Riverside council receives 2025 General Plan progress report; housing permits fall short of RHNA targets

Clarissa Manges, an assistant planner, presented the City of Riverside’s 2025 General Plan annual progress report and walked the council through housing production counts, pipeline activity and programs meant to streamline housing delivery.

"In 2025, the city issued permits for 564 housing units, 22 of which were in the very low income category and 542 of which were in the above moderate income category," Manges said. She noted that from the start of the 2021 planning cycle through the end of 2025 the city issued permits for 3,613 units and that the report shows a remaining Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) obligation of 14,845 units through 2029.

Manges described efforts intended to speed housing delivery, including a preapproved ADU plan program, updated density‑bonus rules and actions to rezone and track development pipeline activity. The presentation also reported pipeline stages for 2025: 543 proposed units, 292 entitled, 564 with permits issued and 575 completed.

Public commenters pressed the council for more affordable housing. Becky Watley (Ward 1) asked whether a recent conversion project counted toward the affordable total and said, "We're not doing enough," noting the city's shortfall. Claire Jefferson Gleipa, executive director of Family Promise of Riverside, emphasized homelessness among children and families, saying school districts identified about "5,000 students within the city ... who did not get to leave school and go home," and urged the council to keep those residents in mind.

Councilmembers asked staff clarifying questions about which year specific projects were captured in the counts; staff said permit issuance year is the determining record and that they would verify where some recent projects fall in the dataset. The council voted unanimously to receive and file the report and to direct staff to submit the annual progress report to the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation and the California Department of Housing and Community Development under Government Code section 65400(a)(2).

The report is now the official submittal to state agencies; staff will follow up on clarifications about specific projects’ year of permit issuance as requested by council.