San Diego housing package doesn’t solve crisis, but it’s a good start
I applaud the City Council for ing Housing Action Package 2.0 to make tangible progress on supply and affordability issues strangling San Diego (“San Diego OKs sweeping package of new incentives to build housing,” Dec. 21, La Jolla Light).
The package’s zoning changes, incentives for developers and streamlining of regulations will accelerate building new homes. With over 97,000 new units still required to meet state goals, San Diego must take an all-hands-on-deck approach. More density and relaxed restrictions are key to making housing financially viable.
The off-siting allowances for affordable housing sparked reasonable concerns over segregation. However, the status quo is already exclusionary. And if housing projects with rent-restricted units stall without this offsite flexibility, then we guarantee even more exclusion. This plan charts a middle path incentivizing more affordable housing overall.
We must continue to ensure investments in subsidized housing and tenant protections. But the root crisis remains undersupply and lack of density. Unaffordability, inequality and segregation all flow from this failure. Therefore, it’s crucial that we integrate our single-family neighborhoods so that more affordable fourplexes, townhomes and low-rise apartments can be built there.
This package alone won’t solve the complex affordability crisis, but it does move us to a more inclusive city. I urge the council to begin working on more ambitious reforms in 2024 reflecting the crisis’s magnitude.
Saad Asad
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Health care providers need their shots
As an 82-year-old elderly woman, I am very concerned about getting COVID-19 or the flu, as they are very threatening to my life.
I have had the most recent COVID shot for the current variant going around San Diego. And I have had the flu shot. I find it extremely discouraging trying to find health care facilities like dentists and other practices who have had their shots to help prevent COVID and/or flu. I don’t feel safe entering these offices where they will be working on me in close proximity without having the extra precaution of them having the shots.
I highly encourage all people working at a health care facility to get the most recent COVID and flu shots to help protect the elderly population.
I would like any dentist and dental hygienist in La Jolla who has had the recent COVID and flu shots to me for an appointment at [email protected].
Leanne MacDougall
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No thanks for thank-you merchandise
To the nonprofits and charitable organizations to which I contribute (you know who you are):
At holiday time (and my birthday), please do not send me a thank you for my which includes a logo’d calendar or mug or plaque or tote bag or coasters or blanket or any dust-collecting knickknack!
While I’m at it, I do not need an impersonal birthday card preprinted with the organization’s name and addressed by a robo machine.
All I need or want is the IRS form letter acknowledging my contribution. Please do not waste resources including money, time and postage on these unwanted items. If you have sufficient funds for them, then maybe you do not need my contribution after all.
PS: If you think a contributor does want a tangible item, consider emulating some national organizations that list a number of “gifts” on a thank-you note that the recipient may request online.
Lynn Schenk
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