This commentary was submitted by Madaffer and nine other former chairs of the San Diego County Water Authority Board of Directors.

Joni Mitchell may have said it best: “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”

In the case of water, those lyrics couldn’t be more true.

As former San Diego County Water Authority Board Chairs, we heard and responded to demands from the region’s working families, civic and business leaders in the 1990s when our only major water source dried up.

Collectively, with our member agencies, we then spent three decades relentlessly securing new water supplies and investing in multi-billion-dollar upgrades that will last for generations.  We remained steadfast in making the necessary and difficult decisions to support the entire San Diego region.

Addressing the San Diego region’s water cost challenges requires honest, fact-based conversations and meaningful actions. Unfortunately, some recent public comments fall far short of this standard.

We all want safe and reliable water at the lowest possible cost. The water we enjoy in San Diego County comes at a higher cost – but having no water at all or having no regional decision-making body looking out for San Diegans is even more costly. That approach would truly be turning the clock back decades and jeopardizing our economy and quality of life.

San Diego gets less annual rain than Tucson, Arizona. Yet, today, our region enjoys independent, locally controlled, safe and reliable water supplies despite having few natural water supplies. That means it’s easy to forget what a drought is like because over the past two decades, our economy, businesses, families and way of life have been uninterrupted by water shortages.

Because of investments, the Water Authority has executed this strategy with the lowest possible cost in mind. But  in recent years, we have seen to slower than expected population growth in San Diego. That plus a successful water conservation program added to our financial pressures.

We may have abundance now, but we must never lose sight of potential water shortages which will continue to cycle through our region, exacerbated by a changing climate. 

For more than 80 years, the San Diego region has worked through their differences at the Water Authority to make sure high-quality water always comes out of our faucets even during California’s famously severe droughts.

Today, we must come together again without sacrificing San Diego County’s water security or hurting hardworking residents and businesses. We all deserve the truth about water rates and how the Water Authority delivers water to all of us. In the spirit of restarting the dialogue, we want to address some fact-based responses to a few of the recent false or misleading statements.

Claim 1: “It is no longer acceptable for the residents and businesses of the City to carry the burden of ever-increasing water costs imposed by the (the Water Authority),”from San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera’s letter to the general manager of the Water Authority April 22.

FACT: This is not true. The Water Authority charges the city of San Diego, its largest customer, the same as everyone else.  Today, we are all paying for exactly what the city and other regional leaders demanded decades ago: to never again experience the crippling impacts of drought.

Claim 2: “The Water Authority has ignored calls for more realistic (water sales) projections, streamlined operations, and smarter debt management,” from the Elo-Rivera letter.

FACT: This also is not true. Water sales projections are provided directly to the Water Authority by the city of San Diego and other member agencies. The largest variations in sales are typically the result of a disconnect between what the city of San Diego predicts and what actually happens – variations that have a disruptive effect on every other agency in the region because they impact collective regional water rate calculations. As for debt management and streamlining, an array of prudent financial strategies at the Water Authority have produced $500 million in rate savings in recent years. 

Claim 3: “(E)very structural and institutional option must be on the table,” from the Elo-Rivera letter.

FACT: This echoes a small number of insiders and appears to be a call to dissolve an agency that has served the entire San Diego region successfully for more than 80 years. Dissolution of the Water Authority would simply shift the costs from the Water Authority to local agencies like the city of San Diego, which is already facing its own fiscal challenges. Dismantling the Water Authority would harm and disenfranchise all San Diegans and create enormous operational and financial risks that would only drive rates higher for the region’s 3.3 million residents who are in need of the water the Water Authority provides.

Claim 4: “For too long, the SDCWA has operated at arm’s length from the public, from the City’s customers…,” from the Elo-Rivera letter.

FACT: Again, we respectfully disagree. The strategy that has delivered water security to the region over the past 30 years was a direct response to the region’s residents, civic and business leaders demanding that the Water Authority provide greater water resilience to protect our economy and quality of life. At every step, the city of San Diego has been leading or supporting the investments which has more than 40 percent of the vote on the Water Authority Board of Directors. In any case, the Water Authority remains committed to operating in the most transparent manner to ensure the public has the most up-to-date information on our region’s water supplies, cost of service and rates.

Claim 5: “The increased operating cost is a result of the increasing costs to purchase water from SDCWA…,” wrote Matt Vespi, the city’s chief financial officer, in a letter to the Water Authority April 18.

FACT: This is partially true but omits important facts. Water Authority rates have been rising along with everything else over the past decade due to a variety of factors outside of the control of the Water Authority. That said, the agency has worked to reduce rates in a variety of ways from creating a rate stabilization fund, managing and offloading supplies, resolving litigation and reducing operational expenses. As the city of San Diego completes Phase 1 of a recycled water plant, it too will experience increased operating costs.  

Although the city’s Public Utility Department has not yet disclosed the anticipated financial impact to its ratepayers this year, it’s likely well above the cost of Water Authority supplies. If so, one would assume city residents will see increases in their water and wastewater bills. The bottom line is water security unfortunately comes at a higher cost than any of us would like, which is why it is imperative for the region to continue to work collaboratively. 

Claim 6: “If we have water that is not being used by our member agencies, then we should sell it and use that revenue to ease the burden for working San Diegans ,” from the Elo-Rivera letter.

