News from: The City of Indio

On April 20, the City of Indio received official notice from the State Department of Housing and Community Development of the certification of its updated Housing Element. This makes Indio the first city in the Coachella Valley to be formally certified, and the 10^th to be certified out of 197 total jurisdictions within the boundaries of the regional planning agency Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG).

Every eight years, the state of California sets the total number of housing units that each region must build, and SCAG identifies how many of those units must be built within each city. The Housing Element formally adopted by Indio’s City Council in spring 2022 lays out a plan for the production of 7,812 housing units between 2021 and 2029, of which 38 percent must be considered ‘affordable.’

“The plan has a number of programs that Indio will be using to support increasing housing production and housing diversity in the city over the next eight years,” said City Manager Bryan Montgomery. “Putting together this plan was a huge task involving robust public engagement during a challenging time, and we are pleased the state certified our plan so quickly.”

Part of the 37 diverse projects in the City of Indio’s 6^th cycle Housing Element include programs like affordable homeownership opportunities, employee housing, housing assistance resources, preservation of affordable housing units, and housing rehabilitation.

Read the full Housing Element at www.indio.org/housingelementupdate.