San Diego’s Housing Secrecy Is Outrageous and Indefensible

By Danna Givot / Commentary SD Union-Tribune / June 27, 2026

If San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council care — or even just wonder — why they’ve lost the public’s trust, they need look no further than their so-called “Technical Working Group” for Neighborhood Homes for All of Us.

What is the Technical Working Group? A secret group of “experts” hand-picked to develop site plans and four building designs (with up to 10 units each) for “single-family” zoned lots in San Diego’s neighborhoods.

Three years ago, the planning commissioners rejected San Diego’s Senate Bill 10 (SB 10) proposal, which would have allowed single-family homes to be replaced by 10-unit apartment buildings. To their credit, the commissioners recommended that community stakeholders have seats at the working group table when crafting the next iteration of infill housing in our single-family neighborhoods. I asked the Planning Department to give Neighbors For A Better San Diego a seat at that table but received no response. This was after two members of the Technical Working Group told me they were in the group, although the city’s deputy planning director told me days later that it had “not been formed.”

For the past year, I have repeatedly requested, via email and in person, data about this working group: its membership, mission, meeting dates, locations and minutes. Neither the planning director nor her deputy has answered my inquiries, even after they confirmed in their April 2026 Planning Department Update, that the Neighborhood Homes Technical Working Group met this March. A year after first requesting information about this body, it continues to operate secretly. I finally resorted to submitting a public records request for this material on May 30, but have received no information.

The city pretends to give the public a voice by inviting us to meaningless “focus groups” and useless “workshops” where we are told to place plastic housing cut-outs on mats with different sized lots. We are not allowed to ask questions — instead, we are told to submit inquiries to a website. I have been submitting questions to Planning Director Heidi Vonblum for a year without a meaningful response.

The real work of designing housing prototypes and crafting policies for what development will be allowed in our single-family neighborhoods is being done behind closed doors by unidentified “experts,” at least some of whom have lobbied for their specific pet programs. This could be called a “conflict of interest” if one were being “technical.”

In contrast, the city’s Development Services Department has an “Industry Technology Working Group” with a website, agendas, presentations and other information. Why won’t the Planning Department be as forthcoming? As San Diego’s largest organization representing the city’s neighborhoods, why is Neighbors For A Better San Diego not part of this group as the Planning Commission advised, along with the Community Planners Committee?

This is sadly reminiscent of the city’s disastrous SB 10 proposal. In that case, the Planning Department also drafted the code behind closed doors. It then held a workshop at the Mission Hills Library and hired consultants — crowd managers really — to shield the Planning Department from any direct questions, just like during the recent Neighborhood Homes “workshops.” It’s a wasteful exercise to check the “public engagement” box on grant forms without allowing meaningful interaction with the public. The ultimate public insult is the American Planning Association San Diego Chapter recently awarding the Planning Department a Merit Award for its Inclusive Public Engagement Guide.  Unfortunately, the department doesn’t practice what the guide preaches.

The most important question the public has had no opportunity to ask is why the city needs yet another single-family zone infill program when it has already adopted state-mandated SB 1123 (the Starter Home Revitalization Act)? It allows up to 10 for-sale homes on 1,200 square foot lots on what was previously a minimum 5,000 square foot single-family parcel. This program hasn’t even taken effect yet.

“Single-family” zones already allow up to six bonus ADUs, four SB 9 units and soon, dense, multi-story SB 79 “transit-oriented” apartment buildings within a half mile (as the crow flies) of all trolley and some bus stops.

Why does San Diego need another single-family infill program?  Let’s see what happens with these new state-mandated density programs. Let the paint dry before you decide to redecorate.

Danna Givot, a College Area resident, is vice chair of Neighbors For A Better San Diego and a former McHenry County supervisor in the Chicago suburbs.