The City of Chula Vista is the second largest city in San Diego County and, like most Cities in Southern California, is expected to grow in the next decade. To plan for this growth, the City of Chula Vista updated its Housing Element earlier this year and detailed their strategy to accommodate housing opportunities for the upcoming decade. Chula Vista’s goal is to meet its share of regional housing for a range of household types and incomes, including affordable housing. To do this the City has assessed zoning and policy barriers for new housing units.
The Housing Element evaluates policy, open space, and processes that residents undertake to obtain housing to determine what steps the city can take to eliminate barriers to housing and is one section of the broader General Plan which guides the city and lays out 10 year plans for the economy, environment, and community. All cities in California, and most in the United States, are guided by a General Plan.
The City of Chula Vista has identified the need to build more housing units throughout the city to accommodate the growing population. The City’s goal is to promote housing that provides an array of housing choices, including affordable housing, for all income levels. In the coming decade the city must provide opportunities for 6,500 additional moderately or lower priced housing units either through policy changes, rezoning, or by showing that they aren’t the limiting factor or barrier to providing moderately priced housing.
The City’s housing element, built on the principle that housing is a public necessity and right, and that it’s also an economic engine and a community responsibility, is coming into its 6th cycle. Looking back, the city has fallen well short of its housing goals for moderately priced units despite meeting 150% of the total housing unit goal. In other words, Chula Vista is building houses but the rising cost of materials and labor, along with a steadily increasing demand and stagnating wages, is providing enough moderate and lower priced housing to meet their Regional Housing Needs Assessment goals.
New requirements in the 6th Housing Element cycle include new density rules for 0.1 acre and 10 acres parcels, and the removal of undeveloped inventory identified in at least 2 previous Housing Element cycles. The 6th Housing Element inventory assessment identified 4,527 Lower Income Units and 7,296 Moderate and Above Moderate Units meaning that there is enough potential inventory to meet their RHNA allocation. New policies aimed at meeting the RHNA goals also aim to limit housing loss through short term rental conversions in certain areas.
Chula Vista hopes to connect homeowners with ADUs with renters seeking smaller living opportunities, and plans to, “Develop an incentive program that will facilitate the development of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) or Junior Accessory Dwelling Units (JADUs) affordable to very low income households.”