FACT: This is true in part but avoids the reality that our region may very well need more water in the future so our planning must also encompass that possibility. The Water Authority has been leading efforts for the past two years to monetize its water supplies and share the benefits of its hard work with other water suppliers throughout the Southwest on a temporary or permanent basis to protect our future. This work is complex due to a long history of legal cases, state laws and century old federal regulations. It doesn’t happen overnight — even though we all wish it did – but it remains the highest priority of the Water Authority.

Looking forward, the Water Authority will remain focused on addressing rate stability, providing drought-proof water supplies, as well as leading the region and the industry in innovative ways to move water where it is needed for the benefit of all San Diego County ratepayers. Reassigning the responsibility for maintaining critical regional water infrastructure to multiple self-interested parties would be a true disservice to all San Diegans.

Our goal has been and continues to be safe and reliable water at the lowest cost. Dissolving the regional water agency would do nothing to achieve this. Instead, it would set us back decades and put our future at risk.

Voice of San Diego confirmed this letter was signed by the following former chairs of the San Diego County Water Authority:

• Mike Madigan – 1990-1992
• Mark Watton – 1995-1996
• Chris Frahm – 1997-1998
• Bernie Rhinerson – 2003-2004
• Michael Hogan – 2010-2012
• Mark Weston – 2014-2016
• Mark Muir – 2016-2018
• Jim Madaffer – 2018-2020
• Gary Croucher – 2020-2022
• Mel Katz – 2022-2024

The post The Truth About the Cost of Water: Dismantling the Water Authority Would Harm All San Diegans appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

John Franklin is the mayor of the city of Vista and Chairman of California Families.

San Diego County is already grappling with sky-high home prices, soaring rents, and a severe housing shortage. Instead of providing relief, County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer proposed hiking taxes by $1 billion in her “State of the County” address by increasing the “transfer tax,” a tax on the transfer of documents when a property is sold. The transfer tax is effectively a sales tax on real estate.

Lawson-Remer’s transfer tax hike will worsen the affordability crisis, raise rents, discourage home sales, drive away investment and make the dream of home ownership even less attainable for San Diegans. It will severely damage the real estate sector, which accounts for 17 percent of California’s economy. Critical jobs – including contractors, real estate and escrow agents, mortgage lenders, and appraisers – will be lost as a direct result of Lawson-Remer’s tax hike.

The supervisor is pitching the tax increase as a way to generate new revenue for public services, but the reality is far different. Similar policies in other municipalities have stifled real estate activity, reduced available housing, and failed to deliver promised benefits. If San Diego County follows this path, it will worsen affordability while collecting less revenue than supporters expect.

Some claim this tax only affects wealthy property owners, but the consequences will ripple through the entire housing market. Higher transaction costs will deter homeowners from selling, limiting supply and driving up prices. First-time buyers will face greater hurdles, long-time residents looking to downsize will be stuck, and middle-class families will have even fewer affordable options.

And it’s not just homeowners who will suffer. This tax will also hit commercial properties —apartment complexes, office buildings, and retail centers — discouraging investment and new development. That means fewer housing units, fewer jobs, and higher rents as landlords pass the cost onto tenants. At a time when families are already struggling with inflation and high interest rates, this tax would make San Diego County an even more expensive place to live.

We do not need to guess what will happen if the transfer tax is increased. We can simply look north to Los Angeles.

In 2022, LA voters passed Measure ULA, or the “mansion tax,” imposing as much as a 4 to 5.5 percent tax on property sales. The measure was supposed to generate $900 million annually for affordable housing and homelessness initiatives. Instead, home sales plummeted, revenues fell dramatically short of expectations, and investment dried up. Wealthy property owners found legal loopholes to avoid the tax, while developers and businesses took their money elsewhere.

The result? A weaker real estate market, fewer tax dollars, and worsening affordability. San Diego risks repeating the same mistakes.

No one disputes the need for more affordable housing, but raising taxes on home sales is the wrong approach. If San Diego County truly wants to address housing affordability, it should focus on solutions that increase supply and reduce costs: cutting bureaucratic red tape, reform outdated zoning laws, streamline permitting and approval processes and ensure existing tax dollars are spent efficiently before imposing new burdens on homeowners and businesses.

Housing affordability won’t be solved by making it more expensive to buy, sell, or build homes. Instead of punishing property owners with new taxes, San Diego should focus on policies that expand opportunity and lower costs for everyone.

San Diego County voters should not be fooled by promises that this tax will solve the housing crisis. As Los Angeles has already proven, transfer taxes shrink the housing market, slow economic growth, and fail to deliver the expected revenue.

The Board of Supervisors must reject Lawson-Remer’s harmful proposal to put this tax increase on the ballot and instead prioritize real solutions that promote homeownership, economic stability, and a thriving future for San Diego County. If our current Supervisors fail to stop the tax, then San Diegans must reject this tax hike at the ballot box and continue to fight back, just like El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells and I did, before this damaging tax becomes reality.

The post Terra Lawson-Remer’s Property Transfer Tax Hike Will Worsen the Housing Crisis appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Rosario Nozagaray is the Marine Debris manager of WILDCOAST, an international organization that conserves coastal and marine ecosystems and addresses climate change through natural solutions. Fay Crevoshay is the senior director of communications and policy of WILDCOAST. Serge Dedina is the executive director of WILDCOAST and the former Mayor of Imperial Beach.

