By Danna Givot / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Feb. 19, 2025
Rather than respond to City Council’s request to roll back the bonus accessory dwelling unit program to align with state accessory dwelling unit law, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and his allies are promoting misrepresentations of the program in an effort to cow the council and stem the growing public anger against the program. I refute those false assertions here.
Assertion: Bonus accessory dwelling units are “gentle density” that fit seamlessly into neighborhoods. Daniel Parolek, author and leading “Missing Middle Housing” expert, encourages infill housing as “home-scale buildings” that “fit seamlessly into existing residential neighborhoods,” “compatible in scale and form with detached single-family homes.” “These building types, such as duplexes, fourplexes, cottage courts and courtyard buildings, provide diverse housing options,” says Parolek. “The perceived density of these types is usually quite low — they do not look like dense buildings.”
The 12-, 17-, 36- and 43-unit backyard apartment complexes masquerading as accessory dwelling units being built under San Diego’s bonus accessory dwelling units program do not meet any missing middle housing criteria described above.
Assertion: Bonus accessory dwelling units provide deed-restricted affordable housing without requiring public subsidies. This assertion is patently false. Bonus accessory dwelling units projects with 20, 40 or 100 ADUs are apartment complexes masquerading as ADUs. If they were built under the appropriate rules, developers would have to pay Development Impact Fees or DIFs for those apartments. Instead, the city waives impact fees on bonus accessory dwelling units projects, sticking taxpayers with infrastructure costs.
Grassroots organization Neighbors For A Better San Diego estimates that the hundreds of affordable accessory dwelling units touted by the mayor would cost the city tens of millions of dollars in impact fees, meaning that the cash-strapped city doesn’t have money to improve the infrastructure (parks, libraries, sidewalks, streetlights, water, sewer, fire and police infrastructure) to support this added density, particularly in areas like Encanto that have huge historic infrastructure deficits.
Assertion: Bonus accessory dwelling units are a key source of affordable housing in San Diego. The bonus accessory dwelling units program isn’t producing significant amounts of affordable housing — only 116 units over three years from 2021 to 2023 — almost all at 110% of the area’s median income or moderate income levels. These “affordable rents” are often more than market rate. This program is not producing accessory dwelling units for low-income families, and most units are studios and one-bedrooms, not suitable for families. The 116 units are only 3% of San Diego’s affordable housing produced over those three years — not a big contributor in the scheme of things.
Assertion: Bonus accessory dwelling units are located near jobs and transit. To the contrary, bonus accessory dwelling units complexes are located up to a mile or more away from future transit that doesn’t currently exist and may never be funded. San Diego’s Sustainable Development Area (SDA) allows accessory dwelling units to be built a mile or more away from current or planned transit that may never be built.
One mile from transit is not recognized as transit-oriented development by any national, state, local or academic authority or research. Only San Diego accepts this definition of transit-oriented development, and the city has provided no data or research to support the claim that bonus accessory dwelling units residents prefer to use transit. In fact, in the city’s Draft December 2024 Edition Street Design Manual, transit-oriented development is defined as being “within a typical 2,000-foot (600 meters) walking distance of a transit stop.” That translates to 0.38 miles, significantly less than the 1-mile walking distance that San Diego allows for building its dense bonus accessory dwelling units projects, in some cases in communities without sidewalks.
Beyond the above realities of the bonus accessory dwelling units program, there are other important things the public should know.
— Without the bonus accessory dwelling units program, the city would still be building lots of accessory dwelling units — approximately 93% of ADUs are built outside the bonus program.
— Approximately 40% of bonus accessory dwelling units projects are being built in very high fire hazard severity zones — on canyon rims, into canyons and on narrow cul-de-sacs that don’t support simultaneous evacuation of residents and incoming fire crews.
— Bonus accessory dwelling units projects are getting bigger every year, and they are biggest in lower resource neighborhoods.
— Most bonus accessory dwelling units projects are being built in moderate or lower resource neighborhoods, not affirmatively furthering fair housing.
