Housing, Homelessness, and the 2020 Elections in San Diego - Part 2
Incentives for builders aren't doing the trick.
In Part One of this essay, I discussed two ballot measures on the March, 2020 county-wide ballot. Today’s essay concerns itself with some of what’s happening in the City of San Diego vis a vis the mayoral race.
The biggest issue in the 2020 election for local governance has to be housing, which is tied to homelessness and climate change, along with a dash of racism.
The simplified version of the struggles in San Diego City depicted by the news media is YIMBY vs NIMBY.
The Yes In My Back Yard side includes liberal democrats concerned with climate change and assorted entities I like to call the industrial construction complex.
The Not In My Back Yard folks include the full range of neighborhood preservationist types, ranging from white folks afraid of “crime” to people of color fighting gentrification.
Neither group should be thought of as monolithic.
Almost everybody agrees on the need for more housing. It’s just the “who,” “how,” “when” and “where” that divide San Diegans.
The smart way to deal with both the shortage of housing (but not homelessness) and be kinder to the planet is infill.
We need to cram more people in less space just to keep up. That means your neighborhood. And mine.
The reality of the local supply is that simply building more housing only makes sense if people can afford it. Wage growth has not kept up with the cost of renting/owning.
Developers say they can’t build affordable housing and get the expected return on investment.
San Diego’s 2019 Housing Inventory Annual Report has been completed, and it paints a grim picture, particularly when it comes to affordability.
Policy changes designed to encourage construction haven't done the job. Density bonuses, streamlined environmental reviews for many projects and expedited approval of projects that include homes that are subsidized for low-income residents are all in place. Newly revised community plans point the way toward opportunities for further growth.
Construction of housing for the wealthy comes close to meeting the expected demand. Everybody else is screwed.
From Union-Tribune coverage:
Under the state’s Regional Needs Housing Allocation, the number of units required by 2020 for “very low income” residents was 21,977, and only 2,258 had been built by the end of 2018.
The shortfalls are similar for “low income” residents -- 16,703 required units versus 2,633 units actually built, and “moderate income” residents, 15,462 required units versus 10 units actually built.
While there is some optimism that these numbers will improve with a new “inclusionary” housing law recently approved by the City Council, there is simply no way, based on what we've seen, to expect any more than a very modest increase in supply.
Much of the existing housing supply, which could become more affordable as it ages, was acquired in the wake of the last recession by corporations promising investors near usury levels of return.
(Read this to learn just how bad it really is!)
The hedge fund investors at the top of all this certainly aren’t going to settle for less.
The solutions* to these barriers to housing are obvious:
Pay people more, perhaps a wage that reflects growth in productivity. (Ain’t gonna happen because of de-unionization of workplaces.)
Building housing as a social benefit, rather than as a profit center. Non-profit management/cooperatives for facilities built with bond money.
(*Yes, I know these are very simplistic answers. But the gist is accurate.)
***
Historical favoritism toward single family homes in zoning away from the city center is a large part of what (good and bad) got us here. We have a car dependent economy and culture.
I’ll be glad to listen to any proposal addressing our lack of housing that includes a viable path toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions sans the currently popular Three Card Monte trick involving somebody else’s economy. (Pay for trees in Wakanda while polluting locally.)
Efforts to change the status quo have galvanized communities along the lines of opposing something of perceived value being ‘taken’ by pointy headed bureaucrats.
Science, facts, and reality don’t matter if it means less parking, more neighbors, or safer streets. Anything perceived as inconveniencing the supremacy of car culture triggers a vocal and aggressive response, by what often turns out to be a minority of residents.
The 1,500 names of supposed North Park residents opposed to bike lanes on 30th Street submitted to the Mayor in August actually came from places as far away as Hawaii and Florida. An anti bike lane protest drew a few dozen people; a bike ride in support drew hundreds.
And --the surest sign that a movement is just plain reactionary-- KUSI TV has given the anti folks blanket coverage.
The race for Mayor --at least far as discussion about the two leading candidates is concerned-- is about NIMBY Barbara Bry vs. YIMBY Todd Gloria.
It’s an artificial construct, since neither candidate in practice fits into those molds.
Bry has send out mailers suggesting that single family home dwellers need to be afraid.
Gloria has all but wrapped himself in the YIMBY flag, a movement wrongly accused of being created at the urging of evil developers intent on higher profits.
The fact is both Bry and Gloria get campaign donations from developers. Both have taken stances landing them in hot water with anti-development community groups.
I would suggest campaign housing promises are a poor standard for judging either candidate, because a) it’s really a nuanced discussion and b) there are too many political landmines involved in taking a strong stand.
A better standard might be looking for clues toward having an administration that gives a damn. Start asking questions about who will be in charge of what in a [fill in the blank] administration.
The Faulconer administration has said they’re taking a more holistic approach to solving the city’s housing crisis focused on creating vibrant and complete communities, not just building more housing units.
From the Union-Tribune coverage:
The new approach is part of a wider proposal from Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s staff that also would encourage developers to build more studio and one-bedroom apartments instead of larger units that are less affordable.
The proposal, called the Complete Communities Housing Solutions Initiative, was endorsed unanimously Thursday by the City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee.
Planning director Mike Hansen said this week that the proposal would help solve the city’s shortage of affordable housing while also encouraging developers to create neighborhoods that help San Diego meet its climate action plan goals.
Filling in the blanks on this concept will ultimately be up to whoever’s the next Mayor of San Diego. Or perhaps, I should say, their staff.
Ultimately, the amount of new housing constructed in the city will be influenced by state and federal officials.
Sacramento will find a way to incentivize increased density in travel corridors; they sorta have to if they have any chance of meeting environmental goals.
When it comes to the feds, I’m afraid --very afraid-- of what the Trumpian concept of “help” looks like with regard to anything connected to California.
An administration already getting away with mayhem, misery, and murder when it comes to nonwhite immigrants, certainly won’t back away from rounding up all those pesky hobos for “treatment” camps.
Since the middle of the 20th century, the average size of a new detached home in the US has nearly doubled, from 1,300 to 2,485 square feet.
We need to live in greener ways, and it isn’t going to be easy. Challenging the status quo on zoning and development is what the next mayor of San Diego MUST do.
From Governing.com:
The housing crisis has forced cities from Minneapolis to Seattle, Philadelphia to Austin, and the entire state of California to walk headlong into a portion of urban policy that has long been a political minefield. It’s hard to avoid. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, more than half the nation’s renters are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. The most obvious answer for many cities is to increase the housing supply by going after single-family zoning, which has been sacrosanct in much of the nation for more than 100 years.
Next up: San Diego's Options on Homeless Funding
Yesterday: Developers vs. the Environment in the County
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Lead image by Doug Porter