Tijuana’s Los Laureles Canyon, on the highway to Playas de Tijuana, is the kind of place where stereotypes about impoverished colonias on the U.S.-Mexico border ring true. More than 50,000 people live crammed into a narrow canyon in everything from concrete houses to plywood shacks buttressed by old tires to stop mudslides. Illegal pig and dairy farms operate clandestinely in offshoots of the canyon. Even for us, with decades working in Tijuana’s most remote and dangerous neighborhoods, there are certain parts of Los Laureles that due to security concerns, are off limits. 

Sewage, trash, waste tires (many that originate from California) and toxic waste flow down the concrete storm drain in the middle of Los Laureles into Border Field State Park on the U.S. side of the border. Over the years pollution from Los Laureles has been a major cause of pollution-related beach closures from Imperial Beach to Coronado. Uncollected refuse in the Tijuana River Valley is also a vector for disease, rats, and gases that contribute to climate change. 

All of these challenges make it imperative to clean up Los Laureles, a major sending area of pollution into the Tijuana Estuary and border beaches. Pollution in the Tijuana River Valley on both sides of the border and especially in Los Laureles is persistent and has worsened over the years. Wastewater, toxic waste and garbage continue to flow unchecked through streams and canals, affecting both human health and local ecosystems, parks, and wildlife. 

This runoff, as documented by researchers at San Diego State University and UC San Diego, have become infection hotspots and potential sources of illnesses, such as respiratory problems, gastrointestinal conditions, and skin infections, among other public health impacts. Border Patrol agents and U.S. Navy SEALs, frontline U.S. national and border security personnel, are especially at risk from Tijuana River Valley pollution. 

That is why in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, WILDCOAST, thanks to the generous support of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at UC Santa Barbara, built a trash detention boom in the middle of Los Laureles. Our effort was part of a global movement, the Clean Currents Coalition, to leverage funds and entrepreneurship to find solutions around the world to the plastic waste crisis enveloping the world’s oceans 

We launched our project due to our dismay about how long it has taken federal agencies in both Mexico and the U.S. to solve the cross border pollution crisis. Government agencies have to change the way they do business when it comes to solving this toxic crisis so that the priority is on building solutions that completely stop pollution rather than holding meetings and sanctioning never-ending studies. 

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) planning process in the U.S. to develop a comprehensive solution to the sewage crisis has taken years and nothing has been built so far. In Mexico, cost effective solutions, especially water-reuse, have been discarded in favor of traditional sewage treatment plants like the Mexican military’s rehabilitation of the San Antonio de los Buenos plant that will be under capacity the minute it goes on line (forecast for later this year). 

In contrast, over the past five years, our mostly privately financed trash booms (we received one grant from NOAA), were  built with minimal government bureaucracy at a fraction of the cost of what California spent to build one on the U.S. side of the border ($200,000 vs. $4.7 million) and  captured hundreds of thousands of pounds of trash that would have ended in the Tijuana River and in our oceans. In Tijuana, through community clean-up events, we invite residents to help clear garbage from streams and canals and learn about the importance of reusing and recycling materials. Working as a team with over 154 people at 60 plastic recovery points throughout Tijuana has made it possible for more individuals to realize that their efforts can make a difference. 

We even built a children’s park out of material we collected from the canyon, cleaned up, and re-purposed for a playground. More recently in Cañón del Pato, a tributary of Smuggler’s Gulch in the United States, we built another trash boom out of confiscated fishing nets once used to illegally harvest endangered totoaba in the Gulf of California. Our entrepreneurial project illustrates that you can make a difference with a lot of sweat equity and minimal bureaucracy in what is arguably the toughest place to work on the U.S.-Mexico border. 

The pollution crisis in Tijuana is worse than ever. That is why we need strong leadership and committed involvement from officials in Mexico and the U.S. to quickly and cost-effectively implement solutions. Our struggling communities and the beautiful beaches we have been deprived of, deserve better.

The post The Government Must Act Now to Address Tijuana River Pollution appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

20 Years of Voice: For our 20th anniversary, we asked community members, local leaders and thinkers to share their vision for the next 20 years of the San Diego region, and what we can do today to make that vision a reality. You can read all of our anniversary content here.

Saad Asad is the Advocacy and Communications Lead for the YIMBY Dems of San Diego.

In San Diego, housing nightmares unfold daily. 

A 12-year-old boy sleeps in a sleeping bag atop his father’s SUV each night in a church parking lot. They are one of many families living in vehicles as affordable housing becomes scarce. 

Border commuters rise at 3 a.m., spending five hours a day crossing from Tijuana to keep jobs they can’t afford to live near. 

Meanwhile, federal and state housing support for San Diego dropped 13 percent last year despite growing needs. With less help from Washington and Sacramento, the region must find its own solutions.

Why San Diego Faces Housing Affordability Challenges

Our housing challenges stem from two critical factors: severe underbuilding and decreasing government support. The region failed to keep up with population growth for many years, creating a severe housing shortage. That shortage leads to competition, driving up prices. Housing costs have surged 84 percent since 2020, while paychecks grew only 22 percent. Despite this shortage, cities in San Diego County consistently build fewer than the 21,000 new homes needed each year.

Federal housing assistance has decreased significantly since the 1990s, serving just one-in-four eligible households nationwide. Local housing agencies haven’t issued new rental assistance vouchers since August 2022, leaving nearly 58,000 families on waitlists. Rising rents have further diminished the effectiveness of existing vouchers.

