“One-Stop Shop” for Department Housing Information

Visit the Department of Social Services Homeless Services Division website for information about the San Luis Obispo Countywide Plan to Address Homelessness and affordable housing projects and homeless services that receive County support.

In accordance with Board direction, the Department continues to work on improving housing affordability for the San Luis Obispo region, in addition to complying with State housing regulations.
 

Housing Updates

The Regional Housing Incentive Program (RHIP) is a new local housing incentive program adopted in October 2025. This program is free to participate and is available to multi-family development projects located within urbanized unincorporated inland areas in the county. Similar to the State Density Bonus program, builders can participate in the incentive program by either building affordable housing units or contributing to the regional housing fund (established by this program) in exchange for favorable development standards e.g increased height, reduced setback, maximum dwelling units per acre and floor area.    

For more information on this program and how to benefit from participation, please refer to additional information below or contact Claire Momberger, [email protected].
 

Resources:

Regional Housing Incentive Program Guide
Regional Housing Incentive Program Participation Agreement.pdf
On September 23, 2025, the SLO County Board of Supervisors adopted a comprehensive update to the countywide regulations related to multi-family housing. The amendments would increase flexibility for housing development to better achieve the number of dwelling units per acre as envisioned in the General Plan. Some of the notable changes are allowing multi-family developments in the Office and Professional (OP), Commercial Retail (CR), and Commercial Service (CS) land use categories; Increasing allowed maximum number of dwelling units per acre; increasing allowed maximum floor area; reducing required setbacks, open areas, land use permit requirements for new development and approved landscape plans.

More information and draft ordinances are available on the 2020-2028 Housing Element Implementation project website.