A new Circulate San Diego report says the agency often uses its land-use authority in coastal areas to block low-income housing and climate-friendly transportation projects
A new report from a San Diego nonprofit says the state’s Coastal Commission is worsening the housing crisis and climate change by rejecting high-density projects in beach communities, but the commission calls the report bogus.
Commissioners said Circulate San Diego, an advocacy group for transit projects and dense housing that produced the 27-page report, is speaking for developers who want to be able to build without sensible restrictions.
Circulate says in the report, which was released Friday, that the commission often uses its land-use authority in coastal areas of the state to block low-income housing and climate-friendly transportation projects.
The report says blocking such projects near the coast not only inflates housing prices there but also hikes prices in traditionally more affordable inland communities by forcing people who work on the coast to live elsewhere.
That also leads to longer car commutes to and from the coast that hinder California’s attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the report says.
“The Coastal Commission is supposed to protect the environment and coastal access for all Californians, but its actions have excluded Californians from the coast and made segregation and climate change worse,” said Will Moore, policy counsel for Circulate. “We hope this report pushes it to do better.”
The report also blames the Coastal Commission for making beach communities in California more segregated and more White than other areas.
Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego), who is spearheading legislation in Sacramento that could reduce the commission’s authority, said change is badly needed.
“It’s no secret the California coast is one of the most segregated and exclusive areas of the entire country,” Alvarez said at a downtown news conference Friday. “It is unaffordable for the vast majority of Californians, and that includes service workers who are the backbone of the economy along the coast.”
The bill Alvarez is sponsoring is AB 2560.
Leaders of the commission responded with unusually harsh criticism, contending the report fails to provide credible evidence to support its conclusions and misrepresents the agency’s track record.
“It cherry picks a handful of cases that omit significant facts to paint a dishonest picture that the Commission denies density bonus projects or doesn’t support affordable housing,” said Kate Huckelbridge, its executive director.
A density bonus is a policy that allows developers to build more housing units than zoning otherwise allows, provided some of the units are subsidized to make them affordable to low-income residents.
The commission says the report is filled with dishonest and offensive claims.
“The allegation that the Commission regularly opposes, blocks or delays density bonus projects in the coastal zone is demonstrably false,” Huckelbridge said. “Of the five projects featured, four were approved and one is pending on appeal.”
Members of the commission, which includes representatives from coastal cities across the state, also criticized the report.
Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre was particularly upset by how it likened commission actions to redlining, a federally endorsed practice in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s in which home loan approvals depended on race, income and neighborhood.
“Comparing the Commission’s efforts to protect beach access and the environment to redlining is not only inaccurate, but it’s extremely offensive,” she said.
Another commissioner, Justin Cummings of Santa Cruz, said it’s a key time for the commission to assert itself, because the state Legislature has scaled back local land-use authority in recent years to spur housing construction.