by Danna Givot / Times of San Diego / April 2, 2024
The Building Industry Association touts the Complete Communities Now program as ramping up production of more affordable homes, but this deserves a closer look. Complete Communities is not a cure-all for San Diego’s housing problems.
[Please see original for important links]
As of July 1, our city’s inclusionary housing code requires that new development with 10 or more units must reserve 10% of those units for very low and low-income households. But Complete Communities has not — and will not — deliver on that promise.
Not counting taxpayer-subsidized projects, the current version of Complete Communities has produced just 6.2% of those truly affordable units. The two biggest projects in the pipeline provide 42 truly affordable units out of 1,577 — a measly 2.7%, because the developers are gaming the system and scamming the City.
Also, a recent code change now allows these meager numbers of affordable units to be moved offsite from the main project, making these “incomplete communities,” to quote Councilmember Joe LaCava. The Planning Department sold Complete Communities to the City Council as an “equitable…diverse…inclusive” building program that would contribute to San Diego’s equity efforts, but now the program simply reinforces existing inequalities. It moves affordable units elsewhere — often to lower opportunity neighborhoods — and uses taxpayer funds to build them, instead of requiring developers to foot the bill in exchange for the out-of-scale density bonuses they’re getting.
Worse yet, many Complete Communities projects demolish existing naturally occurring affordable housing on those properties. This can result in a net loss in the number of truly affordable units in the market.
Meanwhile, the city is waiving development impact fees on all Complete Communities units 500 square feet or less and most units with three or more bedrooms. Those fee waivers have deprived the city to the tune of more than $17 million so far — money desperately needed to maintain and improve our failing infrastructure. These are funds the city wants the residents to make up via increased taxes.
And regrettably, none of these new units are for-sale housing, so there’s no additional opportunity for San Diegans to actually buy a home. Instead, San Diego continues to create a city of lifelong renters.
The building industry applauds Complete Communities for creating housing near transit, but the truth is, these projects can be built up to one mile away from an existing or planned transit stop. That’s farther than most San Diegans will or can walk to a bus or trolley.
By allowing Complete Communities developments to be built randomly up to a full mile from transit, the city is diluting its own efforts to create the population concentrations necessary to support a workable transit system. And it won’t create the critical mass of residents needed to economically support our “City of Villages” vision.
Complete Communities Now is San Diego’s second and very regrettable example of “unplanning,” with the Bonus ADU Program being the first. Planning at its best creates communities with zoning and density outlined on maps in a logical, orderly fashion. This gives residents and businesses a blueprint of the type of land use they can expect in their neighborhoods.
“Unplanning” happens when the city imposes illogical, destructive zoning on a carefully planned community, ignoring the existing height, density, and lot coverage limits. These overlays are imposed without community review or notification (except in a few extreme height situations), so residents are unaware their neighborhood will be dramatically altered.
Of course, the building industry is delighted that Complete Communities will create more immediate jobs for the developers and contractors whose interests it represents. Meanwhile, our city budget and infrastructure fund will bleed money, low-income San Diegans will have fewer affordable housing options than they would if these projects were built under San Diego’s inclusionary housing law, and existing affordable housing will be demolished without being fully replaced.
Complete Communities Now is a bad deal for San Diegans. Whether it takes 30 days or a year to get a permit, these developments will provide little truly affordable housing, minimal development impact fees, and no for-sale housing. At the same time, Complete Communities makes a mockery of San Diego’s Community, Climate Action, and Mobility Master Plans by allowing out-of-scale high-density towers to be randomly dropped into neighborhoods that lack effective and reliable public transit or the infrastructure to support them.
Danna Givot is co-chair of Neighbors For A Better San Diego.
Since everybody has their livable wage now, this should be no problem? No? It’s a loaded question.
OT, H barracks getting a do over.
https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2024/04/04/mayor-gloria-proposes-converting-building-in-middletown-to-house-1000-homeless-people/
Todd strikes another land deal while H barracks becomes a homeless parking lot.
A new shelter. $30 million a year operational cost while paying $1.9M a year for 35 years ($66.5M) for a building in escrow for $13.25M. Todd meanwhile will be long gone. Has Hamm done the political contribution route too for this ROI?
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2024/04/04/what-we-know-about-the-mayors-mega-shelter-pitch/#comment-28803
The biggest flaw in allowing developers to build low income housing, away from the site they are building on, is cost. It is far less expensive to build low income units in a building you are already constructing than it is to go build these units elsewhere on a completely different site. If developers are to be allowed to do this, the fee to them should be at least twice as much per unit as the building they are putting up. Or more.
100%, Geoff! Allowing them to pay-to-play *less* than it would cost them to include even the token amounts of required onsite affordable units into a fund for ‘future’ projects with no land or plans — especially when this was the stated purpose of the allowances and freebies they’re being given — proves once and for all that “Complete Communities” has always been a complete lie!
If developers want a CC project with no onsite affordable, then either make it prohibitively expensive or insist they build a project which does include what they’re required first before they’re allowed to lift a shovel.
Thx much for publishing this. Our group, Neighbors For A Better San Diego, submitted this commentary to the Union Tribune two weeks ago, after it published a misleading and inaccurate commentary written by the CEO and a board member of the Building Industry Association.
You can read that commentary here:
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2024-03-18/opinion-the-mayors-housing-orders-could-be-a-game-changer-heres-why
The UT declined to publish our fact-checked commentary that gives San Diegans a very different perspective on Mayor Todd Gloria’s “Complete Communities” program, especially its failure to provide much-needed housing for truly low-income San Diegans.
The UT will publish a much shorter letter from us, but we very much appreciate the Times of San Diego and the OB Rag’s willingness to post our full commentary,
Learn more about Neighbors For A Better San Diego and our strategy for creating more housing — especially truly affordable very-low and low-income units — while assuring that Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council listen to and act on the valid concerns for residents in our city’s unique neighborhoods.
http://www.nfabsd.org
The word games coming from the mayor, city council and the mayoral appointed Dept. heads need to stop! The City Council pushed thru the new plan for developers so they don’t have to include low income, or very low income housing with the so called, be it misleading, “affordable” units. The developer can build “low income, and very low income” units in a different community, but the residents do NOT get the same amenities as those in the high priced “affordable” units. Segregation right then and there. So when the mayor goes on some rant about “transparency” and mentions something about housing for all, I’d urge voters to remember he and the City Council pushed thru a version of SD10, which is blatant segregation. Vote for Larry Turner for mayor to stop this compost! Don’t vote for City Council incumbents. Get new eyes, ears and ideas on the Council. The mayor’s form of segregation in housing, is as harmful as ever, to the good people of SD. Disgusting and intolerable.
The Complete Community Demolition Plan. There are no requirements nor enforcement mechanisms to guarantee off-site housing affordable housing will ever be built, ever. As in the history of never-ever-ever-ever. There are no provisions mandating a requirement for the ownership of offsite parcels prior to approved market rate development,. There are no enforcement mechanisms nor requirements to build anything affordable (or not) anywhere; after their hyper gentrifying 1000 unit soviet style block housing (with olive green and orange doors) eyesores are built by the dozens.
I agree Mateo. It’s all meaningless words them.
Uh oh, alert….another governmental acronym.
NAFTA, , No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Department of Homeland Security, etc.
Maybe this one should be called No Thanks Mayor Gloria, or NTMG.
Todd Gloria’s goal seems to be to bankrupt the City of SD before he’s out. Millions of dollars short and now the Kettner Blvd. dog and pony show? All media attention indicates, he’s got too many debtors showing up. They donate, he performs.