Opinion: Clairemont community plan needs fixes to protect existing homes

The Clairemont Mesa Community Plan Update — envisioning the future of the region’s 8,557 acres — goes before the City Council on Tuesday, seeking to update a vision last adopted in 1989.

It calls for tens of thousands of new homes in San Diego’s original, post-World War II “planned community” and seeks to enhance “mobility” and “connectivity,” “protect open space,” and preserve “historical resources and districts that embody architectural and cultural history.”

But while these are admirable, aspirational goals, the plan should not be adopted until it also addresses more recent housing and transportation concerns in Clairemont. They include:

— “Donut hole” transit: Most of Clairemont Mesa is above the MTS trolley Blue Line, requiring drives or steep walks of a mile or more to reach stations along the I-5/Morena corridor, or in UTC/University City.

— Aggressive ADU incursions: Hundreds of two-story additional dwelling units have appeared on bluffs, and in canyons and other open spaces, looming over backyards, crowding main traffic corridors and looking more like subdivisions than “accessory dwelling units.”

— Tourism versus full-time housing: Many newer ADUs, along with Clairemont’s older, naturally occurring affordable homes, have become short-term vacation rentals instead of remaining permanent, full-time housing.

As a lifelong “Clairemonster,” I support an updated plan that provides parks, protects open space, develops safer walking routes, improves mobility and transit options — and also commits to adding permanent, full-time homes that meet the needs of new residents from diverse backgrounds, incomes and age groups.

And as a past chair of the California Assembly’s Housing and Community Development Committee, I know permanent, full-time housing can only be built and protected when clear, enforceable language is incorporated into Community Plan Updates and supported in city ordinances.

To truly preserve and expand housing in Clairemont, the plan needs language that emphasizes stable, full-time housing, and discourages using homes for businesses that displace residents. Permanent, stable, full-time occupancy helps lower housing costs, creates communities and longtime neighbors, supports lower-wage workers and develops an economic tax base that will pay for infrastructure improvements in future years.

To achieve all that, this update needs clear, strong language to safeguard homes of all types, discourage “short-term residential occupancy” rentals over permanent residential housing, and ensure homes remain housing, while staying in compliance with the state’s regional housing needs assessments into the future.

Clairemont housing prices have been impacted by investors who paid cash for houses (often over asking price) in the nearby coastal neighborhoods of La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach and Mission Beach, then converted them to short-term rentals. These neighborhoods are now saturated with short-term vacation rental conversions, and Clairemont Mesa has become ground zero for cash buyers seeking short-term residential occupancy properties.

To counter this, council members must add stronger housing protections to the proposed plan.

They should also enforce San Diego’s short-term residential occupancy ordinance to prevent entire apartment complexes from becoming vacation rentals.

The new plan must ensure single-family homes, apartments, condos, ADUs, live/work studios, senior group homes, mixed retail and other styles of housing in Clairemont remain housing, occupied full-time by people living in San Diego — not by visitors staying for a short vacation.

The city’s latest report shows hundreds of families have already lost a chance to live in Clairemont due to short-term rentals: 450 short-term residential occupancy units are in the community, from single rooms to entire homes.

But in fact it’s impossible to know the actual numbers. Not all operators apply for permits for these “mini hotels.” And the city has a poor track record of investigating short-term residential occupancy violations and enforcing the law.

“Clairemonsters” (and all San Diegans) need council members to approve future plan updates that encourage new housing construction, strengthen protections for full-time housing today, and provide enduring protections for all residents and neighborhoods over the next 35 years.

Saldaña was born and lives in Clairemont, and represented San Diego in the California Assembly from 2004 to 2010, serving as speaker pro tempore and chair of the Housing and Community Development Committee.