Proposed Limits Head to Full Council Vote in Early June
By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / May 16, 2025
San Diego City Council members endorsed major changes Thursday to a controversial city incentive for backyard apartments, including a proposal to limit the number per property.
The goal of setting a maximum is to prevent developers from drastically altering the character of single-family neighborhoods by manipulating the city’s incentive so they can build dozens of backyard apartments on one lot.
In addition to capping the number of backyard apartments per lot, the council’s Land Use and Housing Committee voted 3-1 to force people who build such units to pay infrastructure fees and to require parking for those that aren’t near transit.
The proposal also requires greater distances from property lines, limits backyard apartments to two stories and prohibits them on cul-de-sacs in areas with high wildfire risk.
The proposed changes now head to the full council in early June for final approval. Planning Director Heidi Vonblum said they could take effect as soon as late July, shrinking the window for outlier projects.
The per-lot unit cap approved Thursday is not as strict as a group of neighborhood leaders from across the city recommended last month.
But supporters say setting any kind of maximum will make it harder for developers to find loopholes, compared with other proposals floated this spring by city planners that would have tried to rein in the incentive without a hard cap.
The proposal sets a maximum of four ADUs on lots up to 5,000 square feet, with one additional unit allowed for each additional 1,000 feet of lot size. The maximum allowed is seven, on lots between 7,000 and 8,000 square feet.
Neighborhood leaders wanted a maximum of three backyard apartments — also called accessory dwelling units, or ADUs — regardless of how large a lot is.
“There are many clear examples of projects that have frankly taken advantage of the ADU density bonus program in ways that not only did we not anticipate, but also that — folks have made it clear — we don’t think are acceptable,” Councilmember Kent Lee said.
Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera agreed.
“I see an opportunity to address egregious projects that are having a truly detrimental effect on communities,” Elo-Rivera said. “I share the frustration with corporate profiteers who don’t give a damn about San Diego and see this place as an opportunity to extract as much money as possible.”
But Elo-Rivera said he supports the city incentive in general, because it allows housing that’s not prohibitively expensive to be built in relatively wealthy neighborhoods that have long been closed off to low-income people.
Opponents of San Diego’s ADU incentive expressed their position at a council hearing Thursday May 15, 2025. (Howard Lipin / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Councilmember Vivian Moreno, who cast the lone “no” vote, agreed that the city’s current ADU incentive has had some unintended consequences and has led to some outlier projects with dozens of units.
But she said the positives still outweigh the negatives.
“At the end of the day, this amendment to the ADU density bonus program makes it harder to build more homes in San Diego,” Moreno said. “It’s my job to make it easier.”
San Diego’s ADU incentive — the most aggressive in California — goes beyond what state law allows by letting property owners build a potentially unlimited number of such units.
For every ADU a property owner is willing to build that is deed-restricted for low- or moderate-income tenants, they can build one bonus ADU and charge market-rate rent for it.
While in most cases this has led to property owners building between one and three ADUs, in some unusual cases property owners have used the program to build more than a dozen ADUs.
Community backlash has steadily grown since the incentive was created more than three years ago.
In March, the full council voted 6-3 to eliminate the program in some single-family neighborhoods — depending on zoning — and direct Mayor Todd Gloria to propose other changes to shrink the incentive’s impact.
Gloria’s staff initially seemed reluctant to make any fundamental changes, touting the program as “award-winning” and a key solution to the city’s housing crisis.
But the Planning Commission voted 5-0 on May 1 to recommend a two-story cap for all ADUs and to direct Vonblum to create options to limit the bulk and scale of ADU developments on a single lot.
The Land Use and Housing Committee was presented with those options Thursday during a five-hour public hearing that included dozens of public speakers, most of them criticizing the incentive and demanding changes.
But a few developers lobbied to keep the incentive intact or limit the changes. Some business groups also endorsed it.
“This program is a concrete and successful example of innovative housing policy that creates much-needed affordable and middle-income housing without taxpayer subsidy,” said Evan Strawn of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
An opponent of San Diego’s ADU incentive holds a poster-sized print of a photograph by San Diego Union-Tribune photographer K.C. Alfred at a council hearing on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Howard Lipin / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Councilmember Raul Campillo cast the third vote in favor of the proposed changes, contending they address many of the most frequent complaints about the program.
But Campillo said he wants to debate many of the proposed changes more thoroughly when the full council considers them next month.
“It’s a starting point, not the ending point,” he said.
He said he’d like to see the cul-de-sac prohibition expanded citywide and wants more details on the new infrastructure fee, which Vonblum is calling a community enhancement fee.
State law prevents cities from charging developer impact fees for ADUs smaller than 750 square feet. But Vonblum said she’s optimistic the city can skirt that rule on bonus ADUs because they are part of an optional program developers don’t have to use.
She said state officials have told San Diego they will make a ruling on that approach by the end of May.
But Elo-Rivera said he supports the city incentive in general, because it allows housing that’s not prohibitively expensive to be built in relatively wealthy neighborhoods that have long been closed off to low-income people.
Uh, have you not been paying attention about predatory buy, build, and flip? Duh! There’s a whole lot of apartments being built down the 8 corridor from 163, to Mission Gorge Rd, and Alvarado Rd. The old Fry’s is under development now. Why are these developments not servicing lower incomes while morons like Elo want to still push things and target housing neighborhoods less accessible to actual transit? Let’s target the ADU builders for restrictions and let the apartment builders do what they want?
Shame on Councilmember Moreno. She disrespected constituents by showing up late, disappeared during public comments several times (as did Elo-Rivera) and from my vantage point, couldn’t stop yawning.