LOCAL / NEIGHBORHOOD GROUPS HATE SAN DIEGO'S BONUS ADU PROGRAM

LOOK AT THIS! A 10-unit accessory dwelling unit (ADU) bonus program project, consisting of five separate buildings, is being built on Shoshoni Ave., a single family resident cul-de-sac with limited parking in Clairemont, shown here on April 27, 2025. San Diego does not require parking if the projects are built transit priority area. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Neighborhood groups hate San Diego’s bonus ADU program. Here’s how they want to fix it. Their proposal comes as Mayor Todd Gloria prepares to detail his more modest proposed rollback of the backyard apartment incentive. 

GUEST BLOG / REPOST / By David Garrick, San Diego Union-Tribune--Neighborhood leaders across San Diego are lobbying city officials to make a sweeping rollback of a controversial incentive for backyard apartments that many have argued damages community character. 

 The Community Planners Committee, a coalition of neighborhood groups from across the city, voted 21-2 last week to limit the number of backyard apartments per lot, tighten height limits and make other changes. 

 The long list of proposed changes got support from elected leaders in neighborhoods from Ocean Beach to Scripps Ranch and Encanto, underscoring how unpopular the backyard apartment incentive is citywide. 

 The proposal comes in advance of Thursday’s San Diego Planning Commission meeting, where Mayor Todd Gloria is scheduled to propose a more modest rollback of the city’s backyard apartment incentive. Gloria agreed to make changes after the City Council threatened to wipe out the incentive entirely in February, and then voted 6-3 in March to eliminate the program in some single-family neighborhoods — depending on zoning. 

 While many neighborhood leaders are pleased Gloria is willing to roll back the incentive, they’ve also expressed frustration the process hasn’t included their community planning groups. 

So the CPC, an umbrella organization for those groups, formed a special subcommittee that met for eight hours over three meetings and came up with a comprehensive reform proposal. 

 The centerpiece of the proposal is setting a maximum number per lot for backyard apartments, which city officials call accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. 

END UNLIMITED ADUs. The city’s ADU incentive — the state’s most aggressive — goes beyond what state law allows by letting property owners build a potentially unlimited number of such units. 

 For every ADU a property owner is willing to build that is deed-restricted for low-income or moderate-income tenants, they can build one bonus ADU and charge market-rate rent for it. 

 The only significant limitation is that property owners can’t exceed the maximum square footage allowed per acre — called the floor-area ratio — for the particular zone. And in general, the incentive applies only to properties within 1 mile of an existing or future transit route. 

 The CPC proposal would limit every lot to a maximum of one bonus ADU, based on the idea each lot could have no more than four dwelling units: the main house, a rent-restricted ADU, an attached ADU and a bonus ADU. 

 “The CPC has come up with a ‘4 means 4’ proposal,” said panel chair Andrea Schlageter in a letter to the City Council. She argued the proposed maximum is the simplest way for the city to adhere to state law while also clarifying for residents and developers the density limits in single-family residential zones. 

 The CPC chose four as the maximum for several reasons. Among those reasons: Federal housing law uses four units as the dividing line between single-family or multi-family housing, and the city uses four units to determine whether a property is eligible for free trash pickup as a single-family lot. 

 The committee’s proposal would also limit the height of unattached ADUs to either 16 feet or 18 feet — far less than the city’s existing rules, which allow them to be 30 feet tall. David Moty, who leads the community planning group for Kensington and Talmadge, said the heights of some ADUs have played a key role in damaging community character. “ADUs have always been sold as the cute little granny flat, or the bungalow in the backyard — all these beautiful pictures of things we know we can live with because they are low in height,” Moty told the CPC on Tuesday before its vote. 

 Based on the same concerns, the CPC proposal would also limit all ADUs to two stories. 

LOOK AT THIS! An ADU project being built on 54th Street on Friday, April 25, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune) 

The CPC also wants to make rules for bonus ADUs the same across the entire city, eliminating the current situation where properties near transit or in high-income areas are eligible for more aggressive incentives. “We’re all in this together,” said Moty, who led the subcommittee that crafted the package of proposed changes. 

 Supporters of the city’s bonus ADU program say it’s helping solve the city’s housing crisis by creating lower-priced units in established neighborhoods much more quickly than it would take a developer to find land for an apartment complex. 

