Of all the cities in San Diego County that fight the hardest against new housing, the coastal enclaves of Encinitas and Del Mar have a reputation as two of the toughest.
But those reputations belie an astounding fact: Encinitas and Del Mar are closer to meeting their state-mandated housing goals than almost any city in San Diego County.
Only five places in San Diego County are on track to meet their housing goals, according to an analysis by Voice of San Diego and KPBS. They are Encinitas, unincorporated San Diego County, San Marcos, Del Mar and Chula Vista. Encinitas, incredibly, is the closest to hitting its target.
The cities at the top of the list, arguably, have had an easier time meeting their goals than other cities. City’s allocations are based on how many jobs and how much public transportation they have. Most of the city’s at the top of the list were assigned a smaller share of new homes than cities with more jobs and public transit.
To help ease California’s crippling housing shortage, state officials dictate the number of homes that should be built in each county throughout the state. Cities have until 2029 to hit their targets. Since the current housing production cycle started in 2021, they should be roughly halfway toward meeting their goals.
Encinitas — perhaps the most housing-averse city in the county — is the closest to meeting its goal.
“In Encinitas, we’re actually building the housing,” Mayor Bruce Ehlers previously told Voice. “It is ironic that the state likes to point out Encinitas is this rogue city. [But] we’re well ahead of most other cities.”
State officials referred to Encinitas as a “rogue city” on multiple occasions for, as officials see it, the city’s failure to follow state housing laws.
In 2022, Attorney General Rob Bonta came after Encinitas for failing to approve a 277-unit development that included 41 units reserved for people with low income. The project met state laws, Bonta’s team of attorneys said, and Encinitas had better approve it. Otherwise, the Attorney General would “take immediate steps to hold the city accountable,” as Voice reported.
This kind of back and forth has been typical. And over a period of years, it has forced Encinitas to approve far more housing than city leaders wanted to.
In 2024 alone, the city approved 695 new homes. That’s more than twice as many homes as it permitted in each of the previous five years.
“All around Encinitas we have thousands and thousands of units coming online,” Ehlers said. Encinitas residents, he added, “hate it.”
Ehlers said that’s a big reason he and other councilmembers were elected in 2024. They ran on a platform that previous city leaders hadn’t done enough to fight the state.
Ehlers is now helping lead an effort that would bring more control over housing decisions back down to the city level. “Our Neighborhood Voices” is a proposed ballot measure that would alter the state’s constitution. Ehlers is trying to get other small cities on board to get enough signatures to the measure on a statewide ballot.
Several other cities, including Del Mar, have already signed on, as my colleague Tigist Layne reported.
There is an important caveat about the cities on track to hit their housing goals. They are only on track in one sense — from a pure volume standpoint.
Cities are required to permit a certain overall number of new homes. But within that number, they are supposed to permit a certain amount of affordable homes.
Only two places are anywhere close to meeting their affordable housing numbers: unincorporated San Diego County and San Marcos.
That the unincorporated part of San Diego is close to hitting its goals shouldn’t necessarily be surprising. The county has lots of undeveloped land and county government has lots of money to help subsidize affordable housing.
(It’s worth pointing out that not all affordable housing is subsidized. Particularly in the “moderate” income category, cities have built a sizable portion of affordable homes that officials refer to as “naturally-occurring,” rather than subsidized. A lot of naturally-occurring affordable homes in recent years have been ADU’s, or accessory dwelling units.)
San Marcos is more surprising.
Mayor Rebecca Jones says it all comes down to good planning.
For instance, San Marcos leaders began envisioning North City — a walkable, urban area that will include 3,400 homes — as far back as 2009.
The city has also invested in affordable housing over the years, by using state money to partner with affordable home developers.
“It’s setting the framework for what you want your city to look like,” Jones said. “Having a vast variety of housing is really important for a healthy housing stock.”
That some cities are hitting their overall goals — even if they aren’t hitting all the sub-targets of affordable homes — is still a good thing, said Saad Asad, a board member of YIMBY Democrats of San Diego.
“Any amount of new housing reduces the pressure on existing rentals and benefits existing affordable housing stock,” he said.
In other words, the more new homes that get built — even at above-market-rate prices — the more affordable homes will get to stay in the hands of people with modest incomes.
On the whole, the county isn’t anywhere close to hitting its housing goal — for affordable housing or above-market-rate.
State officials have said San Diego County needs to produce roughly 172,000 homes by 2029. So far it has produced roughly 53,000, which puts it far off the mark.
In many ways, Encinitas and the other jurisdictions at the top of the list, have an easier path to hitting their targets.
The San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, doles out the number of homes each city (and the unincorporated county) is required to produce.
The cities with the most public transit and the most jobs are assigned, by far, the highest number of homes.
The places at the top of the list tended to be assigned less homes (on a per capita basis) than other cities. Voice’s analysis showed a direct correlation between the number of homes per capita assigned to a city and how far along those cities were in meeting their goals.
National City, because of its public transit options and jobs, was assigned the highest number of homes per capita countywide. SANDAG officials assigned National City to ensure 97 homes were built for every thousand residents.
Mayor Ron Morrison told me his cities numbers are “totally screwed up.”
Except for one other city, National City was furthest away from reaching its housing production goals by 2029.
Stay tuned for that. We’ll have a story next week about the cities furthest away from meeting their goals.
