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Affordable Housing Task Force Reports to City Council

Affordable Housing Task Force Reports to City Council

Housing: Suggestions Designed to Boost Supply

BY MANDY JACKSON

San Diego is building a plan of attack in the fight to construct more affordable homes in the city, but the process of finding solutions for the problem will be slow.

“None of us is under the illusion this is going to be solved today,” said City Councilwoman Toni Atkins.

Atkins and the four other council members on the Land Use and Housing Committee Michael Zucchet, Charles Lewis, Donna Frye, and Scott Peters heard testimony on recommendations from the city’s affordable housing task force June 18.

The committee told the city manager’s office to prepare reports on the recommendations in time for a meeting Sept. 3.

The task force met several times over the last six months. Its members include builders, landlords, environmentalists, disabled citizens, and many other interest groups.

Homebuilders at the committee meeting asked for a comprehensive approach, rather than isolated policies, to increase housing production.

Crafting Solutions

In its report, the task force cited a University of San Diego study that said 95,000 homes were built locally between 1990 and 2000 but there was demand for 170,000 units.

The city’s housing need was estimated at 113,696 new homes over the next 10 years, of which 32,375 will address previous unmet need.

The task force had six recommendations:

1. Identify sites in each neighborhood for 2,500 multifamily units;

2. Create a housing czar a position in the city manager’s office to implement the task force recommendations;

3. Adopt a $1 billion bond to pay for infrastructure like parks, libraries, and fire stations, which would require two-thirds voter approval and be paid for with a $12 per month parcel tax;

4. Increase the city’s financial resources for affordable housing such as community development block grants and the housing trust fund;

5. Dedicate $1 million from the current rental unit tax for code enforcement at rental properties; and,

6. Require builders to make 25 percent of all new homes accessible to disabled people.

The task force also wants the city to ask local voters to approve a 2 percent increase in the transient occupancy tax charged to area hotels, and to approve a new 5 percent car rental tax.

Atkins said there are two other proposals for bond measures to increase the transient occupancy tax for other purposes. She said the timing of the bonding and taxing recommendations will have to be careful so voters aren’t inundated at the polls.

Zucchet, who represents the second district, agreed. He said, “We have a lot of other revenue enhancement ideas out there a lot of other critical needs,” referring to the city’s $30 million budget deficit.

In Oceanside, the City Council there recently voted to put together an affordable housing task force of its own this month.

Margery Pierce, director of housing and neighborhood services in Oceanside, said the city expects to fall short of its goal to produce 499 new affordable homes by 2004. The task force will examine ways to use its $10 million-plus housing trust fund to build more affordable homes.

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