San Marcos, California, is on track to meet housing goals in most categories

What San Marcos says is working on housing goals

San Marcos, California, is making progress toward state housing targets that require cities to permit housing across different income groups, according to an Associated Press report. City officials said the results reflect local planning choices—especially a large-scale downtown-like development—combined with negotiations meant to shape projects that would otherwise be required under state law.

The AP report said California housing law requires cities to make way for housing in four income categories: very low, low, moderate and above moderate. San Marcos, the report said, is on track to meet the targets in three of the four categories, with the shortfall in the “very low” category.

The report said the city has already exceeded its goal in the moderate category, in part because of development in North City. It said San Marcos has permitted 871 moderately priced homes that are “non-deed-restricted,” meaning they are not subsidized, and that the “moderate” pricing aligns with the San Marcos housing market rather than a subsidy-based definition.

Central to San Marcos’ housing push, the report said, is a development called North City, described as a walkable district adjacent to California State University San Marcos. The AP report said that although construction remains underway, the area has expanded to cover about 200 acres and has drawn homes, parks and open space, and commercial activity over the past several years.

The report said officials and the developer plan for North City to function as a downtown for San Marcos and potentially for “all of North County.” It said the project is expected to be a $2 billion development that would create a total of 3,400 new homes, with about 15%—roughly 400 units—deed restricted as affordable housing.

Mayor Rebecca Jones, who has been mayor since 2018, said she uses a “two-pronged strategy” that centers on planning and on negotiating with developers on projects intended to fit the city’s needs. The AP report said Jones attributed the city’s housing results overall to planning, and pointed to the fact that San Marcos did not previously have a downtown area until city leaders created a plan for one.

Jones told the AP that density is appropriate in more urban parts of a community. “In the more downtown urban areas, it makes sense to have a little more density,” she said. The report also said Jones prefers to keep high-density projects out of smaller, single-family neighborhoods when possible.

At the same time, the AP report said the state’s housing mandates limit how much local officials can steer development geography. It said Jones described the difficulty as the “shoehorning,” or the placement of large projects into neighborhoods that are predominantly single-family, which can fuel resident dissatisfaction and backlash across North County.

To address that, the AP report said Jones often bargains with developers over project details so the outcome is mutually beneficial to developers and residents. In one exchange included in the report, Jones said: “My job is to figure out how to get the best development possible. I’ve had instances where they’ve worked with me and sat down and we’ve tried to figure out how they could build something that can fit within the parameters of what’s already approved today,” adding that she also does not want the city’s Housing Element fully reopened if it seeks to say no to a project and faces the prospect of being sued.

The report said Jones, who is running for the county Board of Supervisors, argued that other elected officials could use a similar hands-on approach and that many residents will engage constructively. “I think most people are reasonable,” she said. “If you break it down and you talk to them and you take that time, you’d be surprised. Most elected officials may not want to take the time because it’s a big job… We need to do more of that.”

A “phase two” approach and the role of infrastructure

Erik Bruvold, CEO of the San Diego North Economic Development Council, told the AP that San Marcos’ approach—working with developers rather than being “hyper critical” of state mandates—reflects a shift he described as “phase two.” In the report, Bruvold said that early in the cycle, he saw leaders frustrated with state requirements who approved projects by “holding their nose,” and that North County has now moved toward proactively working within the law to shape projects.

The AP report said Bruvold pointed to Oceanside as another example, describing a Council-approved 326-unit mixed-use plan to replace the Regal movie theater downtown. It said the developer had originally proposed more housing density with less public space, but that the revised plan approved by Oceanside added a larger public plaza while reducing the number of residential units.

Bruvold told the AP that San Marcos had additional advantages because it has “much more open space than most other cities.” In the report, he described the broader opportunity for many North County communities as shifting toward infill projects in places that already have development, rather than building on entirely new land.

He also said infill is likely to require more support infrastructure and called for bringing back redevelopment agencies. The report said redevelopment agencies were created in California to help address rundown neighborhoods and that, over time, they became a tool used for affordable housing and related infrastructure such as roads, sewage systems and parks. It said Gov. Jerry Brown ended redevelopment agencies statewide in 2012, largely to redirect funding to close a budget deficit.

Bruvold told the AP that redevelopment was important for creating infrastructure that could accommodate development in later decades, especially for infill residential and mixed-use projects. “While the particulars of what is missing do vary city to city, in so many cases, what we have is infrastructure that was built to accommodate development in the fifties and sixties,” he said. “And to be able to do infill mixed-use or infill residential development, we just need bigger infrastructure, and redevelopment would’ve been a critical tool to do that.”

The AP report said both Jones and Bruvold hope redevelopment agencies can return in some form, and that Voice of San Diego previously reported that some state lawmakers believe redevelopment is a key component of producing more affordable housing and building infrastructure for underserved areas.

Disagreement over state mandates

Finally, the report said Bruvold views the state’s housing mandates as essential to increasing housing supply in San Marcos and elsewhere in North County. Jones disagreed, telling the AP that the mandates coming from Sacramento do not account for local needs and preferences.

In the AP report, Jones said: “These mandates coming from Sacramento, they don’t know the specific needs of our community and what our community wants.” She added that housing decisions should be left to city and county leaders. “I think local control, and yes, there are definitely going to be some examples where cities are not doing the right thing, but for the most part, cities do want to do the right thing,” Jones said. “Elected officials do want to try to provide well-rounded housing for their residents who want to stay here and have jobs here.”