Coronado Openly Flouts California Housing Law

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Liam Dillon describes anti-housing efforts in Coronado, California, “arguably the most flagrant resister of a state affordable housing law designed to give housekeepers and others, from teachers to nurses, a chance at an apartment in places that would otherwise be out of their reach.” The city is required to build 912 new housing units, with 70 percent of them deemed affordable. 

According to Dillon, “Coronado’s elected officials have thumbed their noses at Gov. Gavin Newsom and state regulators, calling the process “central planning at its worst” and assuring residents that it will be years before the state cracks down.” 

And they’re right: the city’s housing plan is two years overdue, with no consequences in sight. “Assuming the state filed a lawsuit and won, the city would have at least another year to comply before monthly fines kicked in and even longer before a court-ordered receiver could take over its permitting and zoning.”

Coronado’s “Median home value tops $2.2 million, according to the real estate website Zillow, and more than a quarter of the households earn over $200,000, U.S. census data show.” More than 25 percent of the island’s residences are vacant at least part of the year. Meanwhile, “It has been more than a decade since new low-income housing was built on the island, though the city recently purchased a duplex it’s converting to affordable housing.”

Stephen Russell, executive director of the San Diego Housing Federation, calls the language used by local condo owners who oppose affordable housing “the distilled liquor of NIMBYism.”

“If the city wanted to, Russell said, it could likely meet its target by allowing more development on church and school lands, promoting backyard homes and casitas, and providing incentives for greater mixed-use development along its main commercial corridor, which mostly features single-story restaurant and retail buildings.”