In around 18 months since Mayor Todd Gloria signed an executive order intended to streamline the affordable home-permitting process, a total of 27 projects representing 2,834 homes have been permitted, it was announced Thursday.
Signed on Jan. 11, 2023, the order requires all 100% income-restricted affordable housing projects be reviewed and processed in 30 days or fewer. City staff have succeeded in meeting that goal, which Gloria's office believes has significantly impacted the housing market and helped to bring rental costs down.
"By streamlining the permitting process, we are making it easier to bring affordable homes to market, and we're doing it faster," Mayor Todd Gloria said. "These 27 projects totaling more than 2,800 homes are just the beginning. We will continue to push for innovative solutions to ensure every San Diegan has a roof over their head at a price they can afford."
The affordable housing projects are located throughout San Diego, with developments in eight of the nine City Council districts. More than 86% of them are near transit.
Among other improvements, the executive order helped get 9,700 new homes permitted in 2023, an 82% increase over the prior year and the highest number of permits since at least 2005, according to city records.
The City Planning Department's Annual Report on Homes found in 2023, the number of income-restricted homes in San Diego quadrupled and 42% of those were processed through Gloria's executive order — averaged a processing time of seven days.
"The new executive order permit process has been very successful, allowing affordable housing developers to permit projects in less than half of the time that it would have taken without an expedited process," said Julie Hattler, director of development with Wakeland Housing and Development. "We had three projects in the executive order permit process at the same time, each of which were uniquely complicated projects. All of them were permitted on or ahead of schedule, which speaks to the success of this new process and the dedication of the city of San Diego staff to get affordable housing built as quickly as possible."
However, the city continues to lag behind its state housing goal, which calls for 108,036 new housing units between 2020 and 2029.
According to the Union-Tribune, the 9,693 homes approved last year brings the city's four-year total to 25,692, requiring San Diego to approve 82,344 more homes by 2029 — nearly 16,500 a year during each of the next five years.
In January 2024, Gloria signed a second executive order on housing to create Complete Communities Now, a program that "applies expedited permitting to housing developments near public transit," a city statement reads. Since its launch in March 2024, 10 projects totaling 625 homes have been approved.
