SAN DIEGO —The San Diego City Council this week unanimously approved a comprehensive new plan to boost local housing production by tripling the number of units built each year.
The plan aims to help San Diego meet a state-mandated goal of 108,000 new housing units by 2029. That would require the annual number of units built to rise from 4,100 currently to 13,500.
City officials said such an increase would be ambitious even in a strong economy, so the recession sparked by the pandemic will make the goals of the new plan especially hard to achieve.
The plan evaluates existing housing, proposes policies to increase production and seeks to reduce fees and other constraints. It’s called the “housing element” of the city’s general plan blueprint for growth.
San Diego officials have streamlined housing approvals in recent years to spur increased production. They’ve also approved incentives for projects with more units, softened granny flat regulations and modified environmental rules.
“We know the statewide housing crisis will only worsen because of the pandemic, so it’s crucial we build on the momentum we’ve made in recent years to cut red tape and get more shovels in the ground,” Mayor Kevin Faulconer said.
“We’re going to need over 100,000 new housing units over the next decade to keep pace with our growing population, and this update provides a framework for how we get can get there.”
Council members stressed that San Diego enthusiastically embraced its state-mandated goal of 108,000 new units for the next eight years. Many other local cities have balked at their state-mandated goals.
Within the city, council members said it is crucial that all neighborhoods absorb an appropriate share of the new housing — even predominantly single-family areas.
Before approving the plan Tuesday, the council amended it to require specific housing production goals for each of the city’s 52 neighborhoods.
“The housing crisis is citywide, so the city needs to deal with it citywide,” Councilman Scott Sherman said.
His comment echoed the sentiments of some residents who have criticized neighborhood planning groups for worsening the local housing crisis.
“Some community planning groups in the past have elected to downzone their neighborhoods to prevent more housing from being built,” said Aria Pounak. “Council should require minimum production goals for each community planning area in San Diego.”
Councilwoman Monica Montgomery said the plan should focus more on challenges created by the city’s aging population, which will require more housing that is affordable to senior citizens and geared to their needs.
Montgomery also said she’d like to see greater protections for renters and more focus on social equity in housing production.
The plan includes statistics on how the housing crisis is affecting lower-income residents. It says more than 1,500 evictions took place in 2016, and that rents have increased 46 percent since 2012.
“We’ve been reminded during the COVID-19 pandemic just how critical it is for all San Diegans to have adequate shelter and a place to live,” said Mike Hansen, the city’s planning director. “This document will be the catalyst for housing development and improvements.”
Council President Georgette Gómez said the key challenge is getting from the goals set by the plan to actual housing production.
“It’s important to have the blueprint of what’s needed and where we’re thinking of developing it,” Gómez said. “But I think the other piece, and the other very critical conversation, is how do we make it happen.”
San Diego has failed to meet the goals of its previous housing element by a wide margin.
The city’s state-mandated goal of housing production from 2010 to 2020 was 88,100 units, but just over 37,000 had been produced through the end of 2018 — or 42 percent of the goal. The average number of units built per year was 4,100.
More troubling, city officials say, is that the city nearly met the goal for upper-income residents, but it was dramatically short of meeting the goal for low-income and moderate-income residents.
Under the state’s Regional Needs Housing Allocation, the number of units required by 2020 for “very low income” residents was 21,977; only 2,258 had been built by the end of 2018.
The shortfalls are similar for “low income” residents —16,703 required units versus 2,633 units actually built — and for “moderate income” residents — 15,462 required units versus 10 units that were built.
On a positive note, the housing element shows total citywide land capacity for 174,678 housing units, more than the 108,000 new units required by the state over the next eight years. The report also shows 11,805 sites with undeveloped housing capacity.
“The plan recognizes the depth of the challenges and the need for real solutions,” said Laura Nunn of the San Diego Housing Federation.
