There might be a big change coming to San Diego’s affordable housing requirements, and it’s controversial.
Instead of requiring housing developers to build affordable units on-site, with the other market-rate units, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria wants to allow housing developers to build affordable units off-site.
Critics say it’s going to segregate poorer communities. One councilmember compared the proposal to redlining – a practice that often kept Black and brown people out of White neighborhoods. On the other hand, cheaper land will make affordable projects easier to build.
Some background: In 2020, city leaders developed something called the Complete Communities Plan. It allows developers to build bigger and denser housing projects if those projects include on-site affordable housing.
Gloria’s proposal, though, would allow developers to build affordable units off-site in one of the three highest income areas: “highest,” “high” or “moderate,” which some say, would reduce economic diversity of the city’s different neighborhoods.
What’s next: The proposal has already made it through the Planning Commission and the Land Use Committee. It’s expected to go before the City Council in the coming weeks.
Border Report: Why Commuting to Tijuana Is Taking So Long
Every day, tens of thousands of people commute between San Diego and Tijuana for work, school, family visits and a host of other reasons. Going south was never as bad as coming north.
That’s changed.
Voice contributor Sandra Dibble writes that commuters are standing in queues for up to three hours. For those who make the commute five days a week, that’s up to 15 hours of traffic not including the time it takes to drive into San Diego in the mornings.
What’s the hold up? There are a variety of factors contributing to the longer wait times including the simple fact that more San Diegans are moving to Tijuana.
Inadequate infrastructure in Tijuana, as well as limited points of entry are also big parts of the problem.
Now, commuters want change, and they’re putting pressure on officials to make it happen.
In Other News
- San Diego’s progress toward using more renewable energy sources for electricity is being canceled out by cars and trucks, according to San Diego’s latest inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. Cars and trucks are the city’s biggest source of pollution, resulting in a slight increase in San Diego’s carbon footprint in 2021. (KPBS)
- Data from the past several months shows a major influx of Chinese immigrants and asylum-seekers attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, which also means an uptick in arrests at the border. There were 22,187 arrests of Chinese immigrants for crossing the border illegally from Mexico from January through September, nearly 13 times the same period in 2022. (KPBS)
- In-person voting centers are now open for the special elections for county District 4 supervisor, for Chula Vista city attorney and for the future of two North County water districts. (Union-Tribune)
- The Santa Ana Winds will continue into today, with a wind advisory in place for San Diego County’s valley and mountain areas through 8 p.m. tonight. (KPBS)
The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.