Hi, I'm Sean Canning, Principal Architect at Ten Seventy Architecture. We're one of the leading experts in San Diego's Accessory Dwelling Unit Regulations. And today I thought I'd do something a little different with this video. I wanted to do a review of a community group which is starting to hit my radar, which seems to be very obstructive to the new Accessory Dwelling Unit Regulations.
So for full disclosure, About this time last year, I was asked to give a presentation on accessory dwelling units to the El Cerrito community in San Diego. And before I did the presentation, I just explained that I was a very pro development architect and the things that I would be explaining are really matter of fact and I'm not giving my opinion either way, but I'm explaining the technical nuances to the code.
And how and why and when you can build certain ADUs or JADUs. So the group is called Neighbors for a Better San Diego, which is an interesting name for some of the information that they're pushing. And I noticed that this group frequents a lot of the planning meetings, and they seem to always be able to get their opinion stated on public record.
So. So, since I gave the original presentation to the El Cerrito community, and I know this group, a big part is from that community and the surrounding communities, I thought it would be a fair arrangement for me to review their, their work, review their presentation, and just kind of fact check it, and see if, if I taught them anything, and see what kind of takeaways they had.
So let's just jump into this. This is a presentation made by Neighbors for a Better San Diego. Right on the cover sheet, it says the reality of San Diego's ADU program. And the communities listed are College Area, El Cerrito, and University City. So let me click into the first slide here. It says, in October 2020, our City Council decimated single family zoning by incentivizing developers to convert single family parcels.
It's a high density income properties. Okay, so right off the bat I mean, I just want to make it very clear how long these projects take to develop and since October 2020
It it hasn't even been two years yet Project like this takes a large scale project like the ones they're talking about take multiple years to develop usually a year or so just in permitting. So it's impossible for single family zones to be decimated at this point. None of these projects are, have come to fruition yet.
And the ones that maybe there, there are a few here and there, but just not enough to decimate single family zoning. When the changes are this large, they should trigger direct broad based outreach to the public. Well, yes, I would agree with that. However, that can be a large a large time spent doing that.
And most of these changes came from the state. So the state has made their own regulations and the city of San Diego has taken those which were required and then expanded upon them. Okay, so this next slide says correcting the record. San Diego is not just following state law. Okay, so this is kind of what I just described.
So they have this broken down to California and San Diego. And in California, you can have one ADU. And in San Diego, you can have three ADUs slash unlimited ADUs. And then there's like little asterisks there. Three ADUs anywhere in San Diego and unlimited ADUs within a half mile of transit. Yeah, so that's mostly true, although I would state that, you know, you're still governed by a floor area ratio of the single family zone.
They're talking about single family zoning here, not multi family. So, in no cases you could build unlimited ADUs, even though that's the language that the municipal code uses. You can only build... ADUs up until you hit your floor area ratio. And the floor area ratio is something that essentially sets the maximum amount of square footage based on the base zone.
So in single family zoning, you're going to have the smallest floor area ratios, which means the smallest developments. So that's one of the mechanisms that the planning department uses to allow for more or less square footage in different zones. That's why single family zones. You can't build as much as a multifamily zone or a commercial zone.
Okay, then they have a 16 foot height listed in California, but in San Diego allows heights of 30 feet. That's not 100 percent correct. It's, you can go to the height of your base zone, and in certain zones you can actually go 40 feet. But, the argument they're trying to make here is that we should be limited to 16 foot in height.
But it doesn't take a genius to understand that the more you build up, the more yard space that you would leave. So that creates a, a great efficiency in construction and, and density. So I would say it doesn't make sense to have a height limit of 16 foot if the base zone allows for a height of 30 foot.
Then they have here California four foot side and rear setbacks. And in San Diego, a zero side rear setback, although that's now been changed. So if you go two stories now, you do need a four foot side and rear setback. But if you go one story, you can go zero lot line. Allows exclusion for public safety in California.
And then in San Diego, no restriction in very high fire hazard severity zones. Okay, so just one quick point here. Anytime you're closer than three, anytime you're closer than five feet to the property line, you do have to build a one hour fire rated wall. And essentially, that's a wall that would be able to be on fire for one hour before it would collapse.
So the fire safety is actually built into the California Building Code. And in certain cases, you'd have to build more than a one hour fire rated wall. But it's, it's built in. Okay, now I'm on this next slide and this is, this says, don't be misled. One granny flat versus apartment complex. Compare the difference.
San Diego's destruction of single family neighborhoods is not required by state law. That's true. I would also argue the state law doesn't destroy single family neighborhoods. But there's some very, very leading Vocabulary in this, which is, which is very interesting. So the diagram on the left shows what you could do based on California state guidelines.
