By Rob Campbell / Op-Ed SD Union-Tribune / Jan. 9, 2026
“Bonus programs delivering needed local housing,” the Dec. 28 commentary by Colin Parent, presents bonus density programs as a success story but ignores the most critical issue in San Diego’s housing crisis. Who is bearing the burden of these bonus “solutions”? [Parent is head of pro-developers group, Circulate SD.]
While the author characterized San Diego’s bonus housing density programs as an elegant workaround to “political gridlock,” they have created a system that strategically targets low-resource, infrastructure-deficient, historically marginalized neighborhoods while leaving the city’s Whitest, wealthiest, highest-opportunity areas functionally untouched.
Ignoring this reality turns the argument into a one-sided celebration of YIMBY (yes in my backyard) production numbers, which are detached from actual equity outcomes the city is legally and morally obligated to comply with.
A claim that the bonus density programs “apply everywhere” is misleading at best. In practice, these programs overwhelmingly land in communities of color in neighborhoods like Valencia Park, Lincoln Park, Chollas View, City Heights, Logan Heights, etc. These are the very same areas that have higher asthma, cancer, and cardiovascular disease burdens; worse mobility with old, non-ADA compliant pathways (sidewalks); fewer jobs; and long-standing histories of redlining, freeway construction and environmental racism.
These are the same communities which are expected to absorb the majority of San Diego’s bonus density-driven housing growth, regardless of cumulative impacts. This is not equitable planning. It is the continuation of historic wrongs under the banner of YIMBY housing production at any cost.
The city is legally obligated to comply with the March 2025 settlement in Baker v. San Diego, which requires, at minimum, 70% of new affordable housing to be located in areas of highest, high or moderate resource levels.
Bonus density programs as currently structured and applied are steering new affordable housing in massive numbers into the lowest resource areas of the city. The city is off-track in meeting its Baker obligations, and the Dec. 28 piece failed to acknowledge this legal and moral dimension.
The author framed bonus programs as a clever way to avoid NIMBY (not in my backyard) politics, but what he called “bypassing gridlock” is really bypassing the community planning process — including environmental justice assessments, infrastructure capacity analysis, public health impact evaluations and community input, particularly from Black, Latino and immigrant residents. By cutting these safety checks out, the burden is landing exactly where you’d expect: the same communities that have historically been excluded from power.
Highest resource, wealthy, mostly White neighborhoods are still shielded from bonus programs because in practice, their land costs significantly more to acquire, they are largely exempt from meaningful density increases, are protected by restrictive zoning and are largely untouched by affordable housing growth due to political power resisting such growth.
The result is preservation of racial and economic segregation. We may get some YIMBY talking points of “more rental units,” but San Diego’s resource-rich neighborhoods remain off-limits while low-income, low-resource neighborhoods are “incentivized” into absorbing even more population growth without corresponding investment.
Affordable units produced through bonuses matter, but where they are built matters more. If the city permits more new affordable homes disproportionately in low-resource areas, it deepens the very inequities that planning is supposed to correct through legal obligations such as Assembly Bill 686, Senate Bill 1000 and Baker v. San Diego.
If bonus programs are going to remain a central strategy, they must ensure the programs help meet the city’s legal and moral obligations to de-concentrate poverty by requiring and prioritizing affordable housing in highest and high resource areas and preserving existing affordable housing in moderate and low-resource areas to prevent displacement.
Inexplicitly, the city has codified prioritizing concentrating poverty in municipal code. Density Bonus in Exchange for Affordable Housing Units §143.0720 (p) reads:
“Very low income, low income and moderate income households located in an area identified as Low Resource or High Segregation and Poverty … when the development application is deemed complete shall receive priority preference for new covenant-restricted dwelling units created under this section.”
You read that correctly: The city is prioritizing construction of new low-income housing in low-resource areas. Immediate change is needed in municipal code to fix bonus density programs in the city to stop the concentration of poverty and allow opportunity in highest and high resource neighborhoods.
Rob Campbell is a volunteer community planner, health care executive and occasional writer for the Rag. He lives in Encanto.
I thought this was a very thoughtful response to Colin Parent’s previous op-ed piece. I would have added that the community planning process was not the source of any supposed gridlock. As a member of the Peninsula Community Planning Board and its project review committee I had many developers, architects, builders, etc. tell me that the city’s development services department was the source of delays in the process – NOT the planning boards.
Thanks Rob and Paul. On your point, Paul, yes that was my experience as chair of the OB Planning Board a quarter of a century ago. Yikes! It’s been that long?
I suppose there are multiple parts to this situation, however anyone vaguely familiar with the College area knows that area is as Middle Class as it gets. They just got a 300% increase in approved density. This City Government from top to bottom, will stripmine every community that won’t pull every lever they can pull, and mount legal challenges at every level. And no community will fight harder for what they have invested than those which are predominantly owner occupied. The path of least resistance carries less risk, and for the developers it is all about risk v reward.
