What\u2019s the Solution?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Encinitas_0009-1024x683.jpg\")
Fox Point Farms, a new housing development with condos and townhomes off Quail Gardens Drive, on Jan. 29, 2025, in Encinitas. \/ Ariana Drehsler for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n
Many housing experts agree that the solution to high housing costs is to build more housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why state lawmakers have put strict rules in place that encourage cities to make way for more housing for all income levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMore density,\u201d said Erik Bruvold from the SDNEDC. \u201cCondos, apartments, attached homes \u2013 that kind of housing development is the way to meet the needs of middle-income North County residents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The issue, Bruvold told Voice, is that there are too many restrictions in place for building, which can drive up already expensive labor and supply costs. He thinks jurisdictions need to ease up on things like parking minimums, elevator requirements and setbacks to make it cheaper and faster to build more housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added that some cities in North County, like Oceanside, San Marcos and Vista are on a positive track when it comes to producing more housing. But there needs to be more building in the next 20 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone needs to do their role,\u201d he said. The challenge is in the next 20 years, jobs will continue to grow, and we need housing to complement that growth. Right now, we\u2019re putting the burden on working-class people to be exiled to long commutes or to have roommates well into adulthood.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The result, he added, will be twofold: people delaying having children \u2014 which will lead to decreased school enrollment \u2014 and people spending less at small businesses and restaurants, causing a broader economic impact.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the impacts of not getting our hands around how to produce enough housing so that the majority of the working people spend no more than 30 percent of their income on their rent,\u201d Bruvold said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Joyce agreed that cities aren\u2019t meeting the demand for housing, but he called for more affordable housing options rather than the types of housing currently being built.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t just build our way out of this,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we build all high-rise, expensive housing, that\u2019s not going to solve the issue. If we\u2019re going to have a chance of building housing at a lower cost, it needs to be done without the mindset of maximizing profit. That doesn\u2019t mean all housing should be that way, but there needs to be room for all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the next 20 years, he wants cities to use tools like public housing, which is housing that the government owns and runs through local housing authorities. He\u2019s also in favor of policies like higher inclusionary housing requirements and rent control to keep families from getting priced out of their homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Oceanside City Council will soon consider its own rent stabilization ordinance that would mostly impact apartment complexes built before 1995. If passed, it would be the first of its kind in San Diego County.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf all local governments do not act, we will be losing the working-class members of our communities who carry the history and so much of the deep roots of our culture through economic displacement,\u201d Joyce said. \u201cNorth County will lose its living memory of its history.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every weekday morning, an Oceanside family drives nearly an hour from their new home in Fallbrook to Oceanside…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":158114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-158115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-sandiego","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Donated](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/untitled-02742-1024x683.jpg\")
Donated clothes at The Brother Benno Foundation in Oceanside on Sept. 20, 2023. \/ Photo by Ariana Drehsler <\/p>\n