San Diego School District Plans to Build 3,000 Homes for Employees

The San Diego Unified School District is taking steps to ensure the success of its plan to build nearly 3,000 units of workforce housing. As Drew Sitton reports in the Times of San Diego, “San Diego Unified’s 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’s housing affordability crisis.”

While the district only needs around 1,350 units to meet that goal, approving more units means the city has flexibility in ensuring it will have the housing needed. According to Sitton, “Currently, none of the projects rely on district funds. Instead, private developers with a joint-use agreement lease the district’s land, and finance construction through a combination of private loans, tax credit programs and tax-increment financing, depending on the project.”

The district has set aside $205 million in bond funds to fill any critical funding gaps that arise during the construction process. The district has also put in place other contingency plans, such as agreeing that if their preferred contractor has any funding issues, they can begin negotiations with their competitor, and spreading out the housing plans among six sites, allowing them to bypass extensive environmental reviews and approvals that would be required for larger projects.

“Had we put … all our eggs into one basket or done these one at a time, if some financing mechanism didn’t work out, or some design didn’t work out or something fell through, we would have another two- or three-year delay,” says SDUSD board member Cody Petterson.