We keep asking why San Diego has a housing shortage. After nearly four decades in commercial real estate, I can tell you it’s no mystery. The city and our agencies have spent those decades making it slower and far more expensive to build anything; and it keeps getting worse.
Consider a project I learned of just last week. Before a shovel hits the ground, the owners must spend roughly $16,000 on seasonal surveys for the Crotch’s bumblebee and the coastal California gnatcatcher. Miss the narrow survey window, and approval can slip a full year. Find a bee, and the real headaches begin.
Then there’s another $15,000 to confirm no Native American artifacts sit on a lot that has held a tract home since the 1970s.
These are two items out of roughly 100 city comments on one project. We act surprised that families can’t afford to live here.
— John Frager, Del Mar