Federal funding may decrease even further under the Trump administration, but California’s investments in affordable housing also plummeted. Between 2013 and 2018, funding fell from $1.3 billion annually to less than $500 million before finally ramping back up in 2019. 

Three Practical Solutions to San Diego’s Housing Affordability Crisis

With two-in-five families spending over a third of their income on housing, we simply cannot wait for another president or governor to fix this. San Diego must build its housing safety net through three practical strategies that address immediate needs while creating long-term solutions:

1. Expand Rental Assistance Programs

First, our region’s cities must increase rental assistance to prevent families from losing homes. The City of San Diego’s existing homelessness prevention program of $250- to $750 monthly payments helped families stay housed during tough times. This “shallow subsidy” approach helps more people than traditional programs by targeting those needing a little boost. 

While this doesn’t fix the real problem, it’s like treating the bleeding while working on the cure. Keeping a family housed with rental assistance costs less than $6,000 yearly versus the nearly $14,000 annually for supportive housing. And this is far cheaper than the annual cost of a chronically homeless person cycling out of shelters, hospitals and jails. 

2. Reform Restrictive Zoning and Permitting Processes

Current zoning rules ban smaller, affordable homes in over 80 percent of residential neighborhoods, contributing to San Diego’s nearly $1 million median home price. Evidence shows that reform works: after San Diego made it easier to build accessory dwelling units, permit applications skyrocketed from 266 in 2018 to 1,909 in 2024. Building on this success, we should allow more affordable housing types like duplexes, townhomes and small apartment buildings in all neighborhoods. 

We must also streamline the permit process that adds months or years of delays to housing projects. Duplicative requirements, outdated systems and understaffing can create costly delays that inflate housing costs

By allowing more housing types and speeding up permits, we create dual benefits: increased affordability for everyone and the ability for nonprofit homebuilders to build affordable housing in neighborhoods with good schools and jobs. Lowering these costs is especially critical; considering the cost can rise to $911,000 per home.

3. Launch a Self-Sustaining Social Housing Fund

Lastly, San Diego should establish a social housing fund modeled after Montgomery County, Maryland’s successful program. Their Housing Production Fund, launched in 2021 with $50 million, accelerates affordable housing development using loans for mixed-income projects where at least 30 percent of units remain affordable to low-income residents.

This innovative model costs the county just $600,000 annually while creating hundreds of affordable homes. Market-rate homes help cover costs, making the program self-sustaining without complex tax credits or undependable housing voucher funding. Loans are repaid within five years and reinvested, making the program self-sustaining without complex tax credits or undependable voucher funding. Following this success, Montgomery County doubled its investment, with 4,000 new homes in development.

Building a Future for All San Diegans

These three strategies work together as a system, creating a San Diego where teachers live near schools, nurses near hospitals and young families can afford homes in their neighborhoods. 

While these approaches aren’t a complete solution — San Diego still needs tenant protections, increased for-sale inventory and dedicated local affordable housing funding — they represent achievable solutions. The region’s housing affordability crisis came from policy choices, and different choices can create a different future. 

The post Opinion: The Housing Safety Net Is At Risk. Here’s How San Diego Can Build Its Own. appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

20 Years of Voice: For our 20th anniversary, we asked community members, local leaders and thinkers to share their vision for the next 20 years of the San Diego region, and what we can do today to make that vision a reality. You can read all of our anniversary content here.

Paul Downey is the president and CEO of Serving Seniors in San Diego.

We all aspire to be old. Older adults are doing their part here in San Diego. The dramatic increases in the senior population will impact every facet of our community for decades. 

For the first time in American history, adults aged 65 and older will outnumber minors under age 18 by 2034, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. In San Diego County, the California Department of Finance Demographics projects more than 910,000 people will be ages 60 and older by the year 2030 – a 130 percent increase from 2000. One in five people will be over 55 by 2050, compared to just one in 10 in 2000. 

Overall, San Diego County lacks enough age-friendly resources including healthcare, public transportation and, most of all, affordable housing. The lack of housing affordability is the single most urgent, overarching issue for our seniors. 

As a community, we have not done nearly enough to address these issues today, let alone plan for the seismic population increases ahead. 

The Elder Index, developed by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, demonstrates how quickly older adults are falling behind in their ability to afford their basic needs including housing, healthcare, food, transportation and other essentials. Two in five San Diego seniors cannot meet these needs. Statewide, the number is almost half.

It should be no surprise then to learn that 30 percent of San Diego’s unsheltered population are ages 55 and older – a number that is increasing annually per the Point In Time Count. This is the population we work with at Serving Seniors, San Diego’s largest nonprofit organization devoted to providing critical safety net services for low-income and older adults experiencing homelessness. 

Nonprofits like Serving Seniors can advocate and help lead the way toward thoughtful, data-driven solutions using the most cost-effective methods possible. But we simply do not have the financial resources to do it alone. It will take a significant investment of both private and public funds to tackle this problem. 

Serving Seniors’ new affordable senior housing complex in Clairemont, the Paul Downey Senior Residence, offers a real-life blueprint for the solutions and challenges that lie ahead. 

It took seven years to build the project. This was not due to zoning challenges or permitting. In fact, the City of San Diego issued necessary permits for the project in just 25 days. It was the complex funding process required by the State of California that caused the delays. 

