From Neighbors for a Better San Diego
After our August 2023 defeat of Mayor Gloria’s implementation of Senate Bill 10, we warned that SB 10 would be back in some form.
Sure enough, Mayor Gloria is applying for a $7 million federal (HUD) grant that would allow up to 9 units on single-family lots — just like SB 10.
Mayor Gloria continues to blame homeowners for the city’s housing challenges, despite our thoughtful and respectful efforts to suggest improvements to San Diego’s land development codes.
The grant application amps up the Mayor’s anti-homeowner sentiment by distorting what’s possible in single-family zoning.
For example, the proposal states multiple times that
“…large portions of the city remain exclusively reserved for single-family housing.”
and continues with the lie that San Diego’s single-family zoning “…currently only permit[s] single-home uses” and that
“…80% of the City of San Diego’s residentially zoned land is zoned for single-family,”
These statements are simply false. EVERY single-family parcel in San Diego can have 5 units through the Bonus ADU program, and an unlimited number of ADUs if the parcel is inside the Sustainable Development Area.
The Mayor also blames homeowners for the City’s lack of infrastructure money:
“Because land uses have not been able to be updated to accommodate more development, there has been less development impact fees collected to pay for needed infrastructure throughout the city.”
Homeowners did not instruct Mayor Gloria to waive $20 million in Development Impact Fees on San Diego development programs such as Complete Communities, Bonus ADUs, and other projects. That was the Mayor’s decision alone.
Finally, Mayor Gloria has chosen to stoke division rather than bring citizens together with the gratuitous assertion that:
“Changing land uses has been challenging in San Diego, primarily because white communities that benefited from racist-redlining principles continue to resist land use changes that would allow more home opportunities in their neighborhoods. Many of the same communities that benefited from red-lining still mount substantial community opposition to any regulation that promotes affordable housing in their communities.”
Neighbors For A Better San Diego is extremely disappointed that the Mayor has adopted this divisive and adversarial position, given that the city’s Bonus ADU program has disproportionately impacted home ownership in communities of concern.
We have been strong advocates for policies that would make housing more affordable for all San Diegans. Accordingly, we urged city planners at the October 1, 2024, City Council meeting to include us as stakeholders in determining the city’s future.
It is hard to see how San Diego can achieve a positive outcome from the grant if it is being proposed under false premises and without the participation of ALL stakeholders.
Neighbors For A Better San Diego is a local non-profit group of San Diego neighbors, community leaders, and advocates who seek the creation of policies that benefit homeowners, renters, small businesses, and other stakeholders.
I really wish we could all come to an agreement that the provision of more housing doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game – that the only way to solve our housing “crisis” is to ruin single family neighborhoods.
The “single family” neighborhood I currently live in has a real mix of housing, including small single family homes (and a few McMansions), duplexes, apartment buildings, etc. Having nine units on a 5,ooo square foot lot (equivalent to 78 dwellings per acre, or a little less residential density than Manhattan Island) is simply going to make my neighborhood unlivable. We don’t have an efficient transportation system like New York, nor is our development pattern amenable to a pedestrian/transit only life style.
There is a very interesting story on NPR today about a city in Maryland that has taken a much different approach. They are using public investment to build a combination of market rate and subsidized housing on the same site and with the same amenities as market rate housing. Profits from the market rate housing are used to build more combination developments, and everybody benefits. It’s a lot more complicated and would require a much greater effort than simply “build ADUs” but isn’t that the kind of innovative thinking we should expect, but rarely get, from our elected officials?
This is the comment that chaps me the most, “racist-redlining principles.”
This country is full of single family zoning from coast to coast and from the Gul to Canada. To say this is simply racist is beyond reason. There are many places like this where race has never been a part of those place’s history. How do you explain that?
It may well have been about race in some places but instead of a broad stroke, be specific where and how. Then, target those places. But, that would require too much actual work.
I dunno I found an example pretty easily.
