{"id":539732,"date":"2026-01-24T15:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T15:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/539732\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T15:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T15:30:09","slug":"letters-to-the-editor-yes-san-diego-is-building-more-apartments-but-are-they-affordable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/539732\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the Editor: Yes, San Diego is building more apartments. But are they affordable?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>  Jan. 24, 2026 7 AM PT  <\/p>\n<p><b>To the editor<\/b>: San Diego has indeed laid out the welcome mat for apartment builders and their investors (<a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2026-01-20\/san-diego-leads-california-cities-in-apartment-construction\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cSan Diego shows what happens when a city actually lets builders build,\u201d<\/a> Jan. 20). But my city\u2019s laissez-faire approach to development has failed to supply truly affordable housing while virtually ignoring the obvious need for additional parks, schools, fire and police stations and parking for car-dependent, working-class families.<\/p>\n<p>Some of these new rental projects offer small studios for $2,500 per month and one-bedrooms for $3,000. Parking, when available, can cost $300 a month more. The so-called affordable units required by the city in some of those high-density buildings still cost <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/rentals.sdhc.org\/searchlisting.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">more than $2,000 per month<\/a>, well beyond the reach of our low- and very low-income residents.<\/p>\n<p>Our mayor and his building-industry allies now claim their fast-track approval processes \u2014 which disregard neighborhood concerns about the negative impacts of these high-density\/high-rise projects \u2014 are pushing down rental rates. But according to data from <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rentcafe.com\/average-rent-market-trends\/us\/ca\/san-diego\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RentCafe.com<\/a>, the recent 1.85% drop in monthly rental rates equates to just $55 per month in savings and a still expensive $2,938 average monthly rent.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, bike lanes and on-street parking restrictions have led to reduced parking spots. Builders are finding it much harder to rent units with no off-street parking. <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.cushmanwakefield.com\/-\/media\/cw\/marketbeat-pdfs\/2025\/q4\/us-reports\/office\/sandiego_americas_marketbeat_office_q42025.pdf?rev=7bb3b386f02f4597b8b9831698b7d36d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vacancy rates<\/a> are steady or increasing, which will tamp down new construction, causing rental rates to resume their upward climb.<\/p>\n<p>Our city does not have a rental housing \u201ccrisis.\u201d But we do have a severe shortage of truly affordable housing. Our elected officials\u2019 love affair with construction industry execs who fund their political campaigns proves that the private sector and free-market strategies will not solve that problem.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Krueger, San Diego<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 24, 2026 7 AM PT To the editor: San Diego has indeed laid out the welcome mat&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":539733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[238326,852,54660,5229,238323,1582,276,2451,7129,5025,238327,19945,9105,238325,20034,165792,238324,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-539732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-additional-park","9":"tag-affordable-housing","10":"tag-affordable-unit","11":"tag-america","12":"tag-apartment-builder","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-california","15":"tag-city","16":"tag-editor","17":"tag-fire","18":"tag-laissez-faire-approach","19":"tag-letter","20":"tag-month","21":"tag-more-apartment","22":"tag-parking","23":"tag-police-station","24":"tag-rental-rate","25":"tag-san-diego","26":"tag-sandiego","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-united-states-of-america","29":"tag-unitedstates","30":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115950795002348805","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539732","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=539732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}