San Diego Housing Permit Reforms Serve as Model for Cities Across the Country

A San Diego initiative designed to get homes approved and under construction faster will now serve as a model for cities across the country.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has selected San Diego as one of three anchor cities for a new national housing initiative that will help up to 30 U.S. cities adopt locally proven approaches to increasing housing production. San Diego’s model focuses on speeding up and modernizing the permitting process, while housing strategies developed in Austin and Atlanta will also be replicated.

For San Diego, the recognition builds on years of work to reduce the amount of time it takes to move housing projects through the City’s review process.

Mayor Todd Gloria launched the City’s “Affordable Housing Permit Now” program through an executive order, which requires 100% affordable housing projects to be reviewed within 30 days. The City has since expanded this kind of expedited permitting to additional housing projects.

Today, those projects are being reviewed in an average of approximately nine days, and the program has helped advance projects representing more than 7,200 homes.