Despite incentives from the City, developers are opting to build units for higher income tenants.
By Steve Price / CBS8 / April 4, 2024
Under the City of San Diego’s bonus Accessory Dwelling Unit program, a developer can build more than one ADU on a property as long as every other unit they build on the lot is set aside for affordable rent. But according to city records, the program is not working as city leaders had hoped.
A perfect example can be seen in the College East neighborhood, where six brand new ADUs just went up on a lot that used to have just one single family home.
“This is density plopped down in the middle of a neighborhood,” said Danna Givot with Neighbors for a Better San Diego.
She says there’s not a single unit in that College East complex, or another one being built around the corner, that is reserved for people with low or very-low incomes.
“It’s not doing what was intended – which was to create affordable housing. Truly affordable housing in higher income opportunity zones.”
Developers have the option to make their affordable ADU units available at three different levels:
- Very Low Income, which they can rent for $1,379 a month
- Low Income for $2,205 a month
- Moderate Income for $2,570 a month
At a Land Use and Housing Committee meeting in 2022, several councilmembers and speakers raised concerns about ADUs actually being built for low and very low income San Diegans, including Councilman Stephen Whitburn who said at that meeting, “Certainly, my goal would be to increase the number of units that we’re making affordable for low and very low income individuals.”
The City ended up amending its original program to add an incentive for builders. It allows them to raise their rent to market rate after just 10 years, instead of 15 years for moderate income rentals, if they agree to price their units at the low or very low level. So far, that hasn’t worked.
“There have been exactly zero deeded affordable units for very low and low income households that have been part of the ADU bonus program,” Givot said.
An independent housing expert told CBS 8 that he’s actually okay with all the units slated for moderate income people because he says that’s a huge area of need for singles – especially seniors and young people.
But neighbors fear that comes at a cost.
“They’re buying up the starter home in San Diego which is particularly unfortunate for people who are not already home owners,” Givot said. “They’re turning San Diego into a city of renters.”
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
This article quotes someone talking about starter homes getting bought up and how that is turning SD into a city of renters. Your average “starter” home is going for for over $600,000 right now, which is not remotely close to affordable for most first-time buyers. Seems like most San Diegans rent because they can’t afford to buy, not because ADUs are eating into the starter home supply.
Absolutely misguided. Every time an adult is placed on a single family property it turns a starter home into an investment property.
ADU, not adult
The best way to create lasting housing security for low-income San Diegans, is to increase ownership among middle-income san diegans before they become poor by paying a lifetime of market rate rent to someone else.
We should be promoting small-lot subdivisions and condo-ization and removing tax incentives for investors purchasing other people’s homes.
These ADUs are just creating more landlords, and the restrictions on them are a joke. You can build an ADU larger than your house now, and 3 stories! You can build yourself a luxurious ADU, waived of DIF fees, and then list your house on Airbnb. And the “deed restrictions” are basically market rate rents in many places. $2600 for a 400sf studio!
$2205/month is low income?
Sheesh.
Never have I thought of myself as that.
This is turning into a high roller town, for sure.
What’s the average monthly income of a senior citizen’s social security check? Can ANY of them afford this kind of rent?
If I was still living in my hometown of OB with rents like these, I’d be homeless instead of living on 8 acres in these forested mountains in an old 1 1/2 story old house still able to pay the monthly bills. Down there, no chance of renting much less actually owning this place with no mortgage!
Eventually there won’t be anybody that will be able to live close enough to their work to unless they are living in their cars. Oh wait, there was a news program about that happening in San Diego not all that long ago on youtube…
sealintheSelkirks
It seems the Bonus ADU law is also being misapplied.
It states that for every Bonus ADU, one ADU on site must be deed-restricted as affordable. That’s a 1:1 ratio. But the city has invented language in their information bulletin to allow half of those additional ADUs to be market rate. Nothing in the law describes a right to add market rate ADUs.
If a property is allowed 2 ADUs by default, but wants to build 6… is that not 4 Bonus ADUs? Did my 2nd grade math class fail me? Doesn’t that mean 4 of the 6 ADUs on site must be affordable? Nope.. according to the city, only 2 would have to be.
On top of that, the city is not enforcing the Local Coastal Program which only allows 1 base ADU on a property with a single family home, regardless of which zone it is in.
What kh, are you suggesting that the people who are doing this are all corrupt lying flaming sacks of putrid doo-doo who are conniving with the wealthy ‘developers’ that have always run San Diego and funded the politicians as if it was their own private fiefdom? Are you saying that nothing has really changed since 1987 when I left my home town and took a hike into the mountains?
Quoting Marlin Brando “the horror, the horror!”
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Here’s a thought to a sort of solution to the absolute greed people are unable to overcome on their own:
We Need a Renters’ Tax Credit to Make Housing More Affordable
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/08/we-need-a-renters-tax-credit-to-make-housing-more-affordable/
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Or flat out rent control that stops this idiocy.
sealintheSelkirks