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How San Diego’s downtown housing supply boom is making rent less affordable

February 28, 2017 By Murtaza Baxamusa 1 Comment

Having invested a billion and a half dollars of public funds in downtown redevelopment, it is worth asking if it helped or hindered in solving the affordable housing crisis that San Diego faces. From the catalytic start of downtown’s boom with the construction of the ballpark to the unceremonious demise of tax increment financing under Governor Brown, there has been a lot of change.

Census data shows that from 2000 to 2015, downtown’s housing stock doubled. About half of downtown’s current stock of 25 thousand housing units has been built during this time frame. About 5 thousand renter-occupied housing units were added to the stock. Of the total housing stock almost 18 percent (over 4 thousand units) are vacant, compared to 9 percent vacancy back in 2000. This indicates a greater share of investor-owned units or second homes that are not occupied.

In terms of affordability, downtown is at a tipping point.

A little over half of renters in downtown live in unaffordable housing, that is, they spend over 30 percent of their household income on housing costs. The upward price pressures on the downtown market are resembling those of the region as a whole.

Downtown San Diego median rent chart

 

 

The median rent is the rent charged by the middle unit in the rent scale. This chart shows that whereas downtown used to be relatively inexpensive in terms of median rent, it is now close to the median regionally.

The figure below shows how times have changed for downtown renters during the 15 year period.

2000 vs 2015 downtown San Diego rent

Indeed there were 5 thousand units added to the renter-occupied housing stock, however, at least 6 thousand units priced themselves above the regional median rent by 2015. This comparison needs to be tempered by the fact that the region’s rents also grew during this time period, and that downtown’s stock grew at a faster rate than the region. Nonetheless, there were substantial resources being funneled into downtown, both in terms of affordable housing, as well as in terms of infrastructure and other public projects. Indeed, downtown projects enjoyed regulatory and financial incentives like no other area in the region.

The intent of this post is to spur a discussion of the affordable housing stock in downtown, and particularly to focus on why new construction is not keeping pace with the removal of the affordable housing stock in San Diego.

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Charts prepared by author

 

Filed Under: Affordable Housing, Feature Posts, San Diego

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About Murtaza Baxamusa

Murtaza H. Baxamusa, Ph.D., AICP is a certified planner, writer and thinker. He develops affordable housing for the San Diego Building Trades Family Housing Corporation, and teaches urban planning at the University of Southern California (USC). He has over 12 years' experience in economic development and sustainable urban planning, and has previously worked for the USC Center for Economic Development as well as the Center on Policy Initiatives. He has doctoral and master’s degrees in Planning from USC, and a bachelor’s degree with honors from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.  He serves and has served on several nonprofit boards, including Civic San Diego, the San Diego City-County Reinvestment Taskforce and the Middle Class Taxpayers Association. He received the Ruby Award for Outstanding Advocate from the San Diego Housing Federation in 2012, as well as the John Lyons Memorial Fellowship, an honor that was read into the Congressional Record of the 112th Congress. The City of San Diego proclaimed June 17, 2008 to be “Dr. Murtaza H. Baxamusa Day” in recognition of his contributions to the city. He is a home-owner in Bay Park, and lives with his wife and two daughters.

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  1. avatar Labor, Environment, and Social Justice Groups create coalition to facilitate and advocate for affordable housing in San Diego. - San Diego UrbDeZine says:
    June 5, 2017 at 3:37 pm

    […] times in the housing world. The unprecedented housing crisis statewide in California, and locally in San Diego, is forging unprecedented coalitions among affordable housing advocates, community-based […]

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