By Laura Henson
The YIMBY movement, mostly associated with the Democratic Party, stands for “Yes In My Back Yard,” even though it isn’t associated with grassroots efforts of residents trying to bring housing, businesses, and other development to their communities.
YIMBYism has been very influential within the California Democratic Party and in San Diego under Todd Gloria’s leadership. It has been backed by special interest groups like the Building Industry Association and the tech industry.
According to a study published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review entitled, The Perils of Land Use Deregulation, YIMBYs support deregulation of the building industry, which decreases affordability and does nothing for racial equity. Simply stated, if you don’t have affordability, you can’t have equity.
By San Diego’s own numbers, we don’t have a shortage of total housing units, we have a shortage of affordable housing. According to the City of San Diego’s 2024 Annual Report on Homes, of the 25,693 new homes permitted, only 4,594 are affordable, 285 are moderate, and 20,814 are above-moderate. Housing prices only come down when you build affordable housing.
The YIMBY mantra, which Mayor Gloria fully endorses, is Supply and Demand – saturate the market with premium rate units and eventually cheaper rents will filter down (i.e., trickle down) to a level that is affordable to the rest of San Diegans. Well, the City has done this – the market for premium units has been saturated (rent increases are flat and vacancies have risen to 9.4%), but rents for moderate, low and very-low income units are not falling, nor are their vacancy rates going up.
Affordable housing needs government subsidies, not handouts to developers who demolish existing affordable housing and replace it with a token number of affordable units, with the remainder at market rate. Also, there are in lieu fees which allow developers to buy their way out of building any affordable units.
This is true of for-sale housing as well. Since San Diego implemented the Bonus ADU program in January of 2021, single-family home prices have skyrocketed because every single-family lot is now a commercial lot capable of having multiple apartments on it. Would-be homeowners have to pay a premium for that capacity even if they don’t intend to add more units. Sadly, some communities are dealing with ADU apartments that now have permits for up to 17 to 37 units on a lot.
To silence critics, Mayor Gloria endorses another YIMBY narrative, which is denigrating single family homeowners as perpetuating racism because of discriminatory covenants that were made illegal 76 years ago.
The YIMBY Dem website states, “The housing shortage is rooted in a long history of racist practices. Systemic racism, past and present, hurts people of color and makes our communities more segregated.” In fact, our shortage of affordable housing is a direct result of YIMBY policies that support upzoning and take houses off the market for purchase by would-be homeowners and instead allow corporations to turn them into multiple ADU apartments, none of which are truly affordable.
In the seminal book, The Color of Money, on discriminatory housing practices in the U.S. against African Americans, the author, Richard Rothstein, supports housing subsidies for African Americans, repeal of any remaining exclusionary zoning, and affirmative action in education and employment opportunities. Nowhere does he support deregulating the building industry, upzoning, and destroying single-family neighborhoods. All are bad for affordability, quality of life and equity.
The moral of the story is, when you allow special interests groups like the Building Industry Association and Big Tech to use ”affordability” and “equity” as a cover for their real goal of creating above-market -rate housing, you get a powerful movement that promotes YIMBY policies that only benefit the special interest groups that support politicians’ political careers and not the citizens of San Diego.
Until the Mayor admits his YIMBY housing policies do not create affordable housing, San Diego will continue to be one of the least affordable cities in the U.S.
Laura Henson is a resident of Talmadge
As a Realtor with close to 50 years of experience, I agree with Ms. Henson’s every word.
The YIMBYs first mistake was to listen to Todd Gloria. Todd was born and raised in San Diego and at age 46, he has never invested in real estate. So, what is he doing with his $200+ mayor salary?
Let’s not forget Midway Rising, and 101 Ash Street bad deals that the taxpayers are left holding the bag on with nothing to show for it. But if you follow the money, you will see that Todd received donations from the principals in these two failed projects.