Serving Seniors and partners had to secure five different government funding sources to cover the $43 million cost of the project. Each funding source added approximately $15,000 per unit in cost. Imagine how many more units could be built in California if the financing process was streamlined and focused on getting projects built quickly.  

The solution is straightforward: the State of California should create a single pool of federal, state and local funding with a single application process, like the funding model utilized here in San Diego by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness. This would expedite construction, save money and reduce development time by two-to-three years.

Serving Seniors is currently advocating at the state level to help drive the policymaking discussion to make this happen. In the meantime, we can’t wait. We must adopt an “all-of-the-above” strategy.

First, many older adults can work and want employment. But they cannot get hired due to ageism, lack of training for current workplace needs and rigid thinking by employers. Many older adults could avoid poverty with a part-time job earning $500 to $1,000 monthly to augment the national average Social Security check of $1,800 per month. 

For those unable to work, shallow rental subsidy programs can make the difference between somebody being housed or unhoused. The Serving Seniors Needs Assessment and subsequent studies such as the UC San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative 2024 study on senior homelessness finds that cash stipends of $300 to $500 per month would prevent two-thirds of older adults from falling into homelessness. 

While there is pushback on the idea of “giving away money,” the average cost in California of providing shelter and other basic services to an unsheltered individual is nearly $42,000. Would you rather spend $42,000 a year on a temporary solution or $6,000 for a preventative subsidy? 

Those are just a few ways we can better support our growing senior population amid the affordability crisis. Other important options included shared housing offerings, family reunifications and an investment in job training programs.

After working in aging for 30 years, my view is that there must be more urgency to find practical, affordable solutions. Failing to care for our most vulnerable seniors is not morally, ethically or financially the right thing to do. Yes, it will be expensive. But the cost of doing nothing is greater, and the human cost will be unimaginable.

The post Opinion: San Diego’s Senior Population Is Growing Rapidly. How Do We Plan to House Them? appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Colin Parent is the CEO and general counsel of Circulate San Diego, and is a former councilmember for the city of La Mesa.

20 Years of Voice: For our 20th anniversary, we asked community members, local leaders and thinkers to share their vision for the next 20 years of the San Diego region, and what we can do today to make that vision a reality. You can read all of our anniversary content here.

Transit agencies in San Diego are facing a crossroads. Ridership levels are clawing their way back, but revenues have not kept up with rising costs. 

Transit agencies have the tools to improve fare revenues, which can delay or reduce future fare increases. They also need to listen to transit riders themselves, who overwhelmingly prioritize frequent service over cheaper fares. If San Diego’s leaders want a transit system that succeeds into the future, they must make the investments today to preserve and grow our transit network. 

Averting the transit ‘death spiral’

Many transit agencies are facing fiscal challenges, with ridership still recovering after 2020. San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) has recovered ridership faster than most of its peers, but it still faces structural deficits. The agency is considering a variety of choices, from service cuts to fare increases. 

Over the next 20 years, voters are likely to raise taxes to support more transportation investment, including for transit. That may help keep fares lower in the future, but we should not let our system deteriorate in the meantime. 

Raising fares should be avoided for as long as possible, especially for low-income riders. Still, in the long run, fares will increase. Costs for transit agencies have risen in recent years, just as they have for everyone else. Frankly, it is a miracle that fares have stayed so steady for so long. 

When asked whether to prioritize service frequency or lower fares, surveys of MTS riders prioritize service frequency. National surveys of transit riders say the same. Reducing service is also a shortsighted way to save money. Less frequent transit attracts fewer riders, leading to a “death spiral,” with reduced revenues leading to more reduced services. Positioning transit for the future requires a virtuous cycle of investing in higher service, and attracting more riders and revenue. 

Transit’s technological future

Increasing fares and ridership are not the only way to increase fare revenue. MTS and the North County Transit District recently procured a fare payment system that was about $16 million cheaper than the alternative system under consideration. Unfortunately, the cheaper fare collection system has trouble collecting fares. MTS estimates it loses millions in revenue annually. Updating the system, or holding its vendor accountable, will improve long-term revenues.

Similarly, fare evasion has risen steeply since 2022. The MTS board has struggled to find policies it can support to get all riders to pay their fair share. This is a core challenge for MTS to succeed. There is nothing equitable in allowing some scofflaws to ride for free, while forcing the similarly low-income riders who follow the rules to face higher fares, worse service, or both. 

Technology is at the cusp of revolutionizing transportation. Self-driving buses or trolleys may be transformational, allowing agencies to run more frequent service at reduced costs. Still, eliminating the need for a driver will not replace the valuable services transit operators perform, like checking fare payments, helping those with mobility challenges, and performing all manner of customer support. 

In an autonomous future, transit staffing levels may well stay the same. Transit operators could be tasked with roaming between a larger fleet of vehicles, to check fares and to deal with the circumstances that only a real human being can usefully address. 

Better transit infrastructure benefits everybody

Transit is a hot topic lately, especially because it is a key part of state and local commitments around climate change. 

Electric vehicle owners may imagine they do not contribute to climate change, but in San Diego, about half of consumer electricity is generated from burning fossil fuels. In 20 years, hopefully electric vehicles will be exclusively powered by renewable sources, but we are not there today.

Yet it is important to remember that the purpose of public transit has never been primarily about climate change. The core point of transit is to help move people around where they want to go.  Transportation choices are essential to almost every human endeavor, from our economic success, to our family and social lives.