And the diagram on the right shows what you could do in San Diego. So let's see if we could break this down a little bit. So on the left, it looks like there was an existing home, which has a 284 square foot junior accessory dwelling unit. And that leaves the. Three bedroom, two bathroom home there as a single family residence.
And then in the back, they built an 1137 square foot, two bed, two bath. This is so funny that they, like, why not just say 1100 square feet, but they went 1137. So It's just interesting the way they did that. And they have that labeled as a granny flat, which is a term no longer used in the municipal code.
It's been Everything's been changed to accessory dwelling unit now. Okay, then on the right, what they're saying that you can do in San Diego, is you could build, basically, the same, almost the same ADU, but now you'd have a laundry room, and then you'd have a 200 square foot studio adjacent to that, which I suppose would have to be an ADU.
And then they have, attached to the house, two studios. One of which was the J 80 in the previous slide on the left diagram, and the other is just a 200 square foot studio. And then this is the most interesting part. They have what looks like 12 150 square foot studios stacked up on the property line over here.
And then only two parking spaces. So, okay, well there's a whole bunch wrong with this diagram, so I guess I'll just... Let's start at the top here. So if this is a single family zone, you'd be allowed to build one ADU and one JADU. So let's pretend that the 284 square foot studio is the JADU. And then the, the light blue.
Mass in the back is the ADU. So now every unit past that would have to be half of those would have to be affordable. So you have two more studios here, and then 12 units down the side. So that's 14 studios. So that means seven of these would be rented at moderate affordable levels. So you'd get... If somebody was to do this crazy development here, we'd have seven more affordable...
units in San Diego, and we would have seven more market rate units in San Diego, plus the original JADU and the ADU. Okay, but here's where it's a little bit misleading in my opinion. So they're, they're showing these 150 square foot studios. Now, 150 square feet is basically the, The size, the width of this room here that is behind me minus the staircase and then 15 foot out and within that 150 square foot footprint, you would be required to install a full bathroom or at least a three quarter bath, no tub, but you'd need a shower.
You couldn't design that in really less than 40, I would say like 8, like 40 square feet maybe? So now you're down to 110 square feet left and you still have to do a kitchenette assuming you do a Very small three foot kitchenette with like a microwave These would be the most uncomfortable studios That I i've ever seen 150 square feet is smaller than your is smaller than most hotel rooms And the code minimum is 150 square feet But as a developer I think it would be a pretty bad investment to build Six, excuse me, 1250 square foot studios and try to rent them.
The other thing that's not mentioned here is with this particular development, with six of these units all connected, this is going to be an R2 occupancy. And this is going to require mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering. It's going to be a very expensive development the way they have it here.
So when a developer is going to invest this much money into a project, they want to make sure that the units are, there's a market to rent those units. And I'm not quite sure that there is a market to rent these units here. Now the other thing that they have here is they're showing these two parking spaces, which are indicated in the bottom right with the letter P.
But if I'm reading this correctly, the yellow outline is the property line. So they actually have two parking spaces that are not on their property. You're not allowed to do that. Also, this would be a very wide curb cut, because it looks like both parking spaces are basically adjacent to the street, and you're not allowed to have a curb cut that wide.
So, this diagram is inherently flawed and probably pretty misleading too, I'd say. Okay, let's jump on to the next slide. Which San Diego neighborhoods are most at risk? Incentivized by City Hall, our Planning Department, investors are buying up single family homes and transforming them into market rate apartment complexes.
Percentage of San Diego single family homes bought by investors in 2021. And I guess they cite that down here as a source being WashingtonPost. com. Investors bought a record share of homes in 2021. Interesting. So they're saying that basically the neighborhood on the right in the light blue, those list of neighborhoods are the most at risk.
Logan Heights and Barrio Logan, my neighborhood, is 17%. Hmm. I don't know what to say about this one. I'm going to skip that slide. San Diego used a transit priority map. To decide how many ADUs can be built on a single family lot. This is true. Here's the map. Okay, perfect. Yellow highlights are areas inside the transit priority area.
The TPA includes 60 percent of all San Diego neighborhoods. And the yellow area on this map comes from the areas being within a half a mile of major transit stops. So it's not a single bus stop. But major transit stops and that's defined by at least two or more bus stops or other types of mass transit.
Now, it would be nice if we could get up to like a 90 percent or a 95 percent of all San Diego neighborhoods having access to mass transit. And I think that's an important piece of the puzzle to allow for this additional density of all these ADUs. But that's another subject altogether. Okay, so this is the TPA map.
