Neighbors for a Better San Diego / April 26th, 2023
The Senate Bill 10 Opt-In is bundled into San Diego’s Housing Action Package 2.0 and currently making its way through the system. Mayor Gloria and his backers in Sacramento hope that San Diego will be the first city in the state — and probably the only city foolish enough — to “opt-in” to SB 10. (See timeline below.)
The final decision rests solely in the hands of our nine City Council members who will be voting on the Package this summer. Unlike previous state mandates, such as SB 9, SB 10 is entirely optional and our City Council members have the full discretion to pull it from the Housing Action Package.
Here’s what the City Council must know about SB 10:
• SB 10 allows 10-unit buildings up to three stories high in residential neighborhoods on single-family parcels.
• All parcels a mile or more away from existing or future transit stops are eligible (over half of all San Diego properties).
• Opens up a 12-fold increase in building volume on average-size single-family lots, exceeding the density of most of San Diego’s apartment zones.
• Even tiny lots are eligible for SB 10.
• Although Historic Districts are protected in the current draft of the Housing Action, a Planning Commissioner is already advocating for SB 10 to be allowed in Historic Districts.
• No onsite parking requirements for the majority of eligible lots under the pretense that residents who live a mile away from ineffective transit won’t need cars.
• Allowed in high-risk fire areas.
• Gray San Diego: 100% concrete coverage of lots allowed (no green space required).
• No requirements for homeownership (can remain apartment buildings forever).
• Drives land prices up by creating increased revenue potential for developers and investors, leading to higher rents and home prices.
• THERE’S NO TURNING BACK! If SB 10 is implemented in San Diego, IT CAN NEVER BE UNDONE. EVER. This is written into the State bill itself.
Incredibly, it’s been brought to our attention that at least one San Diego Council member (communicated through a senior staffer) is not aware that SB 10 is in the Housing Package or that Mayor Gloria is expecting the City Council to pass it this summer. This is remarkable considering our Council members hold the power to decide our fate with this very damaging, irreversible bill.
After the bogus “public engagement” meeting on SB 10 last March, the Package is now in the “Draft Regulations Developed” stage according to the City’s timeline.
Timeline for the City Council’s vote on SB 10…
You can rest assured that your City Council members are taking meetings with building industry lobbyists and proponents of SB 10.
Please continue to put pressure on your Council member and educate them on why they must vote NO on SB 10. It’s imperative that they fully understand the irreversible harm of this non-mandatory Senate bill, authored by Senator Scott Wiener and co-authored by San Diego Senator Toni Atkins.
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Put pressure on your Council member and educate them on why they must vote NO on SB 10. It’s imperative that they fully understand the irreversible harm of this non-mandatory Senate bill, authored by Senator Scott Wiener and co-authored by San Diego Senator Toni Atkins.
Vote NO on SB 10.
Do we really need to educate them? Are they that ignorant? Recall them all! Don’t vote for these numb nuts anymore!
Dang, Debbie, you may have a point there!
Thumbs up there!
Residents throughout San Diego are uniting in solidarity on Saturday, May 6th, to peacefully protest San Diego’s irresponsible overdevelopment policies.
Citywide Protests Planned for Saturday, May 6th
neighborsforabettersandiego.org
This was in the SF Chronicle this morning: “San Mateo’s City Council has been in a state of turmoil since the November election with its mayor facing a recall campaign, among several other conflicts. The main issue? Housing.
It’s like many other Bay Area cities that are struggling and resisting to meet the state’s ambitious housing mandate. But this could also be what brings down pro-housing Mayor Amourence Lee”
I posted this in the previous SB10 article. It’s from 2018 but really shows the generational divide amongst those who lean left in regards to the way to address the housing issue. My own opinion is regardless if SB10 passes or not, the problem will not get better. Upzoning single family neighborhoods will not bring the overall cost down but neither will not doing it. And truth is, ALL of us (no matter which side) share some culpability.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-s-housing-crunch-has-turned-liberals-against-one-another-n851401
You continue to push a misguided old news story on one thread and propagate it over here. I find our conversations disingenuous now and say you’re just stirring the pot.
