Building enough homes that middle-income residents can afford may not be called the “holy grail of housing,” but maybe it should be.
In recent years, plenty of state legislation, local ordinances and task forces have focused on providing houses and apartments of virtually every stripe amid a widely acknowledged housing shortage across California and in San Diego.
A great deal of that effort has been focused on homes for people who aren’t wealthy, yet earn too much to qualify for subsidies targeted for residents of lesser means.
“The ‘missing middle’ has always been a conundrum,” Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, told The San Diego Union-Tribune in late 2023 after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed his bill aimed at trying to fill that gap.
Mayor Todd Gloria created a Middle-Income Working Group in the fall of 2021, less than a year after he was elected. He pledged to redouble that effort at the start of this year.
“We spend a lot of time focused on the roughly 6,000 people who are homeless in this city, for good reason,” he said during a January interview. “But I don’t feel like we talk nearly enough about what has to be hundreds of thousands of people who struggle. . . and can’t foresee buying a home in this city.”
The latest push in this direction came a week ago when Local Initiatives Corporation, a group dedicated to building affordable housing, and their development advisers unveiled a plan that seems logistically simple, but politically fraught.
They proposed a reduction in the 5,000-square-foot minimum lot size requirement that covers more than 80 percent of the city of San Diego, a rule in place since 1923, as the Union-Tribune’s Phillip Molnar pointed out.
The idea is to allow two or three detached houses with a more vertical profile and much smaller footprint than traditional suburban homes on lots now meant for one house. The proponents provided an analysis that concluded these homes would be less expensive and help boost property tax revenue for the city.
Backers said this “light density” would be more amenable to residents in some areas than larger apartment, condominium and backyard cottage developments sometimes numbering in double-digit units.
Perhaps. But state legislation allowing just two- to four-unit projects on single-family-home lots proved to be very controversial, and so far hasn’t resulted in the increase in housing ers had envisioned. Meanwhile, plans for a few accessory dwelling units — or even one — can draw neighborhood opposition.
Still, something different is going on. Much of the focus in addressing the “missing middle” is on home ownership in addition to rentals and not simply building as many units as possible.
“The approach of this is building the right type of housing,” said Gary London of London Moeder Advisors, which produced studies for the reduced lot-size concept. “We’re not going to strip-mine your community.”
He envisioned such development meeting market demands primarily for families and fitting in various neighborhoods across San Diego. He specifically suggested the “mesas” north of Interstate 8 (Kearny Mesa, Clairemont Mesa, etc.) might be prime areas.
None of this would prohibit existing or future traditional large-lot single-family homes, but just allow a different, smaller style of them.
Much of the state and local moves by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and San Diego City Council have been to encourage rentals. Some lawmakers want to change that focus, or expand it.
“We need more single-family homes,” Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins, D-San Diego, told the Voice of San Diego. “People are moving to these communities that were single-family home communities and are now seeing that some of the lots are being purchased, and now you’re getting apartments and other things going up. . .”
Apartments are “not promoting generational wealth,” she said. “That’s not promoting home ownership.”
No, but a modest boom in apartment construction across the region appears to have moderated rents. Andrew Malick, who specializes in urban apartment construction aimed at moderate-income residents, said the increased “supply has had an effect.”
“Rents have not gone up at the same rate and, depending on the model, price has gone down in some cases,” he said
That’s been borne out by data, not just in San Diego but other areas with increased apartment construction. But like virtually all upbeat trends in housing, the change seems incremental at best. Further, analysts expect local apartment construction to slow down, at least somewhat.
Despite all the public and private efforts, neither San Diego nor California has reached a game-changing moment in providing adequate housing. A lot of that may have to do with matters beyond policy — the cost of land, labor, materials, financing and insurance, along with systematic construction liability lawsuits that often force monetary settlements.
Still, the advances collectively are being noticed, if not universally appreciated in existing neighborhoods.
Desirable residential lifestyles, housing design and community character are paramount to public acceptance of development. That doesn’t mean it all has to stay the same, however.
Some neighborhoods in San Diego and other regions don’t have many, or any, more homes than they did in the 1950s and 60s.
In the era after the World War II, the majority of the adult American population was married: 87 percent in 1950. By 2022, that figured had dropped to 47 percent, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
The same time period saw a rise in people living alone, growing to almost 28 percent of the population in 2023 from less than 10 percent in 1950. U.S. Census statistics from 2022 show 31 percent of households were single-parent families, 8 percent were extended or multigenerational families and 36 percent were families without children.
A lot has changed. At the very least, it seems long past time to reconsider 100-year-old zoning rules.
