Strategic Growth Council Factory Built Housing Pilot Program Round 3 Planning Grant

The Factory-Built Housing (FBH) Regional Pilot Program – Round 3 Planning Grant is administered by the California Strategic Growth Council (SGC), a state agency focused on advancing public health, racial equity, economic resilience, and environmental sustainability. The FBH Program is supported through a $12 million allocation from the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) Program, funded by California’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and implemented through the California Climate Investments initiative. These funds support multi-benefit initiatives that align housing production with climate goals and regional collaboration. The FBH Round 3 Planning Grant offers up to $3 million per project over a three-year term to applicants seeking to advance actionable strategies, scalable plans, and pre-implementation activities related to factory-built housing at a regional level. Factory-built housing refers to residential structures or components manufactured off-site and assembled on-site. The program is designed to support regions in transitioning from early-stage coordination to more advanced planning efforts aimed at enabling affordable, sustainable housing delivery using factory-built technologies. It specifically emphasizes coordination across jurisdictions, agencies, and sectors to address barriers and catalyze long-term impact. The grant program is not intended to fund individual development projects but to foster regional capacity-building for systemic change. Eligible applicants include a wide range of California-based entities, such as local governments, tribes, community-based organizations, multijurisdictional authorities, nonprofits, private for-profit entities (excluding publicly traded companies), special districts, regional housing finance agencies, academic institutions, and others with the authority and capacity to execute regional initiatives. Applicants must include at least one partner that is a community-based organization. If the lead applicant is not a public agency, a partnering public agency with land-use or implementation authority is required. Partnerships must be formalized through a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), and a signed MOU is required prior to grant execution if awarded. Funds may be used for a range of eligible planning activities such as zoning and permitting streamlining, site identification and analysis, policy amendments, predevelopment planning, governance structuring, and integrating factory-built strategies into regional housing, transportation, or climate plans. Projects must be regional or multi-regional in scale, conducted across a defined project area composed of at least one county or two local jurisdictions, and designed to benefit California’s Priority Populations. Ineligible costs include direct construction, land acquisition, individual assistance (e.g., rent subsidies), or community engagement expenses unrelated to project work. Applications are submitted via the Submittable platform and must include a detailed Workplan and Budget, a regional Project Area map using the Priority Populations Mapping Tool, a draft partnership MOU, financial documentation, and narrative responses to program alignment and capacity criteria. The application deadline is May 5, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. PST. A pre-application technical assistance request must be submitted by April 17, 2026, for those seeking help. SGC will score Planning Grant applications based on alignment with program goals (15 points), applicant capacity (20), partnerships (15), impact and co-benefits (20), feasibility (20), innovation (5), and Priority Populations benefit (5). Finalists may be invited to interviews before awards are recommended for approval by the Council in June 2026. Selected grantees will enter a grant agreement by the end of 2026, launching a project implementation period spanning through 2030. Midterm and final reporting will be required, along with participation in evaluation and learning communities. Funds are reimbursed based on invoicing, with a 5% retainage and no advance payment option for Planning Grant recipients. State prevailing wage laws apply, and the grant program remains subject to audit and compliance requirements throughout its term.

Clearly demonstrate regional scale, alignment with program objectives, and benefit to Priority Populations; avoid proposing single-site development or ineligible costs.