A wrist slap and a wet noodle lashing for me I guess.
You are propagating trash from 5 years ago before covid. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and you played it.
Chris,
You’re reading WAY too much into this. So what if I posted this same link from five years ago twice? You really take issue with that? Misguided or not it’s an opinion piece I found and still think is interesting, bad journalism or not.
That was a good article even though its 5 years old and very applicable to today in my opinion.
This is where SB10 fails when it’s touted as affordable housing. Market rate private single family properties will not be cheap enough to be converted to affordable housing. The city government, is trying to do this, without putting skin in the game, and thinks market forces will work this out by piling people on top of people.
The U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) considers housing to be affordable when a household spends 30% or less of its income on housing costs. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), in 2021, the Fair Market Rent (FMR) for a two-bedroom apartment in California was $2,030. In order to afford this level of rent and utilities — without paying more than 30% of income on housing — a household must earn $6,766 monthly, or $81,191 annually. To put this in perspective, renters currently need to earn nearly 3 times the state minimum wage to afford average asking rents in California.
While both market-rate and affordable housing require significant financial resources and technical expertise, affordable housing developers cannot recuperate their projected costs through the revenue typically earned when a future tenant pays rent. Consequently, affordable housing developers need financing mechanisms offered by federal, state, and local governments to help fill the gap between a development’s projected development cost and its projected cash flow from collected rents.
https://www.housingca.org/policy/focus/housing-affordability/
All San Diegans should pressure Dist 1 – Joe LaCava 619-236-6611 joelacava@sandiego.gov and demand that he file a motion that consideration of SB10 require a unanimous City Council Vote for passage.
Call and demand that Dist 4 – Monica Montgomery-Steppe 619-236-6644 mmontgomerysteppe@sandiego.gov second the motion requiring a unanimous vote of all 9 City Districts Councilmembers. She knows that SB10 will eliminate every home ownership and fair haousing gains made by African American families 100 fold.
San Diegans should read SB10. It was written by the corporate real estate industry and facilitated by Todd Gloria in the Housing Committee in the State Assembly before Toni Atkins polluted it even further.
Homelessness has increased more than 1700% since Toni Atkins and Todd Gloria entered public office. SB10 is as despicable as the way in which it is being misrepresented and championed by the King and Queen of San Diego Homelessness. See those two, Atkins and Gloria for whom they really are.
Then California Democratic Party has routinely and without any sense of decency, humanity, or empathy betrayed San Diegans to abuse their abolutely corrupted power to create the runaway Corporate Housing Monopoly that has created an icessant flow of toxic Corporate Real Estate Development moneys into the DNC, DNCC and the Cal Dems to fund campaigns and provide slush money for decades to come.
SB10 will forver eliminate home ownership for everyone, eventually; once the Politico-Real Estate Industrial Complex can get an unmitigated foothold in the second largest city in California.
Evict Todd Gloria before he evicts all of California.
Toni Atkins and Todd Gloria should be ran out of town on a rail.
Some of mayor Todd’s finest work by SDSU at 2.1 million up for sale. 4 bed 2 bath at 1440 Sq ft with a 4 bed 2 bath 1200 Sq ft adu. fully leased at 9k per month. 5544 Mary lane dr.
A couple 2100 sq ft properties are/ will be listed at 1.5M near me. Can’t blame them for asking with the current investor/ ADU rules inflating things.
Email from Neighbors for a better San Diego
Senate Bill 10 was never intended for San Diego
This is something the Planning Commissioners and San Diego City Councilmembers must understand before they cast their votes.
When CA Senators Scott Wiener and Toni Atkins authored SB 10, the intent was to provide a way to increase zoning capacity for cities that were unable to identify enough existing potential building sites to meet the state’s housing targets, as expressed in the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA).
