Senate Bill 4<\/a>, titled the Affordable Housing on Faith and Higher Education Lands Act, which passed in 2023.<\/p>\nIt gives faith-based institutions and nonprofit colleges \u201cby-right\u201d approval to develop their land with projects considered affordable for lower-income households. \u201cBy right\u201d means the projects can avoid many elements of municipal review.<\/p>\n
SB 4 therefore \u201cunlocks\u201d previously unavailable land for such housing, the study states.<\/p>\n
Using government data, researchers explored the amount and characteristics of SB 4-eligible land in San Diego County. Their findings include:<\/p>\n
\u2022 About 3,600 acres across 1,300 parcels are eligible for housing approval under SB 4.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Faith-based organizations own 96% of that SB 4-eligible land, with the remainder owned by nonprofit higher-education institutions.<\/p>\n
\u2022 39% of the eligible land is already zoned for residential or mixed uses.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Most eligible parcels are close to public transit and green space.<\/p>\n
The study says 791 SB 4-eligible acres are in the city of San Diego, with an average parcel size of 1.48 acres \u2014 making up nearly 25% of the eligible faith-based-owned acres in the county. The largest share, 37%, was in unincorporated areas.<\/p>\n
Developing housing on 10% of eligible land could create roughly 5,000 units, researchers say. Using 1% of eligible land could create 246 units, they say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe extent to which San Diego is able to take advantage of SB 4 will depend on local interest from faith-based organizations and their ability to source funding,\u201d according to the study.<\/p>\n
It also will depend on whether individual properties have enough space to accommodate housing.<\/p>\n
The Rev. Adam Stadtmiller, pastor at Sea Change Church in La Jolla, said the idea of building affordable housing on land owned by faith-based institutions is \u201cnuanced,\u201d including the issue of maintaining what some church leaders describe as \u201ccommunal sacred space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are called to be part of the solution to people experiencing homelessness,\u201d Stadtmiller said. \u201cThe balancing factor is, there\u2019s a limited amount of communal sacred space and it\u2019s diminishing. And that space is also important for a thriving community to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stadtmiller said Sea Change Church, at 627 Genter St., lacks space to accommodate affordable housing.<\/p>\n
![\"Sea](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ljl-l-genter-church_b3c2f5.jpg\")
Sea Change Church at 627 Genter St. in La Jolla lacks space to accommodate affordable housing, according to pastor Adam Stadtmiller. (Ashley Mackin-Solomon)<\/p>\n
\u201cSome churches are able to do it and it makes sense,\u201d Stadtmiller said. \u201cBut for others with limited sacred space, it doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
A larger institution that has expressed interest in developing affordable units on its land is United Church of Christ.<\/p>\n
The Rev. Tim Seery, pastor at Congregational Church of La Jolla \u2014 one of 130 United Church of Christ congregations in Southern California \u2014\u00a0said that although the La Jolla church at 1216 Cave St. lacks the space to accommodate housing, UCC at large has explored the concept and even adopted it at University Christian Church in Hillcrest.<\/p>\n
Several other congregations in UCC are \u201cactively looking at developing their campuses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think faith communities that have the land, space and ability have a moral imperative to consider the ways that their assets and properties might be used to serve the community through the development of affordable-housing units,\u201d Seery said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the wider church level, we are really sinking our teeth into affordable housing and even have provided churches with training about how to get these projects off the ground and have provided grant funding to others looking to do this as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant funding was the catalyst for an effort at Christ Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach.<\/p>\n
The Compass Station, a nonprofit on the church\u2019s campus, applied for a county grant in partnership with the church and was approved in 2024 to receive funding for six sleeping quarters as temporary housing for its workforce training program, according to the Rev. Kinndlee Lund, the church pastor.<\/p>\n
And Seery noted that Neighborhood Congregational Church in Laguna Beach also got an affordable-housing project off the ground. \u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recent study from UC San Diego says up to 5,000 affordable homes could be built in San…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,7720,3548,7354,19284,24152,3549,3550,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-58627","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-hillcrest","12":"tag-la-jolla","13":"tag-la-jolla-light","14":"tag-la-jolla-light-news","15":"tag-pacific-beach","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-san-diego-county","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114838269102991568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58627","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=58627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}