Affordable housing, public infrastructure and parks would get the most money under the $4 billion plan to protect redevelopment money approved by the City Council Monday.
To help you understand the plan’s spending priorities, I created the graphic below to illustrate how the breakdown varies for each redevelopment area in the city. Bigger circles represent more money.
A few things from the graphic stood out to me: Downtown is a huge focus, accounting for more than half the citywide total. It’s where city officials have proposed a new Chargers Stadium and an expanded Convention Center with the aid of redevelopment money, but affordable housing would get by far the most money under the plan. Developing park space downtown also makes up a bigger chunk of the pie than other areas.
More than half the money in San Ysidro goes toward public infrastructure. Almost no projects in North Bay, which covers land between Little Italy and Mission Bay, have anything to do with affordable housing while nearly two-thirds of the money for North Park goes toward it.
Citywide, 42 percent of the money would be used for affordable housing projects. State law requires redevelopment agencies to set aside at least 20 percent of the money they get through property taxes for affordable housing, although some housing can be built outside the redevelopment area. That means some of downtown’s $1.3 billion share for affordable housing could be spent in other neighborhoods.
For more detail on the $4 billion plan, check out the project list. It categorizes each expense by neighborhood, provides dates and descriptions and says how much each project would cost.
The “other” category in my graphic, for example, includes $60 million for administration at CCDC, $157 million for parking downtown, $12 million for plans and studies across the city and $2.5 million for a branch library in San Ysidro. It also lists $800,000 for urban art in City Heights, $16 million for social services downtown and $81 million for fire stations downtown.
What nugget do you find most interesting? Share your thoughts in the comments or send me an email.
You can contact Keegan Kyle directly at keegan.kyle@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5668 and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/keegankyle.