San Diego Needs More Than 100,000 New Apartment Units

San Diego needs 107,000 more apartment units, according to panelists at a recent CREW San Diego meeting. The event included a discussion with Betsy Brennan, CEO of Downtown San Diego Partnership; Stephanie Smith, managing attorney of Grid Legal; Elyse Lowe, director of development services at the City of San Diego; and Laura Black, deputy director of community planning and implementation at the City of San Diego.

“The City is finishing the Kearny Mesa comprehensive plan update, and there should be a release draft early next year,” Black said in the discussion. She said the plan currently includes 20,000 residential units, while the Mission Valley plans specifies 28,000 units. However, a housing assessment estimates the San Diego area needs 107,000 new units in an eight-year period.

While there is a housing shortage, San Diego is driving development by streamlining the process. In 2020, development services will go online, according to Lowe, and Smith said that more housing bills, like the recent accessory dwelling unit housing bill, will help. The city has done a lot of work there already. More ADUs will get built, and lots of folks own multi-unit properties now,” she said.

The city’s push to make the development process easier is both a benefit and a challenge, according to Lowe. “Our challenge is our opportunity,” she said, explaining that cultural changes, like disruptive technologies and changes in how we live are driving the city’s overall innovation. It is not as quick as we want—it requires public process and training staff to be just as smart as those creating the new technology to protect against loopholes.”

Black agreed that the city’s biggest opportunity is also its weakness. The biggest challenge and opportunity is with staffing,” she said. “Experience is slim, even if they’re smart. My department is 80 people, and we’re at 25% vacancy. It is hard to backfill after promotions because not everyone wants to be an at-will employee. They want to stay in union jobs. We’re a training ground, and we lose people to better offers.”

Smith also agreed that the city’s efforts is the biggest opportunity, but said that construction costs are the biggest hurdle to new development. “The city doing such a great job to streamline and take away discretionary unknowns,” she said. The biggest challenge is price of land and construction. More can be done.”