New developments must provide for access to schools, parks, utilities, and transportation infrastructure, which can exacerbate tensions between green space conservation and density and require lengthy approval processes creating costs and delays.
View the details on what communities have shared with SLECC from across the state.
Infrastructure requirements tied to new housing often create long delays and add costs that can make projects financially unviable. Local governments must secure approvals for utilities, schools, and transit access, and these processes can stretch for years.
Transit and housing misalignment: Housing development often moves forward without corresponding transit investment, leaving new residents car-dependent and undermining climate and equity goals. Regional transportation funding and planning are not aligned with where new housing is being sited, resulting in persistent transit mismatches in growing areas.
Housing decisions are often made separately from parks, transit, and open space planning at both the state and local levels, making integrated infrastructure planning difficult.
New development requirements often produce small, semi-private courtyards or token “amenity spaces” (e.g., paved plazas with minimal landscaping) that do not function as true public open space. At the same time, infill housing and ADU construction remove private yards—the only green space many residents have—exacerbating heat island impacts and reducing overall urban canopy and park access, especially in dense and underserved neighborhoods.
SLECC stakeholders have brainstormed the following solution opportunities that can be taken by local leaders. Existing examples of progress or pathways to make further progress are highlighted if known.
Integrate housing growth with climate-aligned transportation planning:
Coordinate regional transit investments with planned housing intensification—ensuring new development is paired with high-quality transit access, capturing mode-shift and climate benefits.
Integrate housing with parks, transit, and public services: Plan infill around parks, mobility, and civic infrastructure needs—mapping gaps before upzoning and investing in community services alongside new housing to build trust and reduce opposition.
SLECC stakeholders have brainstormed the following solution opportunities that can be taken by state leaders. Existing examples of progress or pathways to make further progress are highlighted if known.
Streamline housing and infrastructure systems together: Strengthen state streamlining for ADUs, infill, and transit-area housing while also accelerating permitting and interconnection for the energy and utility upgrades these projects require.
Apply state guidance to prevent new housing in hazardous/poorly serviced areas: Use state criteria (e.g., AHSC guidance) to ensure development is sited in places with adequate infrastructure and supports.
SCAG’s “Compass Blueprint” (historic regional pilot)
What: Framed as a 3% strategy: only 3% of the land base needed to densify to meet housing needs regionally. It waspraised as one of SCAG’s few plans to gain broad regional buy-in, thanks to its clarity and marketing (“easy to understand, sexy framing”). Eventually it fell out of use but remembered as a rare regional consensus-builder.
Why it matters: Early, widely understood regional framing that aligned jurisdictions around focusing growth in complete, connected places. (Not current, but frequently cited as an effective model.
Help us to expand our database. Either share new ideas, best practices or general feedback via this form, or click on a particular item to share additional feedback, information, examples of progress on that particular item.
Please share any additional resources you would like to include by emailing eecoordinator@civicwell.org.