The income of most transit riders is substantially below average. Transit is a lifeline for those who cannot afford a car. Still, even the most committed motorist should care about the future of transit. The physical space it takes to move dozens of people on a bus is dramatically less than the same number of people driving individual cars. Replacing transit riders with motorists would dramatically increase traffic, not to mention emissions. 

Our region is growing, and anyone caught in traffic understands the limits of our car infrastructure. Helping more people get around within limited space is exactly where transit has an advantage over automobiles. Autonomous cars will not change this geometry problem, but exacerbate the competition for space on our roads. Growing our transit network is necessary for the growth of our economy. 

Transit is essential to our region, but it requires careful stewardship for it to succeed. If we listen to riders, and make the right investments, everyone in San Diego can benefit from public transit.

The post Opinion: Public Transit in San Diego Is at a Crossroads. Its Future Hinges on Investments, Not Cuts. appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Ricardo Flores is the executive director of Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) San Diego.

Anti-status quo  fervor swept the recent elections up and down the ballot in San Diego and across the country as shown by San Diego County voters who “did not turn out for the Democratic ticket in near the numbers they did before.” Voters expressed dissatisfaction with incumbents whom they feel have failed to address critical issues let alone provide policies to make their lives easier. First among those issues is the cost of living or, more specifically, the high costs of housing, including soaring rent prices and high interest rates.

Voters also expressed frustration with the lack of progress on homelessness and basic maintenance of streets, sidewalks, parks, and other city infrastructure.

Frustration with incumbents and their performance manifested locally when San Diego voters rejected Measure E – a full cent increase in the city’s sales tax that would have generated an estimated $400 million a year to address everything from fixing potholes to retaining and hiring more police officers.

The city of San Diego is now facing more than a billion dollars in deficits over the next five years, which will require “some important conversations about what we prioritize, who we prioritize, and what that means for the city as a whole” said previous San Diego Council President and now Councilmember Elo-Rivera.

San Diego is not only the government agency facing crushing deficits. San Diego Unified School District – the largest school district in the county is facing a $176 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 school year, and a projected $230 million deficit for the following year.

As Scott Lewis, the CEO and editor-in-chief of Voice of San Diego, explained in a recent VOSD Podcast episode, San Diego voters are “frustrated” and ready to “revolt.”

So, what can San Diego’s elected officials do to address voter frustrations and head off another anti-incumbency election?

The solution is simple: lower housing costs. To do so, the mayor and City Council members simply should allow San Diego residents to buy less land – 1,000 square feet to be exact – to build a three story 3-bedroom townhome with a garage. Currently, you must buy 5,000 square feet of land to live in the 81 percent of the city zoned single-family.

A new and growing coalition of local leaders, Homeownership Opportunities for SD (HOSD), has come together to advocate for this policy change in San Diego. The purpose of our initiative is simple: If you can build a home on a smaller lot, it will be cheaper. And San Diego needs more homes. A lot of them.

Initial estimates suggest that allowing for this simple change in zoning will lower the cost of a new home by approximately 40 percent. Creating more home buyers will increase the city’s largest revenue source – property taxes.

Increasing property tax revenues can be bonded against to obtain billions of dollars that can be invested into neighborhoods, for: new sidewalks, new streets, new streetlights, new pocket parks, new libraries, and more. This is the same approach city leaders used to build and expand the Convention Center.

More property tax revenue also means more revenue would flow to San Diego Unified to help it close its systemic budget deficits.

And where will these new townhomes be built? The city should reform single family zoning in every neighborhood but especially in neighborhoods that the state classifies as Highest and High Resourced. These are communities with: higher employment rates, higher home values, more bachelor’s degree holders, higher public-school ratings, lower poverty, and less environmental burdens. Allowing working class families access to these upper class neighborhoods with median home prices of one million dollars will, according to researchers, increase the health, wealth and life expectancy of working class children.

But the benefits of single-family zoning reform don’t end there. Increasing density will also have a direct impact on lowering CO2 emissions by slowing sprawl and conserving limited resources like water and power through more efficient use and distribution.

The San Diego City Council passed the largest zoning designation – single family — in 1923, when the city had a population of only 73,000 residents. One hundred years later, the city maintains the same archaic zoning that today it accounts for 81 percent of the residential land in the city, yet the population has grown to more than 1.3 million residents.  

Meanwhile, apartment renters only have 19 percent of the city in which to live, yet the majority of San Diegans are renters, not homeowners.

This disparity, in which 81 percent of all residential land is zoned single-family and only 19 percent for multi-family, is why the cost of housing and number of people living on our streets remains high and growing.

Incumbent politicians are at a crossroads. If the public’s demand for lower housing costs and more investment in their neighborhoods is not realized, voters will replace them with individuals who will promise to act, to do something.

Locally, incumbents need to understand – quickly – that they have the authority to lower housing costs by allowing residents to buy less land to build a home that will be cheaper.

The housing crisis is not only solvable but avoidable, but to get there we need to take bold action starting with allowing homeowners to subdivide their 5,000+ square-foot-lots. That would clear the way for up to five “small lot” homes to be built on the same property, just spread across smaller lots.

If it sounds simple, it’s because it is.

The post Homes on Smaller Lots Would Offer a Solution to San Diego’s Budget, Housing Woes appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

David Malcolm is a real estate professional and a philanthropist. He is on the San Diego Rescue Mission’s Board of Trustees and previously served on the board of St. Vincent de Paul for 34 years.

