Potential Affordable Housing in District 2

The City of Solana Beach submitted a draft of its updated Housing Element to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) as part of the 6th cycle of Regional Housing Needs Allocation (read my position on affordable housing for more information). This document was developed by city staff and approved by the current city council in 2021. As of this blog post, it was still pending approval by HCD.

What does this potentially mean for District 2 and Solana Beach? It's pretty interesting if you take a look at the map of potential RHNA sites. It's important to note that these are areas the city has identified where additional housing could be built, not where it has committed to build anything or even where a project has been proposed.

Housing Element - Candidate Housing Locations

Most of the potential sites are located in District 2. Here is the key a little larger to make this more readable:

Let's zoom in to the map and just look at just District 2:

Proposed housing locations in District 2

District 2 is roughly outlined in light blue, and many sites within our district are proposed as potential affordable housing locations. What does this mean for your local neighborhood in District 2? I'll dive a little deeper into a couple of the proposed sites to explain how to read this map by looking at some specific candidate sites on Stevens Ave between Academy Dr and Genevieve St.

Specific proposed housing

For these sites, the city lists the number of potential units that could be constructed - a total of 119 units in this area around Genevieve and Stevens, just south of Rudy's and Bongiorno's.

ID	Address	Potential Units
4.34	741 Academy Dr	6
4.35	524 Stevens Ave	6
4.36	532 Stevens Ave	21
4.37	722 Genevieve st	29
4.38	742 Genevieve St	19
4.39	616 Stevens Ave	15
4.51	761 Academy Dr	11
4.52	809 Academy Dr	12

Currently there are a number of small businesses at these addresses on Stevens Ave:

It's important to note that these are just potential sites the city has identified where affordable housing may be possible, not that the city has committed to any specific project or to actually building housing at these locations.

What is most concerning about this whole process is the fact that the city is slowly but surely backing itself into a corner with each subsequent Housing Element. For the 5th Housing Cycle, the city built less than half of the proposed units - see this 2019 analysis courtesy of SANDAG (full document at the end of this post):

The current Housing Cycle has imposed an even higher number of units on the city. If housing units are not actually built, the city may fall out of compliance with the state, and then the state could allow developers to bypass all of our local oversight (such as the View Assessment process) and community rules concerning heights, setbacks, and parking requirements. The state can also withhold important funding in terms of community grants while the city is out of compliance. By making a more authentic attempt to enable some increased density, we can retain more control over what is built in Solana Beach.

Additional information

The city provided this Housing Element Fact Sheet as well if you have any additional questions.

Draft candidate sites map:

Draft Candidate Sites Map

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Download • 14.19MB

Final draft 2021-2029 Housing Element:

FINAL_HCD_Submittal_12.15.2020

.pdf

Download PDF • 28.70MB

2019 SANDAG RHNA Housing Analysis:

publicationid_4647_27206

.pdf

Download PDF • 931KB