By Elizabeth Zach, RCAC staff writer

California lawmakers say that Kern County, in the rural Central Valley, is failing to build enough housing.

The lawmakers base their conclusion on a California Department of Housing and Community Development report, which cites that all of Kern’s 11 cities and the county itself, are failing to meet state housing construction requirements. As a result, state officials are poised to “streamline” the building permit process so that local leaders have less control over what gets built.

Kern officials, including Bakersfield city manager Alan Tandy, say that they are doing what they can to provide more and better housing, including $9 million to shelter the city’s homeless.

“We’re … doing everything we can and we’re not worried about the streamlining,” Bakersfield’s assistant city manager Jacqui Kitchen told Bakersfield.com. The city is working with the Housing Authority of the County of Kern, she added, to allocate funding for new affordable housing in east Bakersfield.

To read more, go here: https://www.bakersfield.com/news/affordable-housing-permits-lag-across-kern/article_f441ad36-a28a-11e9-b6ba-5f88b04a3617.html