Quoting Senator Wiener:
“…SB 10 allows cities, if they choose, to rezone these non-sprawl locations for up to 10-unit buildings in a streamlined way without CEQA. Given that cities face significantly increased housing production goals under the revised RHNA, and are required by state housing element law to complete rezonings to accommodate these goals, SB 10 is a powerful new tool for cities to use in their comprehensive planning efforts. …”
In other words, it was to be used as a “break glass in case of emergency” measure for cities that couldn’t meet their RHNA numbers.
San Diego is not one of those cities. San Diego already has enough zoned capacity (175,000 new homes) to more than meet the state RHNA target of 108,000 new homes, and this number will go up by 100,000 to 200,000 more homes when San Diego completes its pending community plan updates (Kearny Mesa, Mira Mesa, University, Clairemont Mesa, College Area, and Uptown).
Further, with density bonuses and other programs that allow additional housing above and beyond what is permitted by underlying zoning, Neighbors For A Better San Diego estimates that our city already has the capacity to build an additional 2 million homes, 19 times our housing needs.
San Diego’s RHNA challenges stem from the City’s permitting processes and the building industry’s construction capability, not a lack of zoned capacity.
Therefore, it is grossly premature to resort to something as drastic as SB 10, especially since, by state law, it can never be reversed by future City Councils. Once it’s implemented, it’s a done deal.
As a reminder, the Housing Action Package (HAP 2.0) was not approved at the last Planning Commission meeting, with at least one Commissioner describing SB 10 as fatally flawed. The next Planning Commission hearing is scheduled for August 3rd, 2023 when the City Planning Department will return to the Planning Commissioners with a revised proposal.
Please save the date and stay tuned for our upcoming call to action. Thank you to everyone who is helping to spread the word on SB 10.
Toni Atkins knew exactly what she was doing when Todd Gloria’s Housing Committee in the State Assembly allowed Real Estate Investment Trust Lobbyist write the bill that was later passed after the palms were all greased in the House before moving over to the Cal Senate for the real palm greasing.
Toni Atkins office and her Senate has flat-out refused to create any metric to count the dead, those evicted & unsheltered Californians forced into the streets by Wall Street corporations of the Politico-Corporate Real Estate Complex. The Legislatively Evicted have no voice and State, County and City officials prove to us everyday, they don’t count. The media batter them, politicians have successfully “othered” them to the point where we are holding the victims accountable for the political bribery we accept and refer to as “campaign donations. The politico-corporate Real Estate Complex has destroyed existing “affordable housing by the 100,000’s and NEVER built ANYTHING in their place. The Political Elite continue to profit immensely from Dark Money from shady real estate deals that cost lives off unknown numbers of Senior Californian’s living on a fixed income, everyday.corporations
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller
And sadly the 4th district supervisor seat has gone big money Democratic with Goldbeck and Steppe. This has gone too far left and Reichart has reservations with SB10. I have to go there. Grassroots government check here.
The claim above states, ” All parcels a mile or more away from existing or future transit stops are eligible (over half of all San Diego properties).” This means all parcels less than 1 mile are not eligible.
The actual text of SB 10 says this, ” 65913.5. (a) (1) Notwithstanding any local restrictions on adopting zoning ordinances enacted by the jurisdiction that limit the legislative body’s ability to adopt zoning ordinances, including, subject to the requirements of paragraph (4) of subdivision (b), restrictions enacted by local initiative, a local government may adopt an ordinance to zone a parcel for up to 10 units of residential density per parcel, at a height specified by the local government in the ordinance, if the parcel is located in one of the following:
(A) A transit-rich area.
(B) An urban infill site.”
This means the opposite of what is first stated above. It means the rezoning occurs inside, not outside the transit rich area as first stated above.
Am i missing something here? The difference is very large.
Why does this keep happening; the worst of our species in positions of power doing whatever they want for their own benefit?
That psychopaths are far more numerous and gravitate to those kinds of positions is becoming more accepted. It isn’t the Hannabil Lecter ones that are the most dangerous. Think CEOs of corporations, cops, politicians that can’t see the damage they are doing…is it truly more prevalent in society that this implies? Sure would explain much, eh?
