Excerpted from the California Department of Housing and Community Development:
“Local Early Action Planning Grants (LEAP)
Increasing the availability of affordable homes statewide is critical to bettering the quality of life of all Californians and to ending homelessness. In the 2019-20 Budget Act, Governor Gavin Newsom allocated $250 million for all regions, cities, and counties to do their part by prioritizing planning activities that accelerate housing production to meet identified needs of every community. With this allocation, HCD established the Local Early Action Planning Grant Program (LEAP) with $119 million for cities and counties. LEAP provides one-time grant funding to cities and counties to update their planning documents and implement process improvements that will facilitate the acceleration of housing production and help local govts. prepare for their 6th cycle RHNA much like the SB2 Planning Grants.”
The 2019-20 Budget Act provides a spectrum of support, incentives, resources, and accountability to meet California’s housing goals. Some specific elements include:
-Local and regional planning grants (LEAP and REAP)
-Prohousing preference points on competitive funding applications
-Additional funding resources
-Accountability (penalties for noncompliant housing plans)
-Reform (collaborative processes to reform regional housing needs)
-For regional governments and entities, funding is available through the –Regional Early Action Planning Grants (REAP). For more information, please visit the Regional Early Action Planning Grant Webpage.
PURPOSE
The Local Action Planning Grants (LEAP), provides over-the-counter grants complemented with technical assistance to local governments for the preparation and adoption of planning documents, and process improvements that:
- Accelerate housing production
- Facilitate compliance to implement the sixth-cycle Regional Housing Needs Assessment.
We do not support applying for a LEAP grant that would commit the city to upzone, rezone, or bypass CEQA to qualify.