By Kate Callen
The San Diego Planning Commission won’t formally consider proposed Bonus ADU “reforms” until they meet May 1. But board members have been served notice that they should prepare for a showdown.
Neighbors for a Better San Diego (NFABSD) warned commissioners April 17 that if the City tampers with the Land Use Development Code (LDC) Update process, public backlash could be severe.
NFABSD’s Geoff Hueter and Danna Givot each spoke for three minutes during non-agenda public comment. The facts they presented were troubling.
It appears Mayor Todd Gloria has devised several ploys to shield his treasured Bonus ADU program from an overdue reckoning. Three takeaways:
Let’s Jam This Through
On March 4, the City Council was sufficiently alarmed by excessive ADU construction that it passed a motion instructing the Planning Department to take two actions with two separate timeframes:
First, “remove applicability of the ADU Density Bonus program” in low-density zones with minimum lot sizes of 10,000 square feet. The Council gave the Planning Department a 90-day deadline.
Second, “bring forward revisions to the ADU Density Bonus program.” The Council did not impose a deadline on that more substantial task. But Planning Director Heidi Vonblum offered to include the amendments in the 2025 LDC Update.
Vonblum’s proposal came in a memo she issued Friday, February 28. It wasn’t made public until the Council met Tuesday, March 4. That meant that no one could review or respond to her recommendations.
Do these people never tire of subterfuge?
According to the memo, the hearing process for the LDC Update, including the Bonus ADU revisions, would begin this summer. So why is the Mayor racing to complete both actions in 90 days?
Because speeding up the bigger overhaul will make it easier to blur the specifics and block the public from participating.
Hueter told commissioners that the City “is just short-circuiting the process by trying to lump these two together.” NFABSD is urging, he said, that “we take the fuller examination of the ADU program through a full process instead of trying to jam it through by May 1.”
Let’s Limit “Reforms” to Insignificant Areas
San Diego has 11 RS-1 “base zones” designated for single-family home development. One zone, RS-1-7, accounts for 145, or 51.4%, of the 282 Bonus ADUs constructed since 2020.
In the first part of its March 4 motion, the Council became so tangled up in deciding where Bonus ADUs should be eliminated that it came up with a baffling “compromise.”
Eight zones would be subject to reforms. But six of those zones have had no Bonus ADU development since the program began. Two of them, RS-1-2 and RS-1-4, account for just 3 projects – 2.6% of citywide Bonus ADUs.
Three zones, including RS-1-7, will remain eligible for the Bonus ADU program. In those areas, developers and investors can keep cramming large multi-unit complexes of market-rate rentals into residential neighborhoods.
In essence, the City wants to curtail excessive Bonus ADU construction in areas where it hasn’t been happening. And it wants to allow that construction in areas that are already overburdened by it.
Let’s Shut the Door on Public Participation
On March 4, City Planning Director Heidi Vonblum told the Council that “we plan to hold public workshops … then bring the item forward for a recommendation from the Community Planners Committee and Planning Commission.”
That was 7 weeks ago. The Planning Commission meets in 9 days on May 1. There have been no public workshops. When the Community Planners Committee (CPC) meets tomorrow night, it will still be waiting to hear from Vonblum and her staff.
“Everything was supposed to come to you on May 1,” Givot told commissioners. “None of these things have happened. It hasn’t gone to the CPC. There have been no public workshops. We haven’t seen a matrix for the LDC code changes.
“No proposed code has come before the public. We’re asking you to slow things down.”
We hope the commissioners appreciated how Hueter and Givot addressed them calmly and patiently. The atmosphere in the crowded chamber on May 1 will be quite different.
Thx for this informative and important update on the city ‘s efforts to undercut and limit much needed reforms to the “Bonus ADU” Program.
Where can we see the proposed changes?
I live a few houses away from a proposed “Bonus” ADU project in which 6, 2-story ADUs are going to be built on a 11,100 square foot lot, at 1441 Woodrow Ave., San Diego 92114, PRJ-1128933. The property, located near Lemon Grove, is in District 4 and zone RS 1-7. The lots surrounding this property are a quarter acre, or larger. In fact there are hundreds of lots in zone RS 1-7 that are 10,000 square feet, or larger. I don’t understand why Heidi Vonblum did not include RS 1-7 in her memo to council. We’re not opposed to ADUs on single-family zoned lots, we just don’t want any multi-unit, Bonus ADU projects in our quiet, single-family neighborhood. Please help, if you can.
This is Wrong
The city of San Diego granted an ADU permit to a condo owner in our multi unit building. It was on a storage unit in the garage. This area is common area and owned by the HOA! (Permit number 21 91583)
Getting a ADU permit on common area is akin to getting title!
A Living space easement is not ownership;
But an ADU permit has the same characteristics as ownership.
AB 68 and AB 1033 say you can sell your common area ADU –
Well, who gets money in a common area sale? It should go to all owners. When you sell, you’re not selling the permit you’re selling the structure/construction and a transferable permit. There has to be some tangible equity splits which is gonna be a whole house of cards!
An ADU permit on a property is transferable and attached to the property and it is attached to the owners who should get part of their rental income from their equity in their property. If there are people living on my property,- who gets the rent money ?
Conversion- An ADU permit is converting my common area property into their ownership.
Please help get this straightened out!