Regional Housing Forecasts Raise Reality-Check Questions

The idea of San Diego County's population growing by one-third within three decades is something regional planners are trying to get their heads around.

Will there be enough housing for everybody? And where?

The county's housing stock is in short supply and costly.

Meeting the demands of a booming population figures to be a real challenge -- especially when demands may not fit certain formulas.

"The oldest Millennials are now bearing children, and we have national studies that show their inclination is to own a single family home --and we're not building enough of them,” said Gary London, a leading land use consultant who’s co-authored a stud of local housing trends and needs for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

He questions San Diego Association of Government forecasts based on strategies that steer new growth to urbanized areas, to reduce sprawl and climate-change downsides.

Those areas are seeing more builder investments in apartments and condominiums.

“If we're projecting that 82 percent of housing is going to be multi-family in the San Diego region, there's a disconnect there,” London said in a Friday recording session for Sunday’s edition of NBC 7’s “Politically Speaking” public affairs program.

Marney Cox, SANDAG’s chief economist, offered this counterpoint: “We’re getting direction through legislation that says ‘You need to do things differently than you have in the past.’ And Gary’s saying ‘Look, there’s conflict here -- we think the past is more reflective of the future’s going to be.’ We’re saying no, we don’t believe that’s true.”

Cox said general plans in cities of the region put a priority on preserving open space, to protect species that could be endangered by more suburbanization of unincorporated areas.

“We show the growth being channeled into the incorporated communities,” Cox said.

Replied London: “The problem here is that even though in theory we can accommodate the projected growth, on the ground we’re really not doing that.”

The upshot here?

Look for more tension between political forces backing growth by way of "urban infill" and those advocating further "green field" development.

The bedrock legislative issue, going forward, would appear to be whether environmental values and "economic stability" can live under the same roof.

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