Todd is incompetent in real estate and has no experience, but he has hired one of his friends and big donors, Steve Cushman to advise the city on a lease for a mega shelter on Kettner boulevard that even the homeless don’t want to occupy. Steve Cushman who does not have a real estate license but is negotiating the lease on the Kettner project.
So, I have to ask, this is the experience you agree with and are supporting for mayor of our once Finest City?
YIMBYs, it’s time to open your eyes and realize that Todd is not working for you and will never help you achieve the American dream of homeownership because he’s too busy counting his pile of money.
On November 5th, it’s time to fire Todd Gloria because simply put, he’s just not into you.
Outstanding article and long overdue. Looking at actual outcomes of YIMBY housing policies and providing statistical back-up to overall analysis, Henson provides a great service to San Diegans who are frustrated by continuing increases in already high housing costs, accompanied by increasing homelessness and general deterioration of single family neighborhoods with thoughtlessly overscaled multi-family development. The building industry’s classic “supply and demand” model isn’t working to provide affordable housing in San Diego. Accurately identifying the problem is the first step towards a workable solution. Kudos to Henson for speaking truth to power.
Thank you Diane! I got interested in this issue after I found the website, RentHop. It is a company that collects data on rental prices. They report that rents have increased greatly in San Diego over the last year. A 1-bedroom apartment has gone up 59%, a 2-bedroom apartments have gone up 56%, a 3-bedroom apartments have gone up 40%, and a 4-bedroom apartments have gone up 29%. Therefore, the substantial increase in building of market rate apartments has not lowered rents. Mayor Gloria’s housing policies are clearly not working.
Very well said. YIMBYism at its best is about equal opportunity and treatment but the concept is abused by our local politicians:
Firstly by unfettered development in areas with crumbling infrastructure ( example: inadequate fire abatement programs in high severity fire areas–like our canyons) and fragile environment ( example: cutting down and not replacing trees when development goes viral especially in areas with few or no green areas).
Secondly, because what is being built is for developers profit and not for affordability.
It’s unfair and irresponsible both to current and to future residents of an area to give developers practically unlimited building opportunities without requiring parking, improved infrastructure and environmental and safety protections. And, it should be truly affordable.
YIMBYS, we are all on the same side! Let’s welcome new residents in a way that keeps our neighborhoods safe, environmentally friendly, and with respect to the integrity of sensible planning and good design. We all deserve this!
Thank you Kathy! If YIMBYs support affordability and racial equity they should not support deregulating the housing industry which has a long history of racial discrimination.
Agreed. I think they are being misled and being made pawns by unscrupulous and insincere politicians and developers.
Agree with all.
YIGBY consist of Private Developers and Public Unions pretending that they care about the poor and homeless.
The YIMBY movement accused everyone of racism if they do not agree to upzoning their neighborhoods to dramatically increase density and property taxes that go directly the Public Unions for Pension Obligations.
The developers who live in mansions in Rancho Santa Fe and Fairbanks Ranch are zoned Agricultural Residential (AR) where they get to have great large estates and are protected from density. These are areas where people use to have farms with horses, and grow produce. So they were zoned for Agricultural with only one home per lot.
Solution to stop the YIMBY Developers and City Unions:
Change and Upzone the Agricultural Residential (AR) areas to plain Residential. So that the mansions and private estates that are not part of Agricultural Farming should be automatically Upzoning to Residential. We can even rezone Agricultural Residential (AR) to Commercial and allow developers to build condos in their planned and protected neighborhoods.
https://x.com/LaPlayaHeritage/status/1838774706578604196
Amen! I remember thinking only the “other side” was so thoroughly in the pocket of developers but absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes. Mayor Gloria has been completely co-opted by the development industry. Every time he invokes his “poor me” spiel, bemoaning that “my brother and I are renters” – ostensibly because the cost of housing is so high, I have to wonder what the heck he’s done with the hundreds of thousands of dollars he’s made since he started his career on the City Council and then later in the Assembly and now as mayor. If he can’t manage to buy a home with that kind of money, he shouldn’t be managing our money at the City!
