North County Report: Not Many Homes for the Low Incomes

It’s that time of the year. Cities and counties are reporting how much progress they made last year in producing housing for people with different income levels.  

The state requires jurisdictions to release these reports, called Housing Element Progress Reports. They detail how many housing units for people with incomes ranging from acutely low- to above moderate-levels, developers built. 

State housing mandates require cities to make way for housing according to their respective RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation), which is the number of units that each city is required to build. The state housing department, in consultation with SANDAG, determines RHNA numbers for each county. Then, SANDAG allocates specific numbers to each city.   

Cities are then responsible for meeting those targets within each Housing Element cycle, the current one runs from 2021 to 2029. 

Here are a couple of the recent progress reports coming out of North County. 

Escondido 

Escondido is working toward a state-mandated goal of 9,607 new homes for the current housing cycle. So far, the city is about 24 percent of the way there, with around 2,300 units permitted and 7,300 still to go. 

Like many cities in the county, most of that progress is in market-rate housing for higher earners. Escondido has met 36 percent of its goal for these above-moderate units. 

However, home-building for people in other income levels is moving much slower. The city has only met 11 percent of its target for very low-income housing, 17 percent for low-income, and just 6 percent for moderate-income units. 

In 2025 alone, the city issued permits for 369 new homes, but about 70 percent of those were in the above-moderate category, with the remaining 112 units spread across lower income levels. 

Voice of San Diego previously reported that some Escondido officials see the city’s Proposition S, which voters passed in 1998, as an obstacle to their housing progress. 

Proposition S takes away the City Council’s power to amend its General Plan for land use. If a developer asks for an update to the General Plan to increase residential density in an area, then Proposition S requires that voters approve the request. And developers generally don’t want to take the risk of having a request like that go to a vote. 

Poway 

Poway, a much smaller city than Escondido, saw no progress toward its very low-income and low-income housing goals last year, according to its progress report. 

The city has a total RHNA target of 1,319 units, and it’s so far permitted 665 units – roughly 50 percent of its goal. 

In fact, in the above moderate category, Poway has exceeded its goal by around 60 units, permitting around 400 homes for people with above moderate incomes. It’s also made way for 180 moderate-income units, about 75 percent of its goal. 

But the same can’t be said for some of the lower income levels. In 2025, the city did not make way for homes for people with very low- or low-incomes. In this cycle, the city has permitted 68 low-income units and only 15 very low-income units. 

Julie Procopio, Poway’s development services director, said in an email that a project with 60 lower income units will be permitted soon. 

Poway’s controversial in-lieu fee: One possible reason for the city’s slow progress when it comes to lower income housing is its in-lieu fee. 

This is the fee developers can pay to the city instead of including affordable units in their projects. The money can be used to subsidize the construction of units for people with low incomes. It currently stands at $500 per unit, which is the lowest such fee in San Diego County.   

Most of the developers who have built projects in Poway in the last 10 years have opted to pay the in-lieu fee instead of including affordable units in their projects. That garnered scrutiny from some residents who wondered if the low fee wasn’t incentivizing developers to build affordable housing. 

Procopio previously told me the city is planning to hire an outside consultant to study whether the fee should be updated. Once the study is complete, she said, the City Council will decide whether to raise the fee.  

She said in an email that the RFP (request for proposals) for the in-lieu fee study is being finalized and will go to council in May. 

A Note: North County Mayors Don’t Like This Whole Thing

I’ve spoken to a few public officials around North County about their dislike of the RHNA system.  

Leaders of cities in Escondido, Solana Beach, Del Mar and more believe their respective cities were assigned unattainable RHNA targets.  

I mentioned earlier that RHNA numbers are handed down from the state, and then SANDAG, the region’s transportation agency, allocates those numbers to each city. But some city leaders, like Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner, believe the system is flawed. 

She previously told Voice of San Diego that SANDAG allocated numbers based on public transit and jobs and did not factor in land area or population size. 

Del Mar officials have a similar criticism. Del Mar Mayor Tracy Martinez said during a City Council meeting last year that the city got stuck with high RHNA numbers because SANDAG included the temporary and seasonal jobs at the Del Mar Fairgrounds into its calculations. 

Some public officials are now calling for RHNA reform, so stay tuned. 

In Other News 

• Residents in Del Mar are fighting to stop the installation of a temporary fence at a construction site on the coastal bluffs. Crews are working on drainage improvements as part of ongoing railroad bluff stabilization efforts, but residents worry it will restrict beach access. (Union-Tribune) 

• CSU San Marcos and Southwestern College have removed memorials associated with César Chávez after accounts recently surfaced of Chávez allegedly sexually assaulting multiple women. (KPBS) 

• The city of Encinitas is increasing fees for nuisance fire alarms, or false alarms, in an effort to reduce strain on public safety resources. (Coast News) 

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