Opinion: Housing policies are sabotaging family budgets and climate goals

Housing and transportation costs are squeezing San Diego families from both sides. While home prices and rents have skyrocketed, we’ve also forced families to spend thousands on cars and gas by limiting housing options near jobs and transit. These challenges simultaneously block our path to clean air, good health and climate goals. We won’t get to those goals until everyone can afford a home, access good jobs and put food on the table.

San Diego County faces an acute housing shortage. In May 2025, the median sale price of a home was $994,000, up from $630,000 five years earlier. Meanwhile, rent surged 36% from March 2020 to June 2023 alone. Decades of restrictive laws have limited homes, forcing working families — such as teachers, nurses and service workers — to make an impossible choice: pay unaffordable rents or face long commutes.

At the same time, we have extended trolley lines from downtown to the border and up to UC San Diego. Yet families still spend an average of $12,000 annually on cars because many cities prohibit apartments near transit.

A new law proposed by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, Senate Bill 79, would fix this by allowing housing near transit stations. This isn’t just housing policy — it’s ensuring our city works for everyone, not just those who can afford to live near transit. The bill allows up to six stories near trolley stops with frequent service and fewer stories near less frequent COASTER stations. Projects meeting affordability and labor standards bypass lengthy approval gauntlets. It will also ensure that low-income residents benefit from our transit investments.

Current laws force expensive trade-offs. We push new housing onto wildfire-prone hillsides in places like Santee and Otay Ranch. Families often rely on cars for basic errands, struggle to find homeowners insurance, and are threatened by devastating wildfires, such as those recently witnessed in Los Angeles. This sprawl requires extending costly infrastructure, including new roads, fire stations and utilities. This forces those with the least resources to bear the highest transportation costs and environmental risks.

The financial impact is devastating. A nurse living in far-flung areas spends up to $900 monthly on gas, car payments, insurance and maintenance for a two-hour daily commute. Living near transit could redirect some of those costs to groceries, health care, or emergency funds. Recent research confirms this: Only 26% of neighborhoods remain affordable once transportation costs are taken into account.

More cars also expose nearby families to air pollution, particularly harming children and older residents. The financial stress of combining high housing costs with mandatory car expenses creates a chronic strain on household budgets, forcing difficult choices between transportation, health care and other necessities.

We can better use tax dollar investments in public transit. San Diego’s transit agency, MTS, recovers only 30% to 40% of operating costs from fares because ridership stays low when working families can’t afford nearby housing. With SB 79, transit agencies can also develop housing on land they already own, following successful models in other countries, where property revenue helps support transit operations financially. This decreases taxpayer subsidies while creating clean transportation options.

Our current approach accelerates displacement. Restricting housing near transit leads to competition that bids up the prices of those homes. This means only wealthy households have an opportunity for car-lite living, while others move further inland or even across the border to Tijuana. SB 79 expands access by creating more housing choices near jobs and transit.

We know this approach to housing works. Minneapolis reformed its zoning in 2018, resulting in a 12% increase in housing, while rent growth dropped to 1%, compared to 14% statewide growth.

The city of San Diego’s climate plan legally requires a 15% reduction in vehicle miles traveled by 2035. Meeting this target requires aligning housing policy with transportation infrastructure, rather than working against it. The region cannot reduce climate-warming pollution while local laws force expensive car costs on some families who would prefer transit.

SB 79 offers an elegant solution that improves lives, expands opportunities and ensures our region works for all residents.

Capretz is an environmental attorney and founder of the San Diego-based Climate Action Campaign.