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Ben Larson, a San Diego County land use\/environmental planner, discussed the proposed ordinance at the group\u2019s May 7 meeting, saying it was the first of several planned presentations to unincorporated communities before the matter goes to the county\u00a0 Board of Supervisors on June 24.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy goal today isn\u2019t to persuade this group that this is the right thing for Ramona,\u201d Larson said. \u201cMy job today is to explain what is going on and to take this feedback.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Larson said the county\u2019s required number of affordable units for the proposal is 5% to 20% of the total number of units or homes available. The exact percentage per project will be chosen by the Board of Supervisors and may vary by project type, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n The county defines affordable housing as costing no more than 30% of a household\u2019s income. Housing costs include rent or mortgage, utilities, property taxes and insurance, Larson said.<\/span><\/p>\n The average household income in Ramona is $107,400, he said, and the average household size is three people. The county considers very low income $78,750; low income $125,950 and moderate income $149,250.<\/span><\/p>\n Projects that are less than the minimum project size, which has not yet been established, are not required to participate, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n Larson said developers that decide not to add affordable housing to their projects can choose one of four alternative forms of compliance: paying a price-per-square-foot fee based on the unit\u2019s size directly to the county; donating land to the county for future affordable housing development; building affordable housing at an alternative location; or building an accessory dwelling unit.<\/span><\/p>\n Incentives are optional but encourage developers to build affordable units on-site, he said. They include a density bonus that allows developers to exceed current zoned density requirements, and priority review, in which the Supervisors may offer an expedited review on the permitting process for projects that include more affordable housing than the required number of units.<\/span><\/p>\n As an example, Larson highlighted three housing developments in Ramona built since 2017. Had the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance and a 10% low income inclusionary housing requirement been in effect, Village Place Apartments would have had three affordable units, Paseo Village three units and Nickel Creek Townhomes five units, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n Several Planning Group members said they worried that the proposed ordinance would worsen the current \u201cprotracted\u201d review time for new housing developments. And any delayed timeline typically impacts final costs for consumers, they said.<\/span><\/p>\n Lauren Elyse Welty, the group\u2019s chair, asked Larson to clarify what the county is proposing for expedited permitting review for the ordinance.<\/span><\/p>\n She asked how much time the county would take off the permit review process.<\/span><\/p>\n Welty referred to Larson\u2019s three Ramona housing development examples. She said that it took the county \u201can average of nine years\u201d to approve these projects, all between 25 and 45 units.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen a project is designed, it is designed for the market at that time,\u201d Welty said.<\/span><\/p>\n Developers are not dealing with the same numbers nearly a decade later, she added.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are trying to take some efforts to speed up that process because we also agree that timeline is unacceptable,\u201d Larson said. \u201cI think one of the things that we are trying to do, and it may be hard to believe, I know, but try to actually improve the process and make it faster so that kind of thing stops happening.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Planning Group member Jonas Dyer said the county should \u201callow builders to build and do it quickly,\u201d because fees increase when costs are passed down from the builder to the consumer due to extended county review times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere are so many roadblocks to get anything done,\u201d Dyer said. \u201cHousing is so important, and there are people in this town that are trying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The solution must be found with the people of Ramona, the boards, the builders and the county working together, he said, adding, \u201cWe are all linked in this together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Dyer said he believes the county is trying to work on a solution but he will vote against this proposed ordinance.<\/span><\/p>\n Planning group member Dawn Perfect said she is concerned that Ramona may lose local control over land development through the proposed ordinance\u2019s alternative compliance mechanism. With land donations, property will be allocated to outside contractors \u201cthat don\u2019t have community character in their heart the way some of our local people do,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She said the price-per-square-foot fee and land donation options \u201csound like a money grab \u2014 and a land grab.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnd a complicated land grab in that the county grabs that land and then does what they want, in their pace, in their style and we end up with stuff that\u2019s just plunked down in Ramona that\u2019s not necessarily Ramona compatible because we\u2019ve lost our local developer\u2019s ability to develop that land and it goes to bigger contractors.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Basil Aruin said he was concerned that \u201cinclusionary zoning requirements have been used to prevent development.\u201d Parcels appropriate for dense, affordable housing often end up as single-family homes or one large home because that zoning carries fewer regulatory and planning hurdles, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n Paul Stykel said the proposed ordinance could extend already lengthy permit processes. He referenced Montecito Ranch, a project originally slated for homes nearly two decades ago.<\/span><\/p>\n After struggling for years to secure the necessary permits from the county, the developers ultimately abandoned the project, he said. Hundreds of acres of land were sold to a conservancy, turning the proposed housing site into open space that can never be built on, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n County officials will present the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance over the next few weeks to all area community planning groups: Valley Center on May 11, San Dieguito on May 14, Alpine on May 28 and Sweetwater on June 2.<\/p>\n \u00a0\n <\/p><\/div>\n The Ramona Community Planning Group has expressed concerns that the county\u2019s proposed inclusionary housing ordinance, which would require some affordable housing in new residential developments, could lead to more development delays and increased costs for developers, renters and homeowners. Ben Larson, a San Diego County land use\/environmental planner, discussed the proposed ordinance at the group\u2019s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Ramona-officials-express-concerns-about-county-plans-to-boost-affordable.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30639,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30637\/revisions\/30639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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