We use this all the time. On this next slide it says ADUs affect all San Diego neighborhoods. Current San Diego code, if you live inside the TPA, your single family zoning now allows unlimited ADUs per lot. This is true. However, you are capped with a the FAR is adjusted based on the type of zone. So single family zones have a lesser FAR than multifamily zones.
If you live outside the TPA, your single family zoning now allows up to five dwelling per unit. And the way they came to this is I guess they took that existing single family home, which is 948 square feet. They converted some of it or built a new JADU to that. And then there's three ADUs in the back, one of which...
would be market value, the next would be affordable, and the last one would be, again, market value. So that's how they get to this scenario here. Of course, now, with this triplex in the back here that's three stories, that requires a soils test, and that requires MEP engineering, and a building permit.
This is a very expensive development. And... While they're trying to explain that these five dwellings per lot is too much, they've actually left the garage off the table because that could become a sixth ADU if it made sense for the development. And then here they're showing four parking spaces.
If you live anywhere in San Diego, your single family zoning now allows no side and rear setback. That's no longer true. For two story structures, you do need a four foot setback. 30 foot height limit. In parentheses, three stories, in case you couldn't do the math. No parking for renters required. And fee waivers for developers.
Okay, so let's just talk about the parking thing here because this comes up quite a bit. Yes, you can develop 1250 square foot ADUs for rent with zero parking. But that's not going to be your best return on investment from a development standpoint. In most cases, whenever you can provide parking, you will provide parking.
Because the type of tenants that would rent a spot without parking are different than the types of tenants that would rent a spot with parking. Parking is a great amenity for a tenant. Oftentimes, you just need one parking spot per unit. My wife and I share a car and it works out perfectly. We have two off street parking spaces here for three units and it's been working fine.
But While no parking is required, smart developers are going to provide parking.
Okay, let's see. Okay, this is interesting. Take a closer look. Transit priority areas are determined by drawing a circle half a mile as the crow flies around the major transit stop. The blue lines within the TPA below indicate The only half mile walkable distance to this transit stop. Yet all homes captured in TPA circles are permitted for unlimited ADUs.
Okay, so what they've done here is they've just cherry picked one example, probably the worst case scenario that they could find where it's difficult to get to this one transit stop. And I'll give it to them. They've identified a flaw that could be fixed through city infrastructure. We could have an underpass or an overpass, a pedestrian bridge over that highway there, and that would fix the problem.
But these are just semantics really at this point. So, if their argument is for the city to add a pedestrian bridge, I would agree here. San Diego's ADU incentives compared to other California cities. Okay, so California law, 1 ADU, 1 JAU. Other California cities free application review. That sounds good.
Pre approved plans pair seniors with ADUs fee reductions and waivers Okay, so here they want this they want the fee reductions and waivers bonus 200 square foot I don't know what that means San Diego covert upzoning Three ADUs, unlimited ADUs inside the transit priority area. Hmm. Okay, and then they have this like line di this line graph in the back that's like got this hockey stick curve where it's impacting the neighborhoods in San Diego quite a bit more than other California cities.
But there's no metrics on the scale. So it's just the sort of a blank diagram. Okay, so first off, pre approved plans are not such a great idea. It's nice to have a couple pre approved options, and we do have pre approved options in San Diego. So whoever made this, I guess they didn't Google search the right thing.
Actually, I offer a pre approved plan, so if you're interested, feel free to shoot me an email. The pre approved plan is going to end up with a bunch of cookie cutter looking homes, so that's not a great solution. I'm not sure if they're an advocate of that or not. And I will say, they have covert upzoning.
This isn't unofficial upzoning. That's, that is true. I would say it's a, it's a necessity to build a, to, to, to grow a city to have an upzoning like this. Okay. Developers pick income level of renters. Moderate income rents mean more profit. And that's true. If developers don't have profit, they won't build these things.
As of January 1st, 2022, 100 percent of the ADUs deeded affordable through the ADU bonus program are moderate income. That's true. The program requires to get the affordable bonus. You use the moderate income levels. Not the low or very income or very low income levels. However, you have the right to rent to whoever you want if it's not deeded as affordable.
So you can have a market rent and a market rate ADU and rent it to very low income if you choose to do that. San Diego has a surplus of moderate income rentals. Well, first off, I don't think we have a surplus of any rentals here. In San Diego, I'm, I mean, I'm pretty sure everybody knows that. But we should have a surplus and if this is true, then that's good.
I don't believe that this is true.
