The county of San Diego held a June 29 public outreach meeting on inclusionary housing with several polls along with opportunities for attendees to provide comments directly to facilitators. After an hour, public input made clear: county residents want more affordable housing in accessible locations.
Contracted planning and development firm AECOM representative Jessica Sisco described the virtual meeting as “an opportunity to hear how you want inclusionary housing applied in your community” to roughly 40 attendees.
There are over 3 million residents across the county.
“The basic structure of an inclusionary housing program typically takes into account where affordable housing is needed,” Sisco said, as well as what projects should be worked on and what constitutes affordability.
First, she asked attendees to identify which neighborhoods should be considered such as those near county villages like Fallbrook where a higher intensity of land use has been established, versus those which are considered “high opportunity areas” such as Otay or Alpine with high quality schools.
Qualifying data on how communities were ranked as higher or lower quality was not provided.
A poll of multiple options revealed 50% of attendees wanted affordable housing that answers to multiple factors: higher land use, within a half-mile proximity to public transit and a quarter-mile proximity to bike routes, and close to jobs and amenities.
Over 30% of attendees said they want housing in high opportunity areas and about 40% said they want affordable housing throughout the entire county.
Sisco also asked attendees to parse which income levels should be targeted, assuming a family includes two adults and two kids.
While 65% of attendees said families in the ‘very low’ income bracket of $40-65,000 annually should be considered and 52% said families in the ‘low’ income bracket who earn $20-40,000 annually should be considered for affordable housing, only 35% of attendees said families in the ‘extremely low’ income bracket who make less than $20,000 annually should be targeted in planning.
Additionally, 45% said families in the ‘moderate’ range of $65-110,000 should be considered and 19% said families who earn an ‘above moderate’ income of $100-130,000 annually should also be considered.
Other polls questioned how many affordable units should be included with each new housing development.
“It may not be economically feasible for some projects to provide affordable housing,” Sisco said, such as in a new project where just two or three units are being built.
Although 30% of attendees said any development with more than ten units should have to include some which are deemed ‘affordable’ for residents, 17% of attendees said all developments should have to include some affordable units while 3% said no development should have to include affordable units.
Related data was also gathered: what percentage of affordable units should be constructed regardless of development size. For example, a 10% requirement across the board would reserve 100 units in a 1,000-unit development as ‘affordable’ housing while that same 10% requirement would mean building one affordable home in a ten-unit development would meet that same standard.
Although 45% of attendees said 20% of the homes in every development should be set aside as affordable housing, just 29% of attendees said 15% of the homes in every development should fall within affordable housing pricing.
“Incentives and concessions can offset the costs of providing affordable housing,” Sisco said, such as “reducing requirements like setbacks or open space standards, or the number of units on a property”.
County residents can provide feedback to Camila Easland at PDS.AdvancePlanning@sdcounty.ca.gov or by calling (858) 505-6677.
