As a land planning consultant in San Diego County, I feel compelled to chime in. Yes, it’s true we are running out of buildable land. Many cities within SD County will reach “buildout” within the next 10 to 20 years.
However, in my opinion, this is not a reason for the current run up in prices. It’s an argument made by many in the real estate profession but it’s not yet affecting prices.
There are many current reasons why it’s difficult to build in San Diego County (most of them biological) and that definitley does effect current prices. This is one of the reasons that San Diego real estate will always be more expensive than other parts of the country.
Another reason is that most people feel compelled to oppose any new development (after their house has been built of course). This just makes it harder and more costly to build.
And as PD mentioned political pressure will only increase as we approach buildout. The State is already putting pressure on individual cities to increase densities. They threaten to not approve the Housing Elements of city’s General Plans if enough isn’t done to increase the density of projects. So this may become an issue as we approach buildout but if it does, there will still have to be some sort of balance between wages and housing prices.
My own thinking is that if the cities were actually properly planning around growth, they would have allocated more business areas in North County because of the impact on traffic congestion. But, that hasn’t been the case…. Can someone enlighten me?
A couple of things here: One is that city’s grow very slowly. Many cities around a large metropolitan area like downtown San Diego start out as bedroom communities as land near the city core is developed. Then slowly, retail and all the services follow.
Many of the cities in SD County grew relatively on their own until all cities were forced to draw up a General Plan that defined all land in the City. Also, the City and/or County are not developers. There still must be some sort of demand for a use and the property owner must have the means or willingness to meet that demand. Obviously in hind sight it would have been nice to have huge employment centers in North County, but growth doesn’t always work that way.