Housing Commission's rents for studio and one bedroom units, 79 percent of ADUs, are just as unaffordable as market rate units. Yeah, so this is true. Things are very expensive here in San Diego. And. San Diego Housing Commission, which is, it's indicated here, SDHC, San Diego Housing Commission, sets these rates based on median income.
And this is what it is right now, so, this is, there's nothing you can do about this. This is just what people are making and it's just how expensive things are in San Diego.
Okay, ADUs leave families and seniors in the cold. Okay, this one, this is a very manipulative, Slide here. So they've got some data here. I guess it came from a UC Berkeley study. Where basically they're saying the number of people living in ADUs is only one to two people. And there's not a lot of three person or four person ADUs.
We'll come back to that. Next one they say is, are there any school age children 18 and under living in the ADU? And 89 percent is no. And then, are there any senior citizens 65 plus living in the ADUs? And the answer is no. Okay. There's nothing that states in the ADU code that school age children or seniors or more than two people can live in an ADU or cannot live in an ADU.
So this is just a matter of free market and it's also a matter of the Basically ADUs being a newer thing, ADUs typically being smaller units. So look at the, look at the first bar graph here. The number of people living in ADUs. So we have one to two people living in, in ADU here. And that's because ADUs are built smaller than dwelling units.
So that's how come you can only have one to two people living in them. If an ADU was built at the same size as the primary dwelling unit, then sure, we can get three to four people in there. So, this is a problem that will work itself out. Are there any school aged children, 18 and under, living in the ADU?
The it says no here, but that's not to say that this won't happen in the future. There's no real market forces that are saying that school children cannot be living in ADUs, and if we build more ADUs, that will open up the market for more families and school aged children. And then the last one, which is I don't know, are there any senior citizens living in ADUs?
Okay, so an ADU is a perfect opportunity to build literally a granny flat in your backyard and have your in laws live in there or your parents live in there. If a senior citizen owns their home before property went through the roof in San Diego, that's why they're not living in an ADU because they own the home.
They had an opportunity to buy these homes at a discounted rate in comparison to where we're at today. Okay, I'm going to skip this one. Conflicts with San Diego's climate action goals. No requirement for replacing trees. That's not true. That's in the code. It just, it just got added though, but that is in the code.
No mechanisms for encouraging transit adoption. Even worse, allows front yards to be converted to parking. Ooh, these front yards. People get really hung up about these front yards. We need to build more public transit here. That is something that we have to do to make the, this ADU thing work out. Waves developer fees.
These are, there's now fees back on ADUs once you hit your third, your third ADU in certain cases. But without, if we put these developer fees in there, less developers will build ADUs. And the goal is to build more ADUs to help with the housing crisis. Eliminates side and rear setbacks, increases fire risk, reduces rainwater absorption, encourages cutting down existing greenery.
Okay, so first off, let's take this from the back. Encourages cutting down existing greenery. In the other slide, they were trying to prevent ADUs from being over 16 feet. But if you build vertically above 16 feet, you can keep more greenery. So this is contradictory to what they said earlier. Reduces rainwater absorption.
The building code is very clear. We have to deal with all stormwater on our property. It doesn't matter how many structures you build. It has to be dealt with on your property. And increases fire risk. If you're building structures closer than five feet to other structures, or if you're building multi family structures, or if you're building structures closer than five feet to the property line, there is a requirement to have those walls fire rated.
So that reduces fire risk. Turn San Diego from green to gray. Okay, next slide. Great for developers, bad for San Diego. San Diego is giving developers a Perverse incentive to overbuild single family lots. Unlimited ADUs per lot, in certain cases. Waves developer fees. Taxpayers foot the bill. We need to cut those fees.
They were too high to begin with. And now some of them are coming back. No money for infrastructure. No parking for ADUs. Renters thrown under the bus. Ooh, that's clever. Clear cutting of green urban forests. That's not, that's not true. That's not a thing at all. Homeowners priced out of market.
Massive land wealth transfer from homeowners to corporations. Okay, let's, I guess let's pick some of these and talk about them. No parking for ADUs. Renters don't under the bus. When you go to rent a unit, you're aware of whether that unit comes with a parking space or not. If you have a situation where you need a car and you're, Looking at a spot where there is no parking available on the street, you shouldn't rent that unit.
Rental units without parking are not for everybody. And that's why developers are incentivized to add parking to their units. Even though it's not a requirement. Clear cutting of green urban forest. I don't know, this is some conspiracy I've never heard of before. I don't know where that comes from at all.
Homeowners priced out of market. If your property is now, if you own a property and you're a homeowner in San Diego the land value alone is now increased because of the potential you can build here. So the only homeowners that are going to be priced out of the market are ones that are foolish and sell their homes for less value than they're worth.