Short-term (vacation) rentals (STRs) are an innovation. Since VRBO and Airbnb came on the scene, this is a new sub-sector of the lodging industry, just as Uber and Lyft were a new sub-sector for the transportation industry.

But, at least for STRs, there is a downside.

Unintended consequences often accompany innovation, mostly during early adoption. STRs rely on existing homes and apartments. The more there are, the less housing there is for residential. As a result, rental prices can soar, sometimes pushing residents out of an area.

My concern, because homelessness is one of our greatest crises and something I have been personally involved in addressing for decades, is that exacerbates the problem. Less stock and higher prices and/or rents are only going to cause more people to become homeless, especially if they have an unexpected financial setback and are already living on the edge.

Let’s look at how this is turning thing upside down, and what might be done about it.

Knee-Jerk Reactions Causing Chaos

With STRs, governments have allowed market forces to reduce inventory for housing, but that came at a price. As more homes were offered up as STRs, they impacted neighborhoods, sometimes becoming party centers. Visitors don’t always act like they live there with consideration for neighbors and neighborhoods. But STRs make a lot of money for a lot of people.

Among the knee-jerk reactions when things started getting a little out of hand were regulatory “experiments,” which are still ongoing. Some regulations cap the number of STRs allowed in a city. Others set conditions about length of rentals, restrictions on loud parties and other obnoxious behaviors, and even looking at visitor taxes similar to what hotels charge.

The city of Del Mar, CA capped STRs in the City at a total of 129. And on Nov. 5, Del Mar voters overwhelmingly approved a 13.5 percent transient occupancy tax (what hotels pay) on STRs, expected to bring the City $775,000 annually.

Barcelona, Spain went even further by planning to ban all STRs for tourists because of out-of-control increases in rental rates for residents.

Online maps of STRs in San Diego have stirred arguments linking the proliferation of STRs to the housing crisis.

Is there any basis for that? Well, some local tenants have claimed they were evicted so their apartments could be converted to STRs.

Another side of unintended consequences is playing out in Hawai’i. The island of Maui is considering phasing out 7,000 STRs which would lose the county “up to $91.8 million in annual tax revenue and up to $280.9 million in total tax losses.”

Not Going Away Any Time Soon

When the National Association of REALTORS (along with numerous other entities) issue guides about buying a property specifically to become a STR, you know that this issue is not going to fade away quietly.

And when an entire California coastal town sees itself at risk of its resident population being displaced by vacation renters, causing a post-tourist-season “ghost town”, we have to take this seriously and realize something is out of control.

To the extent that this is going to increase homelessness because of the increasing lack of housing stock, I am worried. As long as homelessness is a such a pressing social and societal ill, the debate how STRs impact availability of housing must continue.

Eventually, I believe, we will settle on some sort of balance between STRs and resident housing. In nature, this is called homeostasis, defined as, “a relatively stable equilibrium.” We are not there yet.

The post Short-Term Rentals Are Exacerbating Homelessness appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

You may not know it, but modern-day price fixing may be inflating the already too-damn-high rent you’re paying to live in San Diego.  

Picture some of the most powerful corporate bosses in America sitting together in a fancy, smoke-filled room. Typically, these billionaires compete with one another, but this is a special meeting where a special deal is made. There is no need to compete anymore. They can all win this time. They own vast amounts of a product that everyone needs and that is in short supply. The bosses just need to agree on how much they are going to charge for it. A deal is struck, and just as expected, the rich get richer while everyday people struggle to pay for what they need.  

Thankfully, the scenario described above — a classic example of price fixing — has been illegal in the United States since 1890. Unfortunately, today, thanks to technology, corporate giants don’t need a smoke-filled room — or any room at all.  Real estate corporations use algorithms to squeeze every last dollar from struggling renters and homebuyers. 

Nowhere is this more dangerous than in cities like San Diego, where out-of-control housing costs are pushing many out of our communities, driving others onto the streets, and making life far too difficult for working families. With San Diego families needing to make $275,000 a year to be able to afford a mortgage, renting is a requirement for many to remain housed. The average rent is 65 percent higher than the national average at $2,489 per month for a two-bedroom. And because incomes aren’t keeping up with surging rent prices, San Diego is now an “impossibly unaffordable” place to call home. 

Algorithmic pricing uses artificial intelligence to set the price of homes and rental units based on market data and demand trends. While it may seem efficient, these algorithms are designed to maximize rental prices far beyond what most San Diegans can afford. 

Here’s how it works: property management firms feed real-time, non-public data into algorithms. The algorithms then calculate the highest rent a landlord can charge, using other landlords’ non-public data and other factors. And because many of these companies control a large portion of the market, they can essentially dictate rents across entire neighborhoods by complying with the rent recommendations. If that sounds like price fixing, that’s because it is. 

When key players in the housing market use the same pricing systems, competition is erased, and prices are artificially inflated. Renters are stuck in a rigged system. 

We have a housing shortage, especially of homes affordable to low-income San Diegans. Requirements to build homes are cumbersome and the process takes too long. It is also true that all levels of government don’t invest enough to build the affordable housing we need. With housing in such short supply, corporations know renters will pay whatever they must, even if it leaves them financially crippled. This is exploitation, plain and simple.  