In the ninth paragraph, it outlines the real issue being that land in more affluent neighborhoods is most expensive.
It’s pure economics plus the fact that public transit is more plentiful in more dense neighborhoods as many people in those neighborhoods depend on public transit. Denser neighborhoods have sidewalks and usually more walkability to local businesses.
Where would the money come from to purchase more expensive land to add low income housing? Additionally, I would guess at least some existing structures in less expensive neighborhoods may be ready for a tear down or “renewal”.
Paul,
Thank you for reading and for the comment. I’d like the opportunity to address a couple points you made:
1. Public transit is more plentiful in more dense neighborhoods as they depend on public transit. Public transit is inefficient in most of San Diego, and where it does exist in low and moderate resource areas, it does not provide easy escape to job centers. Additionally, the reliance on inefficient public transit for 100% affordable housing projects is counterintuitive is it places significant additional burden on lower income households as they must get to job centers or education.
2. Denser neighborhoods have sidewalks and usually more walkability: This statement should be true, but most of older, denser San Diego neighborhoods were built pre-ADA, that is, before 1991. Anyone who has spent any time on foot around Southeastern or Central San Diego knows that sidewalks simply disappear, are met with fixed objects, are narrow, or simply don’t exist. Chollas Valley Community Planning Group sued the City last year because Encanto doesn’t have sidewalks in much of it’s area at all, none of this was considered in City planning prior to rolling out the Sustainable Development Area.
3. Where would the money come from to purchase more expensive land and add low income housing? I’d argue, the same place it comes from now, but that altering municipal code to require 100% inclusionary housing must be placed in Highest or High resource areas only. Does that mean perhaps less rent restricted housing overall? Probably. But considering the benefits to society and especially the families that will have opportunity to live in Highest and High resource areas, it’s the right approach. No public funding should go towards new construction of 100% affordable housing in Moderate or Low Resource areas. That’s contributing to poor outcomes in the long term.
4. Some existing structures in less expensive neighborhoods may be ready for a tear down or renewal: Absolutely agree. In Low Resource or Moderate Resource areas, this should be no more than 10% inclusionary affordable though. The City has a huge imbalance of wealth, and continuing to allow 100% affordable units to be built in Moderate and Low Resource areas is like “piling it on” in those areas. You’ll never get job centers and retail in these areas if you continue to saturate the area with lower income earners with limited disposable income. This is really core to the issue, income disparity.
Perhaps a bonus density for market rate and 10% inclusionary affordable housing in Low and Moderate Resource areas and Bonus Density for 50-100% inclusionary affordable housing in Highest and High Resource areas? I’m not a fan of 100% affordable projects in any capacity, but am a fan of required inclusionary affordable housing. Perhaps a graduated scale? Regardless of all of this, we should have zero opportunity to “buy out” of the requirement to place affordable housing on site. It’s a travesty that our city allows developers to choose the buy out option in 2026.
We have not touched on the levels of affordability either, a 30% AMI restricted unit is significant different than an 80% AMI restricted unit or 120% AMI restricted (highest) unit. It is my belief that absolutely no new 30-70% AMI restricted units should be constructed in Low or Moderate Resource areas, the should be reserved exclusively for Highest and High Resource areas, especially family based housing. I believe 80-120% AMI restricted units should be the goal in existing Low and Moderate Resource areas.
Again, thanks for the comments and healthy discussion.
It seems to me that the city granted the ability of developers & projects to postpone building the affordable units for several years AND the affordable units could be built together someplace else than the original project.
The city is actually validating the scenario of separation.
Thank you Rob for this excellent article. What you are documenting is what is found in the research article entitled, The Perils of Land Use Deregulation. Deregulating/Upzoning targets low resource neighborhood because they are cheaper. The housing is also rarely affordable because upzoned land is more expensive than single-family zoned parcels. YIMBY housing policies benefits developers not residents who struggle to find affordable housing.
So, if poor people and poor neighborhoods suffer more from bonus density programs, it’s just economics? And you think it’s okay that people in La Jolla or Coronado can live on tidy and uncrowded streets, preserving their lifestyle and property values, while homeowners in Encanto or Valencia Park get slums built around them? That’s just economics, right? The way the world is, right? No Paul G., it’s bad law, written without considering the consequences. Or, perhaps, just not really caring about homeowners in Valencia Park or Encanto.
Take a drive thru North Park. It has changed beyond common sense with pushing over typical NP homes, to build multi storied, dense infill housing, with no on-site parking. It seems like every block now has the typical flat faced, flat roof, most of the same color, ugly box, that looks like a prison. And yes, they are mostly fair market value rentals, but have increased the quantity using the “bonus density” perk to the developers.