The city of Hughson has produced its draft 2023-2031 Housing Element to its General Plan and is seeking public comment until Aug. 27.

Every city in California is required by the state to produce and regularly update a General Plan. One of the elements of that plan is about housing to guide how a city will grow in seven years.

The state requires cities to plan for residential growth in all income levels – low-, very low-, low-, moderate-, and above-moderate income – based on a RHNA, or Regional Housing Needs Assessment.

Hughson estimates that it will need to build 284 new units to accommodate very-low-income households and rehabilitate three existing units. For low-income category residents, Hughson will need to generate 196 units and rehab three. For those in the moderate-income category, Hughson has a target of 122 units while here is a need to build 279 units for above-moderate income families.

A total of 881 new units need to be built. Hughson already is seeing housing develop with KB Homes developing its 56-acre Homes Orchards at Parkwood development. Once the project is fully built out within four to five years, Hughson will have 299 additional homes and an estimated 900 to 1,000 new residents.

Hughson has doubled in population since 2000 and today has 7,518 residents.

The new homes are being constructed south of Hatch Road and east of Santa Fe Avenue.

The public can submit comments about the Housing Element by visiting https://hughson.generalplan.org/