SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria recently highlighted the city's housing progress, but new national data reveal that other major cities are outpacing San Diego in new construction permits.
Gloria said his administration has made significant strides in housing development over the past four years.
"This report shows that in 2024 alone, we permitted 8,782 new homes, a remarkably strong year that reflects not just our efforts, but our results," Gloria said. "In the first four years of my administration, the City has permitted 31,458 homes. That's nearly 11,000 more homes than in the previous 4 years,"
While these numbers indicate substantial local progress, a new report from Axios provides San Diego's performance in a national perspective. The data focuses specifically on apartment buildings with 50 units or more.
San Diego has permitted approximately 4,700 of these larger residential units this year. However, this falls well short of cities like New York and Dallas, which are permitting around 29,000 to 30,000 units. Even Denver, on the lower end of the spectrum, is permitting more than 12,000 units.
The Axios report sourced its data from Yardi, a software technology company that tracks commercial real estate trends.
Doug Ressler, Yardi's business intelligence manager, said San Diego is performing well compared to other California cities.
"San Diego has been very steady in terms of its build. The Inland Empire is number 1. But San Diego right now is almost the equivalent - when you look at the San Fernando Valley, and LA, if you take that whole metropolitan statistical area, San Diego is very close to approximating the number of units in that large metro," Ressler said.
City officials responded to the national comparison by noting that California's stricter building regulations make direct comparisons with other states challenging. They explained that construction in California often takes longer due to the regulatory requirements.
The City also pointed to coastal height restrictions that limit the height of buildings near the ocean, which constrain development options.
"You can’t compare California cities to those outside the state, because our state regulations are much more onerous than many others. The difference between us and other metros includes regulatory hurdles, such as a 30-foot height limit near the coast; very little undeveloped land acreage remaining for building huge projects (requiring projects to go up instead of out); and regulations that make it more costly and time-intensive to build. That said, Mayor Gloria has shown that smart changes to land use policy and a host of operational changes to greatly speed permitting have resulted in the City of San Diego doubling the average number of permits issued compared with the prior 20 years."
Officials highlighted changes implemented under Gloria's administration that they believe will accelerate the permitting process going forward.
The City of San Diego’s record on new housing is, as reported, far outpacing the rest of the big cities in the state. When you widen the aperture countywide (i.e. the broader metro area) it might have diluted the results.
