It’s no secret that it’s expensive to build affordable housing in California.
Just take a look at this list we published in 2024.
Units at one project we reviewed cost nearly one million dollars each to build. As we reported, building mandates and strings attached to certain funds were behind the sticker shock.
Gov. Gavin Newsom believes he has a solution.
In the latest Politics Report, Will Huntsberry writes that, “It’s unclear exactly how the mechanics will work but the idea is that projects will be approved by the new committee and they will automatically receive multiple forms of funding.”
Stephen Russell of the San Diego Housing Federation said money needs to move out the door quicker if the state wants to build more affordable housing.
“The cake is there,” he said, using a metaphor for funding. “The problem is the cake isn’t getting handed out fast enough.”
Read the Politics Report here. (The Politics Report is only available to Voice of San Diego members.)
The Evolution Between San Diego’s LGBTQ Community and Cops
In the 1960s, San Diego cops were arresting LGBTQ people and throwing them in jail on charges of lewd and lascivious activity, according to Voice of San Diego contributor Randy Dotinga.
“Now you’re more likely to get hit on by a cop at a local gay bar than arrested by one,” Dotinga writes.
San Diego Police have been marching in the annual Pride Parade for more than 30 years. At least one transgender cop transitioned with support from colleagues.
The relationship between the LGBTQ community and San Diego’s cops aren’t void of tension. But at least one local historian called the turnaround “miraculous.”
Sacramento Report: A San Diego Coastal Commissioner’s Take on the Agency
The California Coastal Commission has had a rough year with policymakers, mostly because of its reputation for blocking housing on the coast. But a new poll shows the public doesn’t see it that way – most people actually think the commission has been good for the environment.
Still, balancing the coastline’s need for affordable housing with environmental concerns has always been a real challenge, and according to a former commissioner, it’s one the commission hasn’t always handled well.
Now, a new wave of commissioners appointed last year is trying to prove the two goals aren’t mutually exclusive. Among them is Chula Vista Councilmember Jose Preciado.
Read the Sacramento Report here.
Podcast: Don’t Get Cyclosporiasis in Mission Bay
Anyone travelling to Mission Bay better hope they didn’t pick up a case of cyclosporiasis – a parasitic illness that can cause explosive diarrhea.
The city just closed half the public restrooms there in a desperate effort to close a budget deficit. Our podcasters explain why in the latest episode.
Also Chula Vista is considering changes to its city charter with a proposed ballot measure. And guess what, the changes, if voters approve, would increase councilmembers’ salaries to more than $110,000.
Listen to the full episode here.
Bidding Farewell to a Keeper of Water Memory
When I was a budding water reporter at Voice, I knew – if I was confused, which I often was – I could call Gary Arant and he’d set me straight.
The former general manager of the Valley Center Municipal Water District stood out among the San Diego County Water Authority’s 34 board members because he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind – in a loveable, grouchy grandfather kind of way.
After grilling him for an hour on the intricacies of water financing in Southern California, I’d thank him and he’d sign off with an “OK, kid.”
He spent the last 36 years of his life managing water resources for Valley Center, once a sleepy East County town full of avocado groves turned urbanizing quasi-San Diego suburb.
The town is wholly dependent on the Water Authority transporting Colorado River water there. And he defended the right to it at an affordable price, dutifully.
Arant straddled the precarious position of having to defend the Water Authority’s ever-climbing price of water, which kept the pipes and pumps Valley Center depended on in working order, while criticizing expenses he found wasteful. Like a proposal to build San Diego’s own pipeline to the Colorado River.
Arant retired as general manager around November. He told me he was going to pick up guitar lessons and play with his grandchildren.
Still, he didn’t disappear from the water world. Last month, Arant was sitting through a Water Authority administration and finance committee meeting warning the others that lowering rates too much could put critical infrastructure at risk of breaking down.
Arant passed away last week. The Water Authority put out a press release Thursday as tribute to a “giant in the water industry.”
Southern California just lost a key memory keeper in that regard. And I’m going to miss calling upon it.
– MacKenzie Elmer, Voice of San Diego environment reporter
In Other News
- Former County Supervisor Bill Horn died Friday. He was 83.
- A new sewage-related closure at Coronado’s Glorietta Bay adds to San Diego’s already extensive list of beach closures, most tied to ongoing Tijuana River sewage contamination from Mexico. (KPBS)
- San Diego is set to lose federal Emergency Housing Voucher funding this fall, years ahead of schedule, leaving over 300 formerly unhoused renters without a clear path to keep their housing assistance – and no easy fix in sight for the San Diego’s Housing Commission. (inewsource)
- Mark Sanchez, the president of Southwestern College, plans to retire. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña, MacKenzie Elmer and Naomi Granata. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.