We can’t pretend that technology such as algorithmic pricing is a neutral force. It’s a tool of corporate greed used to exploit renters and inflate housing prices. Fortunately, attorneys general across the country and the Department of Justice are taking notice. Recently, state and federal regulators began cracking down on companies like RealPage, investigating their algorithmic pricing software for enabling rent hikes across multiple landlords.  

That is why local action is equally essential. As Council President, I am bringing forward an item to the Rules Committee of the City Council to discuss and provide direction on drafting an ordinance to set strict limits on how such technologies can manipulate housing prices. As a Chief Deputy City Attorney, I believe in the merits of the case brought forward by the Justice Department. But the litigation will take time to resolve, so I support putting an end to algorithmic price fixing by ordinance. 

San Diego can’t sit idly by while corporate landlords exploit our city’s housing crisis. That’s why we are asking the Rules Committee on Wednesday to support our recommendation to request the City Attorney’s Office work with Council District Office on drafting an ordinance banning the sale and use of price fixing software and bring the proposed ordinance to the City Council. By taking decisive action, San Diego can protect its residents and set an example for cities across the country. If we fail to act, more people will be priced out of their homes, and the only winners will be the ultra-rich profiting from our pain. 

The post Opinion: Price Gouging in San Diego’s Housing Market Must Stop Now appeared first on Voice of San Diego.

Andy Kopp is a Navy veteran and former San Diego chapter director of the Truman National Security Project. He is the former Director of Strategic Initiatives for San Diego Housing Federation and advocates for policies that advance the public good. He lives in Mission Valley.

For years, America’s educators hailed “the Finnish miracle.” The most highly regarded American proponent of Finland’s renowned school system was researcher and historian, Diane Ravitch, who swept through San Diego in 2014, declaring San Diego Unified School District “the best urban district in the nation.”

But she added, “I say this not based on test scores but on the climate for teaching and learning that I have observed in San Diego.”

Not based on test scores. It’s a caveat with legs. Educational gains on standardized tests made after 2014 were wiped out during the Covid pandemic. And as Voice of San Diego’s Jakob McWhinney reports, our kids are struggling to come back. It’s time to look toward a different miracle.

The Department of Defense Education Activity is the federal government school system responsible for providing prekindergarten through 12th grade education to nearly 70,000 children of the DoD’s active duty and civilian families on military installations around the world.

And it’s the highest performing K-12 public education system in the United States.

Martin West, academic dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said it like this: “If the Department of Defense schools were a state, we would all be traveling there to figure out what’s going on,” That’s because while top performing states in education like Massachusetts and New Jersey saw reading and math scores decline significantly from 2013-2022, DoD schools showed resiliency and improvement over the same period.

So what’s driving the DoD’s success in educating students? When similarities between the DoD system and others are accounted for, the standout difference is clear: The DoD’s families and students benefit from secure, stable access to affordable housing.

So much of the conversation surrounding education in the classroom is anchored in the national culture war. Parents across the country seemingly argue for sport over banning books. Parents and students, alike, have real fears about the long-term traumatic impacts of active-shooter drills. But the institutions which study the culture of education point to the basics outside of the classroom for big impacts.

The National Institutes of Health tells us that hunger provokes a variety of behavioral issues that decrease the ability to learn. That will come as no surprise to any adult who has missed lunch and started losing their cool by late afternoon. It’s a conclusion that prompted Governor Tim Walz to sign a law guaranteeing school meals for every child in Minnesota.

Likewise, performance results gathered in Minnesota’s Statewide Longitudinal Education Data System demonstrate that the stability provided by affordable housing is crucial for achieving success in the classroom. A dramatic gap exists in educational attainment and graduation rates between housing-secure and housing-insecure students.

What is housing insecurity? It’s the term used for the collective housing challenges of affordability, quality, safety, and threat of loss (i.e., falling into homelessness). The Journal of Urban Health published that parents and children both suffer the adverse mental health impacts of housing insecurity, as its pressures produce a “higher risk of depression, anxiety, psychological distress, and suicide.”

Housing insecurity is a fact of life in San Diego. Half of all renting households are eligible for a federal rental assistance voucher, but languish without one. That’s a lot of San Diego students entering the classroom every day after leaving a home environment that compounds stress, to say nothing of those who don’t have homes at all.

While the school district is largely independent of the city’s government, its students and families need our city government to lean in and start making serious, annual investments in affordable housing production.

General Fund revenues are unrestricted and can be spent on any priority a mayor and city council deem worthy. In 2016, 66 percent of San Diego’s voters passed Measure M, authorizing the creation of more than 38,000 new affordable homes. Arguably inherent in the passage of that ballot measure was the expectation that our city would support the creation of those homes.

If voters pass this year’s Measure E – a sales tax increase estimated to bring in $400 million new dollars annually for the city – we can begin the work of meeting that expectation.

With a combined budget eclipsing $5 billion annually, an initial investment of $50 million from the General Fund would amount to just 1 percent of the budget. One penny from every dollar the city spends to foster the circumstances at home that support success in the classroom.

“The DODEA miracle” isn’t a miracle at all. And neither is “the Finnish miracle.” Both are the result of investing in “the climate for teaching and learning” beyond the school property line: the affordable homes that kids return to after the school bell rings. That’s how our school system can live up to its billing as “the best urban district in the nation.”

The post Opinion: The Key to Student Success Starts with Affordable Homes appeared first on Voice of San Diego.