Del Rey Oaks is racing to complete both its sixth – and fifth – updates to its housing element.

Like every other city locally, Del Rey Oaks is hustling to complete a draft of its housing element by a mid-December deadline from the state. It’s the state’s sixth cycle of a process to meet its housing goals. But unlike other cities, Del Rey Oaks still hasn’t completed its fifth cycle update, which the Planning Commission will consider approving Oct. 11, after the Weekly’s deadline. (City Council is set to vote on it on Oct. 18.)

This comes after Del Rey Oaks City Council initially approved the document on Dec. 17, 2019 to meet the state’s Dec. 31 deadline that year; also on Dec. 31, land use nonprofit Landwatch sued Del Rey Oaks, contending that the plan lacked sufficient analysis of water supply, as required by state law, for the land that the city would rezone for housing.

In a March 2020 letter to Del Rey Oaks – just as Covid was coming to the fore – the state Department of Housing and Community Development agreed with Landwatch’s comments, and told Del Rey Oaks to go back to the drawing board; Landwatch dropped its lawsuit a few months later.

In the final environmental impact report for the fifth cycle update, water supply concerns are addressed with a master response that says, essentially, that residential uses on the city’s former Fort Ord land – currently zoned for commercial use – would require less water than was envisioned (golf course, resort hotel, etc.) in the city’s general plan and the Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan, both of which were adopted in 1997 and have approved EIRs.

Jurisdictions are required by the state to prepare housing elements every eight years, laying out where housing units could be built based on population projections.