoned at densities where the homes could realistically go, and Nevada City does not currently have enough appropriately zoned sites to satisfy the requirement. The housing element will therefore have to identify potential sites for rezoning.

In the first portion of the workshop, participants will hear how the allocation works and how sites are identified, then use an interactive map to consider where different housing types could be appropriate. What counts toward the target depends on zoning. “When we’re showing that we have enough residential sites to meet that goal the state set, they have to be residential sites,” Ryan Lester, project manager for the consulting firm Mintier Harnish, said at the first workshop in July, as reported by The Union. “If residential uses aren’t allowed there, that’s not residential capacity.”

The second portion turns to fair housing. Participants will discuss affordability, accessibility, neighborhood conditions, and access to resources in different areas of Nevada City. The city says the discussion will supplement data already being analyzed for its Fair Housing Assessment and help identify areas facing particular housing challenges or additional needs.

For residents who cannot attend, the city has opened an online Fair Housing Survey, available through September 20 at HousingNevadaCity.com/participate, asking about housing needs, affordability, access, and conditions across the city. Responses will inform the same assessment.

The city has already gathered public comment twice. An earlier Housing Needs Survey drew 447 responses between July 16 and August 15, and a first community workshop was held July 30 at City Council Chambers, followed by a joint Planning Commission and City Council session on August 12.

“What we hear now through the surveys and workshops directly shapes which sites are included and which housing types get prioritized,” Planning Director Jessica Hankins said in an announcement last month. “We’re trying to balance a state mandate with what makes sense for this community.”

September 10 will be the last community workshop of the current update cycle, according to the city, though it says there will be other opportunities for input. The project schedule posted on the city’s housing element website calls for the draft to go to the state for review in November, with Planning Commission and City Council hearings on adoption between February and June 2027. The city has said that without a certified housing element it risks losing eligibility for transportation, infrastructure, and housing funding, faces enforcement action from the state, and risks losing control over housing development proposals.