When developer Ginger Hitzke first proposed an affordable housing complex on a parking lot in Solana Beach, she envisioned building 18 new homes for low-income families and adults at a cost of $414,000 per apartment.
More than a decade later, her project has shrunk in size by nearly half and become more than twice as expensive.
At $1.1 million per apartment, the Pearl is the priciest affordable housing project in the state and, likely, the country. It also serves as an alarming example of how political, economic and bureaucratic forces have converged to drive up the cost of such housing at a time when growing numbers of Californians need it.
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Everything in the process is fucked up. I didn’t know there are five different government agencies developers have to deal with on funding. I certainly didn’t know affordable housing projects have to pay more for union labor and have higher environmental requirements than even luxury apartment projects.
It’s faster and cheaper just to subsidize people to buy in regular market. No more of this affordable housing nonsense.
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I basically have given up. There is no such thing as affordable housing in California. If you want affordable housing, my friend in Slaughter, Oklahoma will sell you a used singlewide for $25k and $300/m park rent.
BTW, he is getting rich doing it. Charges 8% interest. Often gets these trailers for $8k remodels for $2k and sells for $25k. Plus maintenance for a park is cheap. Imagine if you have 300 spaces. $90k/m rent.
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Yeah but… it’s Oklahoma.
You want affordable housing move there. I don’t feel obligated to pay taxes to make it affordable in the most expensive place in the US. Especially since the main cause is government rules and regulations.
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