Across California’s San Diego County, people are struggling to find affordable housing, and homelessness is an important and pressing challenge. In 2023, the point-in-time data for the San Diego region had more than 10,000 individuals living unsheltered, in emergency shelters, or in transitional housing. Although potentially developable land may be available for additional housing units, finding the right parcel for the right development takes time. A mapping tool that expedites the site selection process for affordable housing development could help.
With this idea in mind, ULI members in San Diego–Tijuana turned to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and its Homelessness Hub for partnership, research, and technical support. The Homelessness Hub, a new research entity in the university’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, examines the causes, complications, and consequences of homelessness. The Homelessness Hub “collaborates with researchers and [with] advocates from across the non-profit, academic, and public sectors, as well as with people who have direct experience of homelessness, to identify solutions that promote health, dignity, and housing for all.”
Through this unique collaboration, ULI and the research team at the Hub created a process by which they could map development potential by using a bespoke database of available parcels ranked by relative ease of development. To create the database and code the digital map, a team consisting of a UCSD professor and three graduate students worked with ULI member leaders and staff to identify and quantify the information that typically influences the cost and feasibility of development.
The mapping team began with a list of all real estate parcels in San Diego County and assembled the related zoning information and other publicly accessible and quantifiable conditions that could influence the cost of development. By tapping into ULI’s extensive network of developers in the region, the team spent considerable time in conversation with affordable housing developers to identify and quantify additional factors that could influence development decisions, costs, and potential success. Factors detailed by the developers also included a thoughtful assumption and projection of community acceptance of new affordable housing on a site. Combined, the developers’ insights led to a ranking system, which was layered atop the foundational data to create a more holistic view of site development potential.
This all-in-one resource provides information on parcels throughout San Diego County and its 19 municipalities. The interactive tool delivers information about potentially developable sites—including a wide range of publicly accessible information such as zoning and entitlements. The uniquely powerful aspect of this map is its layering of developers’ insights regarding the relative ease of developing in various neighborhoods. This ability to map potential NIMBY (not in my back yard) attitudes in San Diego County can help speed the development of affordable housing in areas where new housing of this type will be more readily accepted.
The mapping tool is free to use and accessible on the ULI San Diego and UCSD Homelessness Hub websites. Initial access to the map includes a pop-up survey designed to capture usability preferences and identify new features for consideration in future map iterations. The university team and its ULI counterparts are also exploring additional data sets, starting with other publicly accessible information, that could add more power to the mapping tool. The potential also exists, through a partnership with a local software firm, to layer a structure template into the mapping features. This additional layer could allow a user to select a potential site and place a virtual building form onto that parcel, thus kickstarting the visioning for a future project.
The database portal was designed to import data automatically from public sources, yet the fluidity of this type of database management can prove challenging. The database is hosted on UCSD digital servers and has the firm commitment of the Homelessness Hub research team to ensure that the content remains current over time.
ULI members led the public outreach around the tool’s launch and focused initial conversations with the real estate development community and municipal leadership. ULI’s early goal has been getting the mapping tool in the hands of decision-makers active across southern California to gather feedback on how they use the information and how to improve the tool with additional data sets and features. With this information, the university team can continue to build layers into the mapping interface and increase the flexibility and depth of information delivered over time.
With a shortage of affordable housing in the region and an ever-growing population of unhoused or housing-insecure individuals and families, it is critically important that the public sector and the development community can quickly identify development-ready sites in areas where the community may more readily accept additional affordable or supportive housing. With two area shelters closed at the end of 2024 and a 2023 camping ban on publicly owned land, more housing is needed, and time is of the essence.
Editor’s note: ULI San Diego–Tijuana, along with four other district councils (ULI Louisiana, ULI Philadelphia, ULI San Antonio, and ULI San Francisco), received a Homeless to Housed (H2H) local technical assistance grant to explore real estate–driven solutions to homelessness. As a part of ULI’s Terwilliger Center for Housing, H2H works to catalyze the production and preservation of deeply affordable supportive housing to end the U.S. homelessness crisis. The work is made possible with the generous support of Carolyn and Preston Butcher and a growing number of ULI members.
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- Putting Housing First for Philadelphia’s Families in Need
- The Power of Housing and Transportation in San Antonio’s Vulnerable Communities
- Underused Land May Be the Key to Housing San José’s Unsheltered Residents
