{"id":669920,"date":"2026-03-20T20:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/669920\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T20:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:34:14","slug":"san-diego-unified-plans-aim-to-avoid-trouble-in-major-housing-redevelopment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/669920\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego Unified plans aim to avoid trouble in major housing redevelopment"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Diego Unified leaders have watched as public agencies in the county struggled to get major redevelopment projects like Seaport Village<\/a> or Midway Rising<\/a> off the ground.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why they\u2019ve taken steps to insulate themselves from the same result as they proceed with an ambitious plan<\/a> to redevelop six properties across the district into close to 3,000 housing units.<\/p>\n

Surpassing the goal<\/p>\n

The district is prepared to far exceed its overall development goal for affordable workforce housing, a built-in contingency that gives it leeway to pivot if anything goes wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Diego Unified\u2019s board set a goal of housing 10% of its staff by 2030 in an effort to boost retention of its 13,559 employees amid the region\u2019s housing affordability crisis.<\/p>\n

But that goal of housing 10% of its staff only requires around 1,350 units over the next four years. Yet the district has over double that in the pipeline, with the board approving close to 3,000 units across six underutilized properties. The plan for its University Heights headquarters<\/a> alone would cover the 10% goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was critically important for us, that any employee that was struggling to afford housing, that we were going to build as much housing as we possibly can,\u201d said board member Shana Hazan on Voice of San Diego\u2019s podcast<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Approving more units than required also means something could go critically wrong at one site without imperiling the core goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Richard<\/a>Richard Barrera, San Diego Unified school board president, speaks to media on the first day of school in 2021. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Currently, none of the projects rely on district funds. Instead, private developers with a joint-use agreement lease the district\u2019s land, and finance construction through a combination of private loans, tax credit programs and tax-increment financing, depending on the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that really, probably the big question mark in all of the proposals that we have approved to move forward is, can the developers actually come through with the financing?\u201d board member Richard Barrera said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The district has $205 million in bond funds set aside for the effort to fill any gaps that arise, if for instance construction costs increase or a project misses out on an anticipated state grant. They could also reissue a request for proposals if financing collapses.<\/p>\n

Backup planning<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>A rendering from developer Mirka of its proposal for San Diego Unified\u2019s Commercial Street property with a housing tower and childcare center. (Image from the San Diego Unified School District meeting packet)<\/p>\n

That ability to pivot is most evident at\u00a02101 Commercial St., a former warehouse in Logan Heights. There, the board selected Mirka Investments to build 174 affordable units and a 6,000 square-foot childcare center. Staff initially recommended that Decro Corporation build 86 affordable units at the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While staff believe the Mirka proposal will work, board member Cody Petterson has concerns. Steel-reinforced concrete becomes more expensive at eight stories, he said, but the board also wanted to pursue the most units possible, rather than going with a modest, safe choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, the board\u2019s motion included a key caveat. Should Mirka have any funding issues, district staff would immediately begin negotiations with its competitor, Decro Corporation, instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That would save them from wasting time by reissuing a request for proposals or even the quicker route of contacting each of the other developers who initially bid on the site. A backup plan is in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Petterson also considers spreading the housing across six sites as its own contingency, so they aren\u2019t depending on one project to meet every possible need.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you see some of these big sites when you\u2019re trying to do gigantic stuff on the one thing, one project you\u2019re doing, it incentivizes you to try to do things that require additional permitting,\u201d Petterson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In contrast, the district housing proposals all fall within the general and community plans of the six sites, which should free them from extensive environmental review or city council approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to go through the city planning process,\u201d said Barrera. \u201cThat not only speeds the development, but it also, frankly, makes our projects less vulnerable to people who want to come out and say, \u2018We don\u2019t want affordable housing in our community.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Diversifying developers<\/p>\n

\"School<\/a>School board members with a rendering of workforce housing at a press conference in March. (Photo courtesy of the San Diego Unified School District)<\/p>\n

The six sites also have six different developers. That wasn\u2019t planned, but Petterson and Barrera think that diversification is another strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it were our staff out there doing this on our own, I would be probably terrified of pulling it off,\u201d Petterson said. \u201cThe great thing about not supplanting the private sector and actually using their wisdom and experience and their ability to take risks and understand what their appetite for risk is, the advantage is you can watch from afar, oversee it, but that day to day, navigating the challenges \u2013 I think they\u2019ll figure it out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While he takes comfort from the developers\u2019 experience, Petterson also said on the dais the school board should hold them to account for fulfilling their promises. He urged his fellow board members to be willing to start from scratch if a final proposal differs from the original vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always an incentive to promise the moon, get the project and then alter it, on the presumption that no agency wants to go through the painful process of reissuing a request for proposal,\u201d he said in an interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Petterson and Barrera both expressed confidence they would meet or exceed the district\u2019s housing goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHad we put \u2026 all our eggs into one basket or done these one at a time, if some financing mechanism didn\u2019t work out, or some design didn\u2019t work out or something fell through, we would have another two- or three-year delay,\u201d Petterson said. \u201cSo as it is now, we\u2019re very confident that all, or most, of these projects will end up getting built.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Unified leaders have watched as public agencies in the county struggled to get major redevelopment projects…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":669921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[852,5229,1582,276,3549,37947,7264,282819,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,138438],"class_list":["post-669920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-affordable-housing","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-unified-school-district","tag-sandiego","tag-teacher-housing","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-workforce-housing"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116263417843861448","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669920","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=669920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}