On Wednesday, the Oceanside City Council voted to impose a limit of 86 market-rate housing units per acre on what developers can build in the city centre. Once affordable housing units are factored in, the number can’t exceed 150 units per acre.
“The assumptions are that we want to continue to develop everything, and we want development to be a constant stream,” said Councillor Eric Joyce. “This is our opportunity to say, ‘What is reasonable development? What is a development that we’re actually looking for to continue development in our city.'”
In 2019, the cap was 43 units per acre – half the current number – but council removed it, giving developers unlimited density as long as their proposals met affordable housing requirements. This led to the approval of larger and denser developments in the city centre, the majority of which are market-rate.
“I haven’t spoken to a single person who lives in our city who wants us to dramatically increase the amount of buildings we have,” Joyce said. “I know we need housing, so let’s do it incrementally. The problem with being very drastic is that once the tower is built … you don’t take it down.”
Councillors agreed that if more density is needed in the future, the limit could be raised.
Oceanside Mayor Esther Sanchez said denser market-rate developments – with only a handful of affordable units – don’t meet the needs of Oceanside residents.
“We need low and very low (income housing), we don’t need other units. This is not really meeting our needs … so we need to build affordable housing projects,” she said. “I know there’s a lot of money out there, and that’s why we’re stuck in this, ‘Sacramento decides everything for our city.'”
The state’s housing code limits the ability of cities to deny high-density housing proposals, as long as they meet the zoning and land use designations in place when the proposal was submitted.
“On the surface, (Oceanside) is trying to break state housing law, said Matthew Lewis of California YIMBY, an organisation that aims to make the state an affordable place to live and work.
He said Oceanside could make up for the limited downtown housing in other areas of the city, but that would have to be outlined in the city’s Housing Element plan submitted to the state.
Oceanside’s plan is still under review.
“If they don’t have a certified housing element, then they’re taking a pretty big risk of reducing capacity,” Lewis said. “It’s something we’ve seen cities do and not get away with.”
He said an enforcement division of the state Department of Housing and Community Development and California Attorney General Rob Bonta are now keeping a closer eye on cities that deny denser housing.
“The longer we prevent people from living in places that are desirable, where there’s already infrastructure, services, schools, roads, etc. … the more we force those people to live farther and farther away in places that are actually still pristine,” he said. “And they still have to commute all the way back to the coast because that’s where the jobs are.”
Lewis said it would be better if cities saw high-density housing as a positive thing, leading to economic growth, more middle-class incomes and less homelessness.
For the density cap to take effect, two things have to happen: the Coastal Commission has to approve the change, and Oceanside’s housing plan has to be approved by the state.