San Diego City Council committee approves response to housing shortage Grand Jury report

San Diego City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee met Thursday to discuss a proposed response to a recent San Diego County Grand Jury report that outlined a lack of housing in the region.

Every local government agency in the region under the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) failed to provide housing for all state-designated income levels, other than Lemon Grove, according to the report released in early May.

The report outlined six findings and six recommendations for leaders at the local level to improve housing availability. Not all of them are directed at the City of San Diego, however, they must formulate a response to each of them.

The response was discussed by members of the Land Use and Housing Committee which includes Councilmember and committee chair Vivian Moreno, Councilmember and vice chair Joe LaCava, Councilmember Stephen Whitburn and Councilmember Kent Lee.

Of the recommendations made, the city’s proposed response said that they have already implemented all but one.

Some of those recommendations include working with religious organizations and education systems to identify developable land, along with drafting revenue-generating legislation and writing out specific plans for different areas.

The one recommendation that the city said will not be implemented is to support or create legislation to form a San Diego County agency to work on raising housing revenue. The city said they do not find this necessary, since local jurisdictions are already able to intervene and make a direct impact.

After a 16-slide presentation, and a few public comments, the council members unanimously approved the proposed response and will be sending it to the full city council for approval.

“Obviously, the conversation about housing and delivering housing is a much larger conversation, but today the conversation is only about responding to the Grand Jury,” LaCava said.

If the mayor also approves of the response, then it will be a combined response with council. However, if the mayor does not approve of the response, he has the option to submit his own responses as well.

The response must be sent to the presiding judge at San Diego County Superior Court by Nov. 6.