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Advocates urge end to zoning that bars multi-unit housing

Clovis Honoré, president of the NAACP’s San Diego chapter, argued that zoning has led to segregated neighborhoods. (Nancee E. Lewis)
Clovis Honoré, president of the NAACP’s San Diego chapter, argued that zoning has led to segregated neighborhoods. (Nancee E. Lewis)

By PETER ROWE  Oct. 9, 2019 | 4:10 PM

Advocates of affordable housing and civil rights urged San Diego to scrap “archaic zoning policies” that prevent apartments, condos and other multi-unit dwellings in some neighborhoods.

“The idea is not to get rid of single family homes,” said Ricardo Flores, executive director of the San Diego chapter of Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a national nonprofit dedicated to affordable housing. “The idea is we can’t have a community of single family homes only.”

Noting recent research that showed how Washington’s Depression-era mortgage policies fostered racial segregation, Flores displayed a map of San Diego from the 1930s. On the chart, neighborhoods where lending was forbidden were marked in pink. They included Logan Heights, Barrio Logan, City Heights and much of southeast San Diego.

“We still have poor people of color in those neighborhoods,” said Flores, who was chief of staff for former city councilmember Marti Emerald.

After a brief press conference Wednesday, Flores and leaders of the NAACP, the Chicano Federation and California YIMBY urged the council’s Land Use and Housing Committee to adopt a local version of state Senate Bill 50.

Now shelved, that bill would have eliminated “hyper-low-density zoning” in some areas, allowing five-story apartment buildings near public transit stations and job centers, plus up to four homes on land now zoned for single family residences.

Zoning, several speakers argued, was used as a weapon against poorer citizens.

“We have a history of our communities being pushed to the margins of society,” said Nancy Maldonado, the Chicano Federation’s CEO, “and to the fringes of our cities.”

Governments, as well as banks, played a role in redlining disadvantaged neighborhoods, argued Clovis Honoré, president of the NAACP’s San Diego chapter. While those policies might have been legal at one time, times — and anti-discrimination laws — have changed.

“If you are the government of the people, by the people and for the people,” Honoré said, “it is up to your representatives to make sure you are following the law.”

Citing a 2017 nonfiction book, Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law,” Flores noted there is a “hidden history” of zoning policies used to segregate communities.

“Most people don’t realize or refuse to acknowledge that local governments throughout the country, including here in San Diego, continue to be complicit in perpetuating segregated neighborhoods,” he said. “These policies need to be changed.”

While Mayor Faulconer has encouraged higher-density developments in the city, Flores said he did not know whether the mayor or other council members would support what he’s dubbed “SD 50,” a twist on the original statewide bill, SB 50. Wednesday was the first step in this campaign, he said, not the last.

“This is not a static process,” Flores said. “We are going to stay engaged.”