City officials in Newport Beach recently lowered the amount of affordable housing required in multi-family housing projects proposed for an area near John Wayne Airport and say the change could help the city’s goal of getting more projects with lower-priced housing built.
During a recent meeting, a majority of councilmembers voted to reduce the required affordable housing percentage for people looking to develop properties in a 145-acre office and industrial area built out in the 1970s. With the reduction in the percentage required, city officials anticipate it might bring in more developers to build in the area
Newport Beach, like so many cities, faces a state mandate that it ramp up its lower-income housing stock over the next decade.
“It’s maddening to be given such a mandate to build so many units when clearly, for this town, it’s extremely challenging,” Councilmember Brad Avery said. “It’s extremely challenging, given our price of real estate. We’re on time with our plan; we’re trying to build more, but it’s just not going to happen. There just isn’t the land or market to do it.”
In 2006, during a review of the city’s general plan, it was decided that if a developer wanted to build residential properties in the office and industrial area near the airport a requirement that 30% of the units be affordable made sense.
But more recently, while reviewing the city’s overall needs for housing – now at about 10,000 more units – city staffers found that a comprehensive study of what percentage of affordable properties should be considered citywide was never done.
“It was never studied; no one anticipated housing projects in that part of the airport area,” said Assistant City Manager Seimone Jurjis. “Newport Beach also does not have an inclusionary requirement anywhere else. So when we got the state mandate for more affordable housing, we should come up with an inclusionary plan citywide.”
In 2022, the city hired a consultant…
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