Should this be considered Cortez Hill? It's down the hill a bit from where I live. I would consider this the Core if anything. Could be wrong.

Also, it's really a shame that the Beechwood 'hotel' is going to stay. That place is disgusting and really brings down the area. The units facing Beech on floors 2 & 3 are going to have horrible values because of it.

I understand there is a need for this kind of housing but that does not mean there shouldn't be some sort of effort to consolidate and regulate.

$402,000 per unit :koko: Affordable housing that we can't afford.

I've never understood how goverments think building small numbers of units below market rates does anything to help affordable housing - other than giving themselves a pat on the back after its built. It helps a small amount of people once, but never addresses (or actually worsens) the real factors that create long term unaffordability.

Mixed income with greater density would be a better solution.

I know these are rentals, but does anyone else think that "affordable housing" should be rental only?

They've started replacing the street lights downtown. It should be completed in a few months. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/tech...242447791.html

I really love the look of the new streetlights already installed around the new library and East Village. Nice addition.

Some pretty interesting renderings of the Rad Lab over on, http://www.civicsd.com/images/storie..._Quartyard.pdf

I think affordable housing is a failure, but if it must be built, it should absolutely be rental only.

I'd prefer government really address why housing is expensve rather than keep the status quo and help tiny fraction of residents get way below market housing.

Yes. Perhaps the city could provide some sort of incentives (faster permits, reduced parking requirements, etc) to developers to create 1000's of bare bones market rate units.

Yep. Parking should never be mandated. If a developer wants to undertake underground parking construction and pass that on to their buyers, fine. But some people cannot or do not want to pay for parking.

And why is the city funded by development fees, rather than taxes? Apparently they are going up in downtown to reach almost $10k per dwelling? Ridiculous.

It seems like the cheapest you can get a 1bd condo in downtown (cortez, or upper east village) is $200k. By reducing permitting fees, development fees, and eliminating parking requirements, I bet you could hack $15-20k off the price. Saving 1-2 thousand households $20k does a lot more to make housing affordable than building 50 apartments while reducing affordability for the rest of the city.

Good points but the most common estimates I see for the cost of building underground parking is between $30,000 - $40,000 per space.

Huge developments in Pacific beach

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfQaQXaCQAAO4Bl.jpg:large

Those racks are too tall. Public referendum on bicycle rack heights in coastal zones!

Yeah, those have to be approved by the Coastal Commission. Bicycles will bring riff-raff into the area, and bring down property values.

Source? Because holy shit I didn't know it was that high. Amazing that development fees and parking requirements could be addin $40-50k per unit. When you look at the lower priced condos downtown, that's a massive chunk of the total price.

But it's ok, because instead of addressing those issues, SD will just build 50 overpriced affordable housing units LOL

Parking is incredibly expensive. Surface a parking is usually estimated at 5k per stall. Above ground starts at 10-15k and goes up the higher you go. Underground starts at 25-30k and goes up the deeper you go.

Unnecessary parking is a killer. Especially in urban environments. Parking requirements should really be flexible and dynamic. Ideas like shared parking where the same stall serves office and retail in the day, residential at night.

A few cities, DC and Portland come to mind, are allowing parking free development and this is a big deal. Unfortunately I don't think San Diego is ready for that in any volume. Business isnt concentrated enough around public transit. :/

Actually, Portland just passed a city ordinance that requires all new residential buildings that have over a certain number of units to REQUIRE parking... :yuck:





.....thanks to NIMBYs.....

Admittedly I am not in the development or construction industry, so these are just estimates I've read when reading about smart-growth. Also, these are just the construction costs and do not include the indirect costs of parking that everyone pays-- whether or not they have a car-- such as energy costs to light and heat (not an issue in SD)/air-condition the garage, deeper elevator shafts and the incremental costs to run and maintain the elevators that serve parking garages within residential buildings, etc...

1) The trouble with minimum parking requirements. "We can estimate this cost by taking into account the number of required parking spaces and the cost per space. Appendix A presents evidence that aboveground structured parking often costs about US$10,000 per space and that underground parking often costs about US$25,000 per space." http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/Trouble.pdf This is from 1999, so adjust construction costs for inflation.

2) Parking Matters: Designing, Operating and Financing Structured Parking in Smart Growth Communities. "Setting aside land costs, surface parking has a typical cost of $2,000 to $3,000 per space. Structured parking (assuming normal soil conditions) has a range of costs from $15,000 to $25,000 per space above ground (assume an average of $20,000 including soft costs), and $30,000 to $40,000 per space below ground (assume an average of $35,000 including soft costs)." http://nnj.uli.org/wp-content/upload...ng-Matters.pdf

3) Parking Structure Technical Report: Challenges, Opportunities, and Best Practices.
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/planning/smart..._Structure.pdf Cost per space ranges from $16,969 to $80,754. (Figure 2.1)

4) "For comparison, surface parking lots typically cost from $3,000 to $4,000 per stall and
underground parking structure costs are around $50,000 per stall." http://www.lbl.gov/Workplace/transpo...emo_012909.pdf

5) "The downside of underground parking is its cost. At roughly twice the construction cost per square foot of an above grade garage, and more square footage needed per car due to the column requirements of short span construction, underground parking can cost $50,000 per stall." http://www.bowdoin.edu/treasurer/pdf...nal-Report.pdf

Yea San Diego needs help with parking ordinances downtown there is no need for so much parking in every new development.

Check out the San Diego Olympics Exploratory Committee website. It has a map of the proposed venues and other info.
http://www.sd2024ec.org