On June 26, 2024, the Council for the City of Encinitas (City) approved the formation of an Affordable Housing Task Force (AHTF) led by Mayor Tony Kranz (Chair) and Deputy Mayor Allison Blackwell (Co-Chair) to pursue sites for a City-led 100% affordable housing development with a minimum of 45 affordable units comparable to the 45 units being considered for a City-owned parcel at 634 Quail Gardens Drive also known as the Quail Gardens Park or L-7. However, there were several significant challenges with the L-7 site leading to the idea of forming a task force to explore other sites in the city. In addition to extraordinarily strong local opposition by citizens, the financial feasibility was very poor, and the L-7 site provided negligible help with meeting state housing law goals. In addition to providing the land, valued at $10 million to $15 million dollars, the L-7 site would have also required a minimum city subsidy of between $4.9M and $6.1M to be a financially viable project. Hence, the AHTF mission was created to identify and evaluate all potential city-owned sites for 100% affordable housing.

A rubric or set of selection criteria was developed that became an essential part of the process to identify, evaluate, and rank potential affordable housing sites. The city did not provide a comprehensive list of privately owned housing sites. The AHTF engaged in an iterative process, where the criteria and scoring were tested and the Site Rubric was further refined by the AHTF. This iterative and collaborative process helped the AHTF identify potential sites, score, rank and eliminate sites. At the September 17th, September 24th, and October 15th AHTF meetings the task force ranked and scored the potential sites as a group. In addition, the AHTF provided individual scores for each site that were also included in the median site selection ranking. This approach allowed for each AHTF member’s perspective to be considered.

After weekly meetings held since late June the AHTF identified four sites that scored the hightest and deemed to be the best for locating affordable housing:

1. The city owned Public Works site behind the In-and-Out Burger on Calle Magdalena
2. City Hall
3. The North County Transit District (NCTD) station and parking lot located off of Vulcan Avenue
4. A combination of City Hall and the NCTD property

The L-7 site at 634 Quail Gardens Drive was part of a group of Other Sites Considered but it scored low against the criteria that made up the rubric.

If you are interested in hearing what actions the council takes then it is highly recommended that you attend and speak at the council meeting on November 20th at a special meeting starting at 4 PM. The current council will receive the report and it is unclear what if any actions are taken.