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2022/01/04/you-may-never-look-at-the-sports-arena-the-same-again/ “only two neighborhoods in San Diego allowed and accepted people of color in any significant concentration outside of southeastern San Diego before the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Frontier was one and Linda Vista was the other. Both were federal government projects and powerful neighbors hated both.” Frontier of course is modern day Midway.
Sorry, but VOSD has shown its bias on this subject. What proof was offered that all the other neighborhoods in this city were exclusionary?
Geoff,
I bought a home near Linda Vista several years ago and was provided the original (1920) covenants. It specifically bars people of color (they used terms common back then) from living in the neighborhood. They were allowed to work there, but could not buy a home or live there. Racist redlining definately happened in San Diego, and if you look at the less prosperous neighborhoods now that is exactly where it occurred.
I said in my comment that this did happen in some places, no doubt, but the mere existence of it happening in one place does not mean it occurred in every single family zoned area. Your last sentence confuses me, I thought it occurred in the better off neighborhoods not the less prosperous places.
Prompted by our discovery about our neighborhoos, my son did a high school research project on this and found that it also occurred in Logan Heights, National City, Lincoln Part, parts of Chula Vista and Imperial City. Lots of places that were being developed early in the city’s history. But you are right that the practice was stopped in the ’60’s. Still, lending ‘red lining’ persisted for quite a while, and may to this day, IDK, But much of the effects of poverty and environmental distress defininetly linger. I’m not sure what effect this has on multi-unit housing now…maybe that those areas are less vigorously protected from it? My area now is very mixed as to apt building, ADU’s (not 9 unit ones), probably around half single family homes. I don’t mind that, except for traffic and parking impacts that the city does a poor job of regulating.
I specifically moved where I did so my neighbor wasn’t up against or on top of me. I respect granny flats in their truest sense. And additions as a work that doesn’t detract from the neighborhood. These money grabbers have decimated the neighborhood with overcrowding and provided no infrastructure for it. Mayor Toad is looking for his next job. Let’s help him look sooner and vote for Larry.
NFABSD with a candidate questionnaire. Toad and Whitburn didn’t answer and Ego-Rivera only put out a statement. Turner, Hoskins and Cusack did and the answers pretty much draw the line, from incumbents to challengers. Don’t know if it’s on the website.
Why aren’t we talking about STVRs? Banning STVRs would infuse the community with THOUSANDS of long-term housing units. But noooo….let’s allow thousands of STVRs AND allow multiple ADUs on single family lots AND allow developers to have their way with zoning laws. I guess it doesn’t matter that the beach communities are already suffering with traffic, trash, parking issues, delayed emergency response, crumbling roads, etc. Let’s add to it all for the sake of investor and corporate profits.
We hear you! You’ve summed it up.
So many more factors. Seldom mentioned is something learned in Economics 101, supply & demand. Climate change will forever result in demand to live in the best climate anywhere, and supply will never catch up except for the richest. And always remember what the Lewis Powell SCOTUS started with legalizing bribery to own politicians. Again, only the richest benefit.
Still scratching my head as to everyone who can’t afford it wanting to live here, yet there’s been a net million person population decrease in the state, while the bureaucracy says housing shortage, picking and choosing what to regulate out front while taxing out the back. And before anyone screams “affordable housing” , what’s affordable when the PUC does what it wants and your government wants more money for bike lanes, infrastructure shortfalls, etc, while they blew it in other areas (see homelessness). You can’t totally trash the property owners who have to contend with rising utility rates, insurance rates, and maintenance costs and only point the finger at them. If government has not kept utilities , gas, insurance affordable, then how do you think they’re going to make housing affordable?
Simple solution. Defeat Todd Gloria!
Well-done, Geoff and NFABSD! Poor Todd. His luck has run out. When you have to reach back 60 years for a straw-man argument, you’re running on fumes. He might get re-elected, but his second term will be brutal. Then what? His only hope of a political future is a post in a Harris administration. If that happens, the Beltway piranhas will eat him alive. You can’t survive in D.C. if you aren’t tough and smart, and Todd is neither.