SANDAG: Providing Regional Leadership for Housing Acceleration

This year, LeSar has been engaged by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), to help the agency jumpstart a more impactful role in housing policy and planning to complement their effort to advance a vision for sustainable communities. SANDAG has long been the region’s transportation planning agency, leading long-range plans for highways, transit, bikeways, and more. The agency has also played an important role in housing by distributing housing planning goals to the region’s 19 local jurisdictions. In the future SANDAG will assume a more prominent role in planning for and incentivizing housing to meet the needs of the San Diego region’s growing population.

In 2019, the California department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) awarded SANDAG a $6.8 million Regional Early Action Planning (REAP) grant to support planning for an increase in housing development. This award is a result of AB 101 to increase housing planning and efforts to accelerate housing production. LeSar, alongside WSP, the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, and Veronica Tam and Associates, was hired to survey local jurisdictions, develop a housing incentive program, and to provide a framework for equitable housing growth in San Diego.

In October, SANDAG’s Board of Directors took an important step toward defining its role as a regional leader on housing by creating the Regional Equitable Housing Subcommittee to guide the agency’s housing work. And in November, SANDAG released two new grant opportunities for housing acceleration and smart growth planning at the local level.

A key piece of LeSar’s work for SANDAG has been to articulate a high-level housing solutions framework that helps address the region’s drastic housing shortage and social equity goals. LeSar will continue collaborating with SANDAG to identify opportunities for the agency to further support housing development, including the development of a clearinghouse of funding opportunities to help guide and accelerate housing production and related strategies in the region.

Overall, the REAP grant program established by AB 101 has been an excellent resource for regional and local collaborators who are taking proactive steps to address the housing crisis through planning, education, engagement, and more. The 2021-22 state budget extended the REAP program, with $600 million in new resources to agencies throughout the state.