 They also say restricting bonus ADUs to properties near bus or trolley lines makes sense because of parking concerns, and because those are neighborhoods where people who don’t own cars can commute by transit. “The ADU bonus program is all about how (we) can add more affordable homes in urban areas where we already have infrastructure,” said Saad Asad of the YIMBY Democrats of San Diego County. 

 Neighbors for a Better San Diego, a vocal group that generally supports single-family homeowners and opposes high-density housing development within neighborhoods, has endorsed the CPC changes, including the idea that the rules should be uniform citywide. “It makes sense to have one set of rules everywhere in the city,” said group leader Geoff Hueter. 

 The CPC proposal would also make fundamental changes to policies for the rent-restricted ADUs that property owners must build in order to be eligible for bonus ADUs. City rules now require the low rents to remain in place for 15 years, but the CPC wants to raise that to 55 years — the standard for most other rent-restricted housing in the city. “It is concerning that the deed restrictions on bonus ADUs are not the same as other deed-restricted housing,” Schlageter said. 

 In addition, the CPC wants to vary the income eligibility requirements. Under its proposal, property owners in high-resource areas would have to rent to people with particularly low incomes, while property owners in low-resource areas would be allowed to rent to people who make more. 

 The goal, Moty said, is to give lower-income people more opportunities to live in high-resource areas, which the city defines as areas with good jobs and educational opportunities. 

 Schlageter said this change would fit with the City Council’s No. 1 priority: making San Diego more affordable by encouraging more subsidized, rent-restricted housing for low-income residents. “Considering every council member agrees the city is in a housing crisis, particularly a low-income and missing-middle housing crisis, more needs to be done to fill this gap,” she said in her letter. 

 The CPC also wants stronger prohibitions against lots with ADUs being used as short-term vacation rentals. City rules already prohibit ADUs from being used as vacation rentals, but property owners can build an ADU, move into it and then make the main house a vacation rental. 

 “If we’re trying to solve the housing crisis, bonus ADUs should be for housing,” Moty said. The CPC also endorses some of Gloria’s proposals, including plans to start requiring parking spots for new bonus ADUs that aren’t within a mile of existing or future transit routes. 

But the CPC would like the city to reduce the distance to half a mile. 

 A multi-story, multiunit accessory dwelling unit (ADU) bonus program project is being completed built behind a single family residence on Adams Ave. in El Cerrito on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. San Diego does not require parking if the projects are built in transit priority areas. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune) 

Schlageter plans to present the CPC’s proposal to the Planning Commission on Thursday after city planning director Heidi Vonblum presents the less aggressive updates proposed by Gloria. “The members of the CPC are looking forward to the robust debate that will come with public discussions,” Schlageter said in her letter. 

 Gloria said last month, when announcing his proposed changes, that he welcomes public input on changes to the ADU incentive. “Feedback from members of the public is a key part of this process,” the mayor said. 

 But Gloria’s description downplays the unpopularity of the program. “The program that will continue its success in expanding affordable home options while ensuring projects are consistent with the scale and character of San Diego’s neighborhoods,” he said. 

 While he said “the reforms address community concerns related to unintended impacts of the ADU program,” the mayor described the changes as a typical bureaucratic step instead of a response to public outcry. “The city regularly monitors its housing programs to ensure they are achieving the desired results and often makes adjustments based on feedback from the community and home builders,” he said. 

 While the CPC wants Gloria to go much further, the group generally agrees with many of his proposed changes. They include starting to require property owners that build bonus ADUs to pay fees for needed infrastructure and community amenities. 

 Gloria also proposes to enhance restrictions on how close to property lines bonus ADUs can be built, and to hike the fines for property owners who violate deed restrictions that limit how much rent they can charge. 

 The mayor also wants to require adequate evacuation routes for bonus ADUs, some of which are built on canyons, and to prohibit ADUs in very high fire-severity zones. 

 Vonblum, the planning director, said fixing the incentive is a high priority. “Ensuring that the ADU Density Bonus Program continues to provide more housing options for people with moderate and lower incomes is critical,” she said. 

“However, this must be achieved in a manner that fits with our existing communities. We look forward to working with the public to achieve this.” Thursday’s Planning Commission meeting is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. The proposed changes would then go to the council’s Land Use and Housing Committee and then to the full council for approval this summer.