Editordude: Here’s the Voice of San Diego’s take on Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s latest “legacy-shaping” plan – which we’ll call the “Incomplete Communities” – by Andrew Keatts. For other takes, see OB Planning Board vice-chair Kevin Hasting’s post where he says the plan would bring high-density and eliminate OB’s floor-area-ratio, and San Diego policy-wonk Norma Dameshek’s view that the plan should be jettisoned altogether.
By Andrew Keatts / Voice of San Diego / July 6, 2020
In the waning months of his administration, Mayor Kevin Faulconer is proposing a set of policy changes aimed at delivering on his own previous promises and the city’s long-term goals, as well as reforms required by state law. He hopes the various pieces of the plan, dubbed Complete Communities, would make way for far more homes near transit, remake how the city funds parks and community improvements and change the way it measures the environmental effects of new development.
The first piece of the program is heading toward a City Council vote, after a Council committee last month held a marathon discussion of it, but did not vote to support it.
Council members on the committee praised Faulconer’s ambitions, and said the plan aimed to do the right things. But from both the left and the right, they raised specific issues, and instructed city planners to get back to work. And with public criticism coming simultaneously from unions, large developers, business groups, affordable housing advocates and community representatives, how the mayor’s office will sort it all out is anyone’s guess.
If Faulconer is successful, though, it will represent among the most significant internal reforms of his administration – just in time for him to move on, and for a new Democratic mayor to make it work.
The Housing Plan
The first piece of the program set for Council adoption tackles both the city’s housing shortage and its transportation woes. The City Council already last month adopted a new, state-mandated outline for how many new homes it needs over the next eight years. Reaching the 108,000 new homes it envisions would mean developers build three times more homes than the roughly 4,000 they currently build annually.
The housing portion of Complete Communities is meant to be a steroid boost for that effort. It is in practice the manifestation of Faulconer’s promise during the 2019 State of the City address to do away with height and housing density limits near transit stations – a pledge controversial with neighborhood groups wary of new development, and popular with advocates who support the city’s goal of decreasing car use by concentrating growth near transit.
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