'May Be Required' Isn't a Requirement: What a Checklist Can and Can't Do

You submit your application. Weeks later, the city sends back an "incomplete" letter, and the reason is a study you were never clearly told to run — water supply, noise, traffic. You check the form you filed against, and all it said was those studies "may" be required. The city decided they were required only after you'd filed.

Here's the thing: HCD's position is that a city can't do that. If the form only hedged — "may" — and the city picked which items counted after submittal, those items can't be the basis for calling your application incomplete.

What happened in Fillmore

A 132-unit project — single-family houses, ADUs, and JADUs in the North Fillmore Specific Plan — was submitted on November 19, 2025. The City's initial incomplete letter, on December 19, 2025, listed water supply, noise, and traffic studies among the missing items. The catch: Fillmore's form said those three studies "may" be required, then let the City decide which actually applied after submittal.

In a June 8, 2026 Technical Assistance Letter, HCD said that doesn't hold up under the Permit Streamlining Act. The PSA requires a city to spell out its submittal items up front — in HCD's words, "all items needed to achieve application completeness must be knowable to the applicant prior to their submission." HCD read section 65943 to allow an incompleteness finding only for missing information about "items actually required on the lead agency's submittal requirement checklist."

HCD's bottom line:

"Under the PSA, local governments cannot defer a determination as to whether an item mentioned in a development application form is applicable to a project until after the application is submitted."

And the consequence: "Because the City's application form did not properly specify that the relevant studies are required, the City may not use those studies as a basis for determining completeness." HCD requested a written update by July 8, 2026, and reminded the City that it can refer a non-compliant jurisdiction to the California Office of the Attorney General.

HCD didn't say the City can never ask for the studies — only that it must say so up front, through separate forms or a decision tree tied to objective criteria.

Verified against HCD's Technical Assistance Letter to the City of Fillmore (June 8, 2026).

What a checklist CAN demand — Sausalito

The same logic cut the other way in Sausalito. A homeowner proposing a 696-square-foot detached ADU at 426 Pine Street got a Notice of Incomplete Application dated July 7, 2026; one of its four stated reasons was a missing building coverage diagram and impervious surface coverage diagram.

HCD said yes. Those diagrams were on the City's ADU checklist, and under State ADU Law a city writes its own checklist. HCD's test: "as long as the requested items on the checklist are reasonably related to the entitlement and construction of an ADU, an applicant must provide them." Coverage information clears that bar.

But HCD drew a sharp line between collecting information and applying a standard. For a detached ADU qualifying under section 66323, the City can require the coverage diagram — yet, HCD said, it cannot then enforce a maximum building coverage limit the statute doesn't authorize:

"while the City may require building coverage information as a matter of determining whether the application is complete, once the City receives a complete application, it must take care not to apply development standards prohibited by Government Code section 66323, such as maximum building coverage, to an ADU which is exempt from those standards, including the proposed detached ADU."

Verified against HCD's Technical Assistance Letter to the City of Sausalito (August 12, 2026).

The line both letters draw

Put them together and you get a usable rule. If an item is actually on the checklist and reasonably related to your project, HCD's position is you have to provide it — even if the city can't later apply the underlying standard to your ADU. If the form only said an item "may" be required and the city decided after you filed, HCD's position is that item can't support an incompleteness finding.

That matters because "incomplete" stalls a project before the real clock starts — and, as HCD notes, completeness is what secures an application's protections under the PSA and the Housing Accountability Act.

Both letters are Technical Assistance — HCD's interpretive position, not a court ruling that binds anyone until a court or the housing-element decertification process says so. Check your own form against what it actually required the day you filed, and confirm with your counsel before you push back. The principle HCD lays out is plain: a city has to tell you what's required before you file — not after.

What CrossBeam does with it

When the letter lands on your desk, CrossBeam turns it around the same day: what each item is actually asking, the code or law behind it, and a written response you can hand to your team or your attorney — the back-and-forth that used to eat weeks, done in a couple of hours.