Encinitas mulls 100% affordable project to avoid housing shortage

ENCINITAS — The City Council is considering a 100% affordable housing project to prevent the city from falling behind on its state-mandated affordable housing requirements.

The city anticipates triggering California’s No Net Loss law for not maintaining an adequate supply of affordable housing sites and failing to meet its lower-income Regional Housing Needs Assessment obligations for the current housing cycle.

The city would need to select additional sites (not in the city’s housing element) for lower-income housing and increase the number of affordable units on those sites. Additionally, the city may have to provide more accessory dwelling units than previously projected or upzone additional sites to 30 units per acre.

But the city may only upzone new sites with approval from voters under Proposition A. 

The city began its effort to prevent a “no net loss” scenario last June by searching for a consultant to develop a housing element update. In November, city officials selected Kimley-Horn and Associates.

Then in February, Mayor Tony Kranz requested an additional study session to understand better the legal requirements behind the No Net Loss law. As a result, the City Council met for the study session on March 22 to hear a summary of the legal requirements, review future site selection criteria and learn the tools available to address the potential “no net loss” situation. 

“What I’m understanding from this meeting is we will have a long and probably controversial process ahead of us to be able to find the density we need to upzone and put it forward to our voters,” said Councilmember Kellie Hinze. 

Rather than upzoning a new site, Hinze requested staff explore options to develop a 100% affordable housing project at the “L-7” site on Quail Gardens Drive. 

In 2018, the council removed the L-7 parcel from the housing element due to residents’ concerns over increased density in a rural area. 

Attorney Barbara Kautz presented the No Net Loss legal requirements to the council, noting that one 100% affordable housing project could help curb the city’s looming housing deficit.

“The city’s deficit is small, around 50 to 55 units,” Kautz said. “One affordable housing project might make up the difference.”

The City Council approved Hinze’s motion 4-1, with Councilmember Bruce Ehlers opposed.

Ehlers felt the motion needed to be revised, noting that the meeting was intended as a study session and was not to include specific site selection. 

“The motion was made to investigate a parcel and turn it into 100% lower income, and what the item for the night was the workshop on no net loss,” Ehlers told The Coast News. “It was only tangentially related, if that, and at the beginning of the meeting, it was stated that we would not talk about selecting lots. So I thought it was premature and hadn’t been properly noticed.”

At the meeting, Ehlers also noted that he was a “comparative shopper” and wanted to see what other options were before jumping fully on board with L-7.

Kranz, who previously voted to remove the L-7 site roughly five years earlier, was inclined to vote against the motion but was later persuaded to vote in favor after Hinze included a direction for staff to analyze what it would take to upzone a site.