OCEANSIDE HOUSING DENSITY CAP REJECTED

Fails on tied council vote, will be brought up again at next meeting Oct. 18

A proposal to limit residential density in downtown Oceanside to 85 units per acre failed on a 2-2 vote Wednesday, but the idea will return when the City Council meets again Oct. 18.

The tie, with Councilmembers

Ryan Keim and Eric Joyce opposed and Mayor Esther Sanchez out ill, automatically sends the issue to the next meeting for another vote, City Attorney John Mullen said.

Several speakers including Kelly Brown, senior public policy adviser for the Building Industry Association of San Diego County, had asked the council not to approve the limit or at least postpone a decision.

“Ideally, building should not be capped in areas like downtown,” Brown said. “Projects will still be built, but the city will get less housing overall.”

Other speakers urged the council to curb downtown density and supported a lower limit, saying there’s already too much traffic and the multistory apartment buildings don’t fit with the beach community lifestyle.

Rapid growth in recent years has prompted Oceanside to look for ways to hit the brakes. Several large developments with hundreds of apartments, some with units less than 500 square feet, have been approved since the city removed a previous density cap of 43 dwellings per acre in 2019.

A turning point for the City Council may have been in January 2022 when it approved a multistory combination of hotel and apartments for the 700 block of Seagaze Drive, despite widespread objections from city residents. Using the state’s density bonus laws, that project will have a density of more than 320 units per acre.

City Council members said that under state law they had no choice but to sign off on the high-density project, but afterward they asked staffers to suggest a new density cap.