NATIONAL CITY, Calif. — National City is working to create new housing and held a housing density workshop Thursday to discuss options.
Mayor Ron Morrison said nearly every housing unit in the city is full which puts the city's vacancy rate close to zero. With much of the city already developed, the only option is to build higher. The city also has one of the lowest homeowner rates in San Diego County.
"A lot of cities have what they call their urban reserves which is open spaces," Morrison said. "Our urban reserves is the weeds behind the backstop at the little league field. There are no open spaces. up is the only way we can go."
As many cities look to build more affordable housing, National City is needing to do the opposite.
"We have so much low-income housing here they say we're kind of out of balance on that. While other cities are being given a lot of low-income housing the numbers for us are actually for the above-moderate," he said.
The city is looking to construct several buildings, around four to six stories, around Highland Avenue, Fourth, Eighth, 16th and 30th Street. There are concerns parking will be negatively effected if more people move to National City.
"It's gonna get crowded. It's gonna get crowded quickly. Not all of our residents are happy about all of this because we are so crowded already but it's what the state is coming down on us with," he said.
The mayor says the city has about 18,000 housing units and will need to build about 5,000 more units within the next eight years. Next week the city plans to talk about how new housing will impact their climate action plan.
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