The City Council is set to vote Tuesday July 30 on Council President Georgette Gómez’s proposal to force developers to pay for or build more low-income housing as part of their projects. Gómez says the time for negotiating is over.
By Andrew Keatts and Lisa Halverstadt / Voice of San Diego / July 25, 2019
Council President Georgette Gómez has listened to the development industry’s vociferous opposition to her signature policy initiative and has settled on a simple response.
She’s not changing anything.
The City Council is set to vote Tuesday [July 30] on the proposal, which would force developers to pay for or build more low-income housing as part of their projects. Gómez says the time for negotiating is over, and she’s ready for a vote.
“We’re moving forward,” she said. “I think it’s fair.”
In May, a City Council committee approved Gómez’s proposed changes to the city’s so-called inclusionary housing ordinance. Those changes were more moderate than what Gómez had envisioned when she started pursuing the proposal in September , but industry leaders have since mobilized to argue that they’re anything but minor. They found a receptive audience at the city’s Planning Commission earlier this month.
For the article’s balance, please go here.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The proposal explicitly raises the cost of construction even more, reducing housing supply and raising prices and rents. All for a tiny number of “affordable” housing units that often get allocated in corrupt ways or to people who hide their income.
Let’s look at a new 10-unit 1000sq foot each development. The cost to build will be $220,000 higher, potentially meaning it won’t even get built. Or one of the units is made affordable and someone with 30% of median income wins a lottery and gets it. Where does the person would would have paid the market price go? He doesn’t disappear, he buys something else…. which displaces someone else… and finally down the line the affordable unit set aside displaces someone else who can’t afford anything else, completely offsetting the benefit of the “affordable” unit.
NYC and SF have the most aggressive rent control and affordable housing requirements on development in America, and also the most expensive housing and rents. The policy just doesn’t work.
I think the “activists” like Gomez know all this. If just mandating and charging fees were a solution, why not require 50% affordable or $200 a sq foot fee? The result would be no new apartment/condo development of course.
WHY COPY EDITORS ARE NEEDED:
“Where does the person would would have paid the market price go?”
The typo is in the “original” at VOSD?