The mayor needs to recognize the limited benefits of the bonus accessory dwelling units program relative to the enormous impacts that these out-of-scale projects have on neighborhoods and work with the council to develop new regulations that balance the needs and concerns of San Diegans.
Givot is vice chair of Neighbors For A Better San Diego and lives in El Cerrito.
Great Write up, Thank you for giving residents and the City Council, even the mayor, the information needed get rid of the Bonus ADU policy.
The mayor sticking with this policy that does way more harm than good demonstrates he cares more about his ego than the people he serves. It’s time for the City Council to take the lead and listen to people who are directly impacted by this policy.
Danna, once again your thoughtful and knowledgeable responses just blow me away. Thank you for all your diligence working to end the Bonus ADU program that serves no one besides the developers and those in cahoots with them.
Great breakdown! Thanks for correcting the mayor’s misinformation.
Thank you for this great article from a front line warrior in the ADU battle here in SD.
The Mayor and his highly paid Planning and DSD staff believe they are all powerful.
The recent Footnote 7 controversy is in danger of being wasted.
Look at the effect they had on the CC on an issue quietly decided years ago.
Find a way to support the Encanto people in their time of need.
OB has its own rule benders. Well publicized. Off the radar now? Business as usual?
SaveDelCerro has been defending its turf for 7 years against the MEGAPROJECT.
We are back at CC March 11, 14 months after a 6-2 vote for Denial. We thought that Final Vote was Final! Have you heard of suspending the rules of CC? So as to reconsider? It takes a 2/3 vote to force CC to reconsider a project. Got popcorn??
Please, contact two city council members. Council member Henry Foster (HenryFoster@sandiego.gov) to support his efforts to make his request an Agenda Item, and Council Member JoLaCava (Chief of Staff Vicky Joes, vcjoes@sandiego.gov) to Schedule the Agenda Item. Request that this Agenda Item revisit ADUs and Complete Communities, for residential, commercial, and non-profit Residential Development.
This was passed by the entire City Council, and required to be rescinded. The pressure on all Council Members to back off will be enormous. It has to get on the Agenda so that it can be revoted.
Danna Givot!!! Once again, you’re spot on. Affordable to the mayor and the clowncil, but I’ve seen them where in order to qualify, a person has to have an annual income of approx. $100K. That is certainly NOT affordable to those who are paid slightly above minimum wage at $20.00 per hour. So the people who need “affordable” housing the most are not qualified for the mayor and clowncil’s idea of “affordable”. My son on disability, with a blown out back, gets $911.00 per month. Thank goodness he owns his own home in central Cali and I subsidize him every month. This City should be collecting DIF (Development Impact Fees) from the contractors, just like John Q Public has to pay, and they aren’t, that’s the contractor/mayor perk tradeoff. If the developers had to pay DIF, the City should not be so deep in debt.
Diego K, excellent point to suggest the City Clowncil reps should take the lead. BUT, they can’t do that until the voters vote for a mayor that is willing to give up the power of a “Strong mayor form of government” which the voters initiated a few years ago. That power allows him to do whatever on earth he wants to do and pay absolutely NO attention to the people or the council reps. He’s a one man dog and pony show. There was a candidate who was going to turn that back around, and give the power back to the council reps, who in turn have to listen to their constituents, or they’ll find a rep candidate who does listen to them. Larry Turner was going to do that, but the people didn’t elect him. We the people’s loss. Next time a candidate for mayor has valid ideas/plans to change things in the City, and one of which is to return to the City Manager form of government, VOTE for that candidate, or you’ll just get more of the same destruction. And if Toddles runs for gov. please don’t vote for him. He’s going to run for something, he doesn’t have any experience or skills to do anything else. The voters voted for Goofy Gavin for Gov. He destroyed San Fran, yet the SoCal voters voted him in wherever he wanted to go. Toddles is following in Gav’s footsteps, be aware….
This should be required reading for all Councilmembers and Council staff. Todd Gloria is a lame duck mayor who just made the fatal mistake of appointing himself City Manager of a government that is in free fall. At long last, the Council — starting with Council President Joe LaCava — must grow a spine and put a stop to Gloria’s wreckage of neighborhoods citywide.