San Diego's Housing Action 2.0 Package was green-lighted by the city's planning commission this week, without the adoption of a controversial state law, SB 10, that would have allowed more multi-family units to be built on single-family plots.
The rest of the package included incentives to develop granny flats for seniors and people with disabilities, the creation of dorm-style student housing near universities and transit, and prioritized housing over parking - lowering the amount of parking that must be built in developments that are in transit-friendly areas.
The most controversial piece of the housing package was the potential adoption of SB 10. Proponents of the adoption of SB 10 say it addresses missing middle-income housing from the city's housing inventory.
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"You're talking about townhomes, duplexes, small apartment buildings, it's called missing middle because there's actually a really small shortage of these types of homes in San Diego County because it's hard to build," said Angeli Hoyos with the YIMBY Democrats of San Diego County, a group that supported the adoption of SB 10.
But many housing experts say that incentivizing and rezoning areas for multi-family homes isn't translating to the production of this type of housing.
"There's a difference between building and zoning and I think that’s a big part of this that none of this discussion is about. It's about 'where do we want to zone to build more housing' and we’ve already done that," said Geoff Hueter with Neighbors for a Better San Diego, a group that was against the adoption of SB 10.
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Both Hueter and Hoyos say they are happy with the other parts of the Housing Action 2.0 Program, but they didn't agree on how the missing middle-income housing in San Diego should be addressed.
The city of San Diego says 80% of the land in the city is zoned for single-family homes. Hueter said the city should investigate why more developers aren't building multi-family homes in areas that have already been rezoned or take advantage of existing incentive programs. He says the city should consider taxing property owners of vacant lots more so that those areas can be developed and he says he would like to see the city explore building and managing its own affordable housing stock instead of relying on private developers.
Members of San Diego's Planning Commission voted for an amendment that would allow them to workshop the potential consequences of the adoption of SB 10. Hoyos said she hopes that that workshop will allow the city to once again consider a policy proposal like SB 10.
San Diego's City Council will evaluate the Housing Action 2.0 Program in a future meeting.
