SAN DIEGO’S NEW PLAN LIKELY TO SPUR BUILDING
The persistent housing crisis is far from over in San Diego as elsewhere in the state. Its impacts are seen every day in limited housing supply, sky-high rents and chronic homelessness. In the past, San Diegans routinely searched for affordable housing in other counties, but now they are crossing state lines as a growing number of families look eastward to Nevada, Arizona and Texas in search of homes they can afford. The roadways of Boise, Idaho, are even dotted with California license plates as more and more Californians seek refuge there, much to the consternation of Boiseans.
The San Diego City Council has told us repeatedly that it wants to address the housing supply shortage, starting in 2016 with the creation of the Affordable Homes Bonus Program that sought to incentivize the building of affordable units. It was followed up in 2019 by a program of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System to create affordable homes on underutilized parking lots near transit centers and the results can be seen rising up from once-empty lots. Both have resulted in an increase in affordable housing.
Then, in 2020, the council created the Complete Communities Program to offer regulatory certainty and swifter approvals for projects that provided affordable homes in locations known as Transit Priority Areas. Such projects are within one-half-mile as the crow flies from public transit. Early results are encouraging. The number of new homes in these areas are coming in at 2.5 times higher than what could have been permitted before the program.
Now the City Council may modify the Complete Communities Program — by redefining where new homes could be built — through the latest Land Development Code Update and replace Transit Priority Areas with Sustainable Development Areas. The shift would redefine this area as a 1-mile walk from transit rather than half a mile as the crow flies. City officials argue, rightfully so, that this will increase the potential developable areas by more than 5,200 acres, likely resulting in additional home production near transit.
As the respective heads of the local Building Industry Association, the pro-transit Circulate San Diego and the affordable housing-focused San Diego Housing Federation, we completely agree.
San Diego’s potential change would amend the Complete Communities Program and to the local Accessory Dwelling Unit Bonus Program, which allows families to add onto their home, creating additional living space. It would not affect the state’s Density Bonus Program, which also allows an increase in the number of units in a project in exchange for affordable housing.
While the emphasis on subsidized affordable housing is laudable, more needs to be done to ensure an overall healthy housing market. A greater emphasis on middle income homes is essential, but regulatory impediments, land competition, escalating fees and material costs are difficult hurdles for builders to overcome. More reforms — such as self-certification, that allows licensed professional to preapprove their designs, by-right processing that reduces reviews for projects that comply with the community plan requirements and shorten the time it takes for projects to go before the City Council for final approval — are necessary if home providers are to have any chance of producing middle income housing at meaningful levels.
For all the strides taken to increase overall supply in eight years, the actual number of homes built annually has hovered around 10,000 countywide since 2015. The San Diego Association of Governments maintains the region needs to produce 21,000 homes every year just to keep pace. Sadly, according to the Construction Industry Research Board in Sacramento, the region looks to have produced fewer homes in 2022 than it did in 2021. The city of San Diego’s 2022 housing production will likely just match its 2021 levels. This is not the trend San Diego needs.
Programs such as Complete Communities are key to San Diego’s effort to produce more homes the city desperately needs, and city leaders must stay strong against efforts by some critics to push back. The public overall seems to agree as noted in the contentious 2022 City Council election of Kent Lee, who campaigned on a generally prohousing message. Additionally, voters have twice chosen in recent local elections to remove restrictive height limits in the Midway area to allow more homes.
The City Council should be commended for going beyond words to action to tackle the housing shortage but clearly more has to be done. Every legislative action it takes should be measured against its impact on the ability of home providers to construct new homes. The review process must be restructured to shorten time frames for all housing types, and better interdepartmental coordination is needed to prevent needless delays.
San Diego has shown the wherewithal to achieve these objectives. Its leaders just have to stay the course. San Diego families are counting on them.
Holt Pfeiler is president and CEO of Building Industry Association of San Diego and lives in Escondido. Parent is executive director and general counsel at Circulate San Diego and lives in La Mesa. Russell is president and CEO of San Diego Housing Federation and lives in North Park.