In his State of the City address 11 months ago, Mayor Todd Gloria said he would make creating middle-income housing a top priority this year.<\/p>\n
About six months later, the issue gained renewed attention with a high-profile proposal for a different way to build homes for sale at prices affordable to people of modest means \u2014 a relatively barren area in the local real estate market between high-end homes and rentals.<\/p>\n
Now the mayor said he hopes by the end of the year to launch a process to develop policies that encourage such housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been working on a series of policy recommendations for the council\u2019s consideration this year,\u201d Gloria said in an interview last week. \u201cI had hoped to release it sooner but a handful of issues popped up this year that were not on our radar and we needed to respond to. . . I would like to put something up for public review before the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
He mentioned the City Council\u2019s demand that San Diego\u2019s permissive program allowing accessory dwelling units be reined in, which led to a complex reworking<\/a> of that policy. He also noted the court ruling that struck down<\/a> the voter-approved ballot measure to lift the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District threw a monkey wrench into plans to redevelop the city\u2019s sports arena property and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n Life, as the saying goes, is what happens while you\u2019re busy making other plans.<\/p>\n Regardless of whatever else has happened over many years, filling the elusive \u201cmissing middle\u201d in housing has been a conundrum. That stretches back since before Gloria was elected mayor in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at it, what you see is a lot of market-rate housing and a fair amount of low-income housing \u2014 and really nothing in the middle and almost none of it for sale,\u201d he said, adding that he has generally supported increased housing development at all levels.<\/p>\n Indeed, there has been a boomlet of apartment construction that experts say has helped stabilize rents<\/a> after years of rapid increases. That\u2019s a positive, though nobody would say rental housing on the whole is inexpensive in San Diego.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, San Diego home sale prices have flattened<\/a>, but remain very high.<\/p>\n Gloria didn\u2019t begin focusing on middle-income housing just this year. There have been a handful of moves in that direction during his administration. In 2021 there was the Neighborhood Homes for All of Us<\/a> plan and the creation of the Middle-Income Housing Working Group<\/a>. Last year, he launched the Small-Scale Neighborhood Homes Initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2019, the council pursued a Middle-Income Density Bonus program. There have been other state and local programs with similar goals.<\/p>\n In the interview, the mayor was vague about where his next initiative is going, though it would seemingly build off of, or incorporate, the other efforts. He said the city can\u2019t force people to sell rather than rent homes, but it can do things to encourage that.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore crafting specific policy proposals, we will conduct robust community and technical outreach this winter and present a policy package in the new year,\u201d wrote Gloria spokesperson David Rolland, responding to follow-up emailed questions.<\/p>\n \u201c. . .\u00a0The goal remains to incentivize attainable for-sale housing types such as condominiums, townhomes, rowhomes, and community land trusts.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps the most talked about idea in this realm recently is a proposal in June by housing advocates and development experts that the city do away with its minimum lot size of 5,000 square feet, a requirement across much of the city that has been on the books since 1923.<\/p>\n London Moeder Advisors, which assisted the group, provided research to show the feasibility of the proposal: cost plans for detached townhouses or two- to three-story single-family homes, tax benefits to the city and appealing to communities by offering a lighter form of density than larger apartment and condominium complexes, as Phillip Molnar of The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Their report said doing away with minimum lot size could reduce the price of housing by around 40 percent. They would be more vertical than traditional single-family homes with no yard space, and with three or four on the same lot.<\/p>\n Gloria generally had a positive view of the concept, but wouldn\u2019t say whether it will be part of the emerging policies.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this is one way to do it,\u201d he said in the interview. \u201cYou would get homes that don\u2019t look like your typical \u201950s ranch-style house that are so common, like one I grew up in. It\u2019s more of a rowhome, townhome kind of product that is actually perfect for first-time home ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n