INCLUSIONARY ZONING part 7

INCLUSIONARY ZONING

In San Diego, a voter-approved initiative made affordable housing a big part of the development plan for the urban growth area to the north of the core city. In that low-rise growth area, which started being developed in 2003, 20 percent of the housing must be affordable.

Todd Philips, director of the San Diego Housing Commission’s Policy and Public Affairs Department, said the Inclusionary Zoning program for the north growth area has created nearly 1,000 affordable units and has a goal of creating another 1,000 before build out is completed.

He said affordable is mixed with market rate in the new developments. Typically, single family homes are market-rate and a pair of developers team up to make garden-style apartment condominiums to fulfill the affordable requirement.

“We look at comparability with the market rate and the affordable. Not that if the market rate has granite, the affordable has to too. But we do want the housing to be comparable in quality and appearance,” he said.

In 2003, San Diego created a requirement of 10 percent affordable units in the infill redevelopment areas in the old city, but that phase endured a brutal legal battle before developers settled on a formula to calculate payments in lieu of building affordable units.

Despite the challenges, Philips counsels politicians, planners, Realtors and others interested in creating Inclusionary Zoning in their hometowns to “shoot for the moon.”

“Even a 10 percent fee probably isn’t enough. We need to truly address what it costs to house a working class person.”