The psychopathic path to success
Psychopathic tendencies may be present to some extent in all of us. New research is reframing this often sensationalized and maligned set of traits and finding some positive twists.
https://knowablemagazine.org/article/mind/2023/psychopathic-path-to-success?utm_source=pocket-newtab
sealintheSelkirks
More housing is good. This shouldn’t even be controversial. We don’t have nearly enough homes here in SD, for ownership or for rent. The solution is to build more. Additionally, dense housing is the only way to build for the future. We can’t just keep building suburbs in north and east county and pretending it’s okay.
San Diego does NOT have a housing crisis. It has an affordable housing crisis.
Agreed, Frank. And I’ll go one better, the entire country has an affordable housing crisis along with a ridiculously low wage to cost-of-living ratio, especially when one looks at both from the 1970s on…
Brexton: And where is the water going to come from for what you are proposing? Since Cali gets most of its water from the Colorado River, this article below might be a tiny little hiccup in your model:
Colorado River Basin has lost 10 trillions gallons of water due to climate change: Study
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBMHQ-8TBJw
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Anybody think this little problem is going to get better anytime soon? Especially with the Southwest being 117’F and evaporating the Colorado River ever faster with no end in sight as GHG emissions continue their never-ending rise?
The term for this is ‘We have passed the Rubicon.’ Building new housing with no thought about this existential problem is just plumb stupid. And then there is this little worry to add on top:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/27/1076774/air-conditioning-climate-antihero/
Because all those new houses are going to need power, too, aren’t they? How many AC units do you see everywhere? And the power comes from…wait for it…the Colorado Dams that are drying up.
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And, as I said in another thread, how about cancelling the permitting that has landlords turning homes into hotels. Make STRVs illegal, period. If a landlord wants a freaking hotel, let them buy one of those instead! This insanity has to stop one way or another….and I guarantee that it isn’t going to end well on the road it’s already on.
sealintheSelkirks
The problem is that investors are using Other People’s Money to make above-listing-price, all-cash bids on nearly every marginally affordable house that goes on the market, and then either a) flipping them for hundreds of thousands more, b) renting them out at exorbitant rates either monthly or short term, or c) letting them sit vacant because they can’t get anyone to qualify at the exorbitant rate, but they CAN get a tax write off for the empty rental.
Making it *even easier* for investors to swoop in and snatch up every ownable home is NOT the answer, which is what SB10 does. And simply “building more housing” won’t solve the problem either, unless we remove the incentives for investors to snatch up all the housing. It will simply create more moneymaking opportunities for corporate landlords to squeeze renters. It is a capitalist fantasy that simply adding more units will magically bring down the prices by alleviating demand. It will NOT–because corporate landlords will simply remove more units from the market and use them as a write off to keep demand (and rents) artificially high.
H.R.9246 (the Stop Wall Street Landlords Act) was a step in the right direction (though did not go nearly far enough) and would do FAR more to alleviate the affordable housing crisis.
Hmm, my reply was supposed to be directed at Brenton but it didn’t show up that way.
Wow, this is really really bad. We can’t let the City Counsel have this kind of power. They will NOT use it for the betterment of San Diego (if this Bill is even capable of it). They will use it to line their pockets. I can only imagine how many truck loads of cash a developer would pay for an opportunity to earn large amounts of income….
A) Limit the number of parcels owned. No individuals hiding behind a business imaginary or real. Nobody needs to own 10-20-100 parcels. A apartment complex would be 1 parcel.
B) Existing dead commercial converted to actual housing. Infrastructure shopping, and transit is likely nearby.
Leaving this up to the free market exchanging rules for votes won’t cure anything. Yet as much as the city has botched this issue, do we really want them trying to do more? Catch 22.
I wish people would quit using the term ‘free market’ because that DOES NOT EXIST. This is Capitalism and Class Warfare.
“Actor Alan Ruck (Conor Roy in Succession) from the picket lines of the SAG strike: Alan Ruck, killing it with this perspective. “It used to be Kings and Queens and Emperors, and now it’s Captains of Industry. And they think the world and everything on it and in it, everything in the air and in the ocean belongs to them…”:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1688297937099747328
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sealintheSelkirks