Richmond Denied a 25-Bed Shelter It May Have Had to Approve By Right

You've found the building. It's an office in a zone that already allows multifamily housing, and you want to turn it into a 25-bed emergency shelter. The city doesn't say no outright — it routes you into a conditional use permit. Hearing after hearing, the staff report recommends approval. Then the direction flips, the findings get rewritten, and the permit is denied.

That's roughly what happened in Richmond. In a January 28, 2026 technical assistance letter, HCD told the city it may have skipped the first question entirely.

Here's the thing: if the shelter qualifies as a by-right Low Barrier Navigation Center, HCD's position is the city was never allowed to require a conditional use permit in the first place.

What Richmond did

An applicant filed for a CUP in November 2023 to convert an existing office building on 37th Street into an emergency shelter with up to 25 beds. Across four Planning Commission hearings, staff twice recommended conditional approval before the Commission asked staff to return with findings for denial. In December 2024 the Commission voted to deny. In March 2025 the City Council upheld the denial.

The site sits in Richmond's T5MS-O district — a nonresidential zone where multifamily "Multi-Unit Dwellings" are permitted.

The question the city never asked

HCD's central point is procedural, and it lands early. A Low Barrier Navigation Center — a Housing First, service-enriched shelter — is a use by-right in mixed-use and nonresidential zones that permit multifamily uses, under Government Code § 65662. "By-right" has teeth here: HCD explains that the local government's review "may not require a CUP, planned unit development permit, or other discretionary local government review."

HCD found Richmond never ran that analysis:

"The City's processing of the Project did not analyze whether the Project is an LBNC that meets the requirements of By-Right LBNC Law. If so, the Project is a use by-right, and the City may not require a CUP."

That's HCD's position, not a court ruling — but it reframes the whole fight. If the project was a qualifying LBNC, the CUP process that produced the denial may have been off the table from day one.

Verified against HCD's Technical Assistance Letter to the City of Richmond (January 28, 2026).

The findings a shelter denial actually needs

Even setting the LBNC question aside, HCD found the denial didn't satisfy the Housing Accountability Act (Gov. Code § 65589.5). Under the HAA, HCD explains, a local agency can't disapprove an emergency shelter unless it makes written findings, on a preponderance of the evidence, that a specific adverse impact on health or safety would result and that mitigation isn't possible.

And "specific, adverse impact" is a high bar. The HAA defines it as a "significant, quantifiable, direct, and unavoidable impact, based on objective, identified written public health or safety standards." Richmond's stated worries — litter during a prior stint operating the site, proximity to schools, and more police calls — didn't clear it, in HCD's view:

"The statements that the Project is located near a residential neighborhood and schools, and that there was an increase in calls for service while the shelter was in operation do not constitute a 'significant, quantifiable, direct, and unavoidable impact' on public health and safety..."

On the security concern, HCD went further: "There is no evidence of, for example, an increase in criminal activity during the time the shelter was in operation." And it reminded the city that "the burden of proof shall be on the local legislative body."

Conditions that quietly do the same work

HCD also flagged two conditions of approval as potential HAA problems, because a condition that renders a shelter infeasible needs its own findings. The staff report required "more than three parking spaces" on a site that, by the report's own admission, "can accommodate three on-site parking spaces." It also added two uniformed security guards on top of the management staff — a cost HCD said "may render the Project infeasible."

A denial you can appeal, rebuilt as conditions you can't meet.

What to do with it

If your shelter or navigation center is being pushed through a discretionary permit, the first question is whether state law even allows the permit — and the second is whether any denial or condition carries the written findings the HAA demands. This isn't legal advice, and HCD's letters are its enforcement position, not a court's final word — courts remain the arbiter. Verify with your jurisdiction and your counsel before you rely on it.

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.