The department shall not approve a request for assistance unless it has received and approved a housing needs assessment. The affordable housing needs assessment shall:

(1) Describe the jurisdiction's current needs for housing assistance for very low-income households, low-income households, and special-needs populations;

(2) Estimate the need for a five-year period; and

(3) Contain a strategy to meet the need. The needs assessment shall:

(a) Contain population demographics including age, race, household income, and household type;

(b) Provide a ten-year summary of population changes and a projection of population changes for the next ten years;

(c) State the number and percentage of persons and households at eighty percent and lower of county median income;

(d) Identify the gap between the number of households at eighty percent of median and the number of affordable rental and for-sale units which are needed;

(e) Identify the amount of average assistance required to close the gap for a household at eighty percent of county median income with not more than thirty percent of household income to be used for housing costs including utilities; and

(f) Contain a description of local existing housing conditions including vacancy rates, average rents, average for-sale house prices, units in need of rehabilitation, units in need of weatherization, and the number of new units in the past five years and their type.

The department may accept a local housing element, a certified comprehensive housing affordability strategy, or a housing assistance plan, if consistent with the provisions of this section. To be approved a plan must contain the number of households at eighty percent or lower of county median income and state the average amount of assistance required per household to enable access to affordable housing at fair market rents or to average sales prices with no more than thirty percent of the household's income, including utilities, and comply with the above requirements.