The YIMBYs provide him and developers cover for their efforts to destroy our neighborhoods with radical density that has nothing to do with affordability. They are a purely astroturf (NOT genuine grassroots) organization of governmental relations staff and consultants for developers and development dependent industries and big tech pushing cheap housing to attract workforce. They support gobbling up lower priced homes and packing them with market rate units. The only ones who win are the developers and the elected officials on the receiving end of their campaign contributions.
I agree Leslie! I feel like my democratic party in California and particularly here in San Diego no longer reflect my values of helping the under represented and creating affordable housing. Sadly, special interests seem the rule the day.
Everything in this article is spot-on. Ironically the Gloria ordinances and policies do nothing to help the economically challenged families of San Diego, only makes things worse – for everyone. As soon as we get rid of Gloria, and the CD9 Council President, the sooner we can right ship.
A great alternative to YIMBY is YIGBY Yes In God’s Back Yard
https://yigby.org
Developers and Unions take the public Affordable Housing money to build their $800,000 studio apartments that create new property taxes for the Unions and their Pensions Obligations.
Instead give the public Affordable Housing money to Churches and Non-Profit to build housing on their usually empty parking lots through Monica Ball’s great idea to change state law
Churches and Non Profits do not have to pay property taxes
Emergency and affordable housing for YIGBY is a win win for the poor and neighborhoods
The only losers are developers and the public unions.
Laura Henson summarizes the contradiction of the YIMBY credo perfectly: Their mission to create more housing affordability and racial equity is in direct conflict with the city’s strategy and implementation. Conveniently, Mayor Gloria has leveraged the YIMBY narrative to create housing programs that benefit developers and spur campaign contributions, while only making the housing affordability shortage worse. In doing do, Gloria will have forever ruined single-family neighborhoods and spoiled the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of San Diegans. What’s most surprising is that YIMBYs have gone along with him, without stopping to question if the result of his execution so far actually aligns with their intentions. YIMBYs can thank Ms. Henson for clearly spelling it out for them.
Sadly Bonnie, many YIMBY surrogates are paid or benefit financially from the building and tech industries in order to promote the deregulation of the housing industry. By advocating for housing at all price point they are engaging in magical thinking that eventually, in the future, housing will become more affordable. So much for addressing the affordable housing crisis and caring for the under served among us.
Hi Laura, I was trying to reach you but for some reason, I don’t have your email address; but I was hoping we could count on you later tonight during our “live blogging” for comments and observations. (Please send me your email to obragblog@gmail.com )
Thanks for posting, Laura. Very interesting analysis.
I don’t mind the profit motive at all; it’s honest and universal. When YIMBY / BIA activists hide their motives under a cloak of virtue and paint their targets as (fill in the blank)-ists, then you know they are not being honest or honorable.
I expect politicians and City leaders to be able to discern public good from private grift and institute policies appropriate to the public good.
That hasn’t happened with the current administration. Our City is less safe, less affordable, homelessness has increased, we are more fractured and divided, less civil. This is not success.
And when there’s a fire in these now heavier density neighborhoods, how will you evacuate? The Fairmount fire was traffic gridlock. Unable to leave the area. Apparently it’s sound the alarm and let chaos ensue. Toad doesn’t care.
Chris,
Thank you for raising this important point. Not only does up zoning make housing less affordable and therefore less equitable in also introduces density into high fire zones. I live in Talmadge and many of us did not evacuate when it appeared the fire was under control thanks to the amazing work of our fire departments. If we had experienced Santa Anna winds that day, the outcome would have been very different. The congestion on the roads would have been far worse and far more dangerous. There was barely enough room for the fire trucks to maneuver on our narrow streets without the added evacuation traffic. It appears both Mayor Gloria and Council President Elo-Rivera are more interested in protecting unhoused encampment is our canyons than protecting single-family homes and condo complexes.