And massive land transfer, massive land wealth transfer from homeowners to corporations. So same thing goes there. If a corporation is going to come in and build 14 ADUs on your lot, you need to understand the value of your land and set the price accordingly.
Upzoning is a costing mistake. No amount of opening zoning or allowing for development will cause prices to go down. We've seen no evidence of that at all. Well, we really don't have much of a sample size to be honest. But that is the theory here. Now the diagram on the left is before rezoning land price 1, 000, 000.
So now, that's your typical home in San Diego is 1, 000, 000. And we just hit that price in May 2022. And after rezoning now they go up to 4, 000, 000. Per square foot interior price is still 1, 000. So, if the homeowner on the left, So if the home and the developer could build this, the homeowner also has the same ability to build that if they wanted to.
If the homeowner doesn't want this built in their neighborhood, they don't have to sell the home. So it's owner's discretion here. The problem with San Diego's ADU code, for investors, not homeowners, I would argue the opposite. I think it's a great program for homeowners. It's also good for investors, but there's lots of opportunities as a homeowner to add value and to Live in a multi-generational family, which is very common in the neighborhood that I live.
You can move your in-laws in, you don't have to send your kids to the to dorm at school. They can stay in the a d u in the back. You build a home office, you put the you could rent it to a tenant, offset some of, some of your mortgage would be first home. Buyers remain stuck as renters. Okay, so, It is, the market is very challenging here, but if you're a first time homebuyer, what I would recommend is as soon as possible, build the ADU and then offset your mortgage.
So it's a, it's great for first time homebuyers. If you could figure out how to finagle past design engineering. Permitting and construction which can be a challenge, but there is some good opportunity here if you can get through those steps Not affordable housing could be you can rent it at whatever price you want Heavily biased against inclusionary family housing.
That's not true at all Fee waivers means no funds for parks libraries or other infrastructure Draws development away from transit corridors. So I saw this earlier and I don't know what this means the transit priority Transit priority area
The transit corridor also is in the TPA, so that's where they're focusing development. So I don't understand what they mean by this. And then the TPA definitions are severely flawed. But, you know, let me tell you something. If it takes 40 minutes to walk to the bus stop and you don't have a car, that's better than not being able to walk to the bus stop if you don't have a car.
So... I think we should improve public transportation. I don't think this kills public transportation or is severely flawed. No consideration of public safety, particularly high fire zones. That's not true. And then here it says 6, 000 San Diego's and 30 of San Diego's planning groups support our recommendations.
And it's interesting, I don't see Logan Heights or Barrio Logan here and those were some of the neighborhoods that were supposed to be most affected. Those are my neighborhoods Our recommendation for san diego city council Change san diego adu code to one adu and one jdu Four foot rear and side yard setbacks.
We have that after two stories Height limit 16 feet. Well, that's going to make buildings spread out and you're going to lose some of that urban forestry. You're so concerned about fee fee waivers Except areas from adus based on public safety traffic and water sewer, so Public safety is covered, traffic needs to be handled by more mass transit, and water and sewer needs, the infrastructure needs to be upgraded by the city to allow for more density.
That's not the obligation of the homeowner or the developer. Develop housing on transit corridors and hubs. And this is exactly what the TPA is supposed to be doing. Okay, so this is the end of this presentation, now they're just saying take action and call Mayor Todd Gloria. Oh, and raise awareness on Nextdoor.
Okay, so in conclusion I guess I'm a very pro density, pro development architect, so I should make that very clear. I grew up in a neighborhood in New Jersey, which is, according to Wikipedia, the ideal suburb. And when you grow up in a suburb, you have to take a car everywhere. There was so many times I couldn't even get to my, my job on the weekends in high school, unless I had my parents drop me off or until I had my driver's license, because you can't walk anywhere.
What we need to do in San Diego, in the city of San Diego, is to make it more dense at the core, and then as we go, Outside of the city core have more suburbs, but the single family zones that are close to the city as San Diego grows are inevitably going to get more dense. This is how a city develops, and if you go to any other city that's bigger than San Diego, you're going to see much more density than San Diego.
So the argument often comes down to people over parking. And I think that's a pretty simple thing to answer when you really think about it. But these are just my takes on this, Neighbors for a Better San Diego. They have their opinion, they're welcome, they're, they're welcome to their opinion. I did do a presentation for probably most of the people in this group.
And I'm a little shocked that some of the information they present here I don't know where they got all of that. Some of it's just, just incorrect. Some of it is factual. But I just want to do this video and give you kind of my opinion on this particular neighborhood group because I was one of the people who provided them a lot of the information that surely they used in this, in this document.
