According to the latest Pew Research Center data, nearly 40 percent of adults in the U.S. are now unpartnered and mostly live alone.
Hence, three- to four-story, smaller housing units/condos with elevators (for retirees) would be ideal for downtown SLO—as long as a Trader Joe’s were close by! And if needed, occupants could purchase a permanent parking space in the new parking structure to be built on Nipomo Street downtown. Converting empty shops/office space would also be ideal for this project.
As all SLO residents can see, the growing number of three-story row-homes being constructed off of Madonna Road and Highway 101 all require the use of a car, as do the Righetti Ranch and Avila Ranch housing units—unless owners work from home, have groceries delivered, and take a city bus that runs once/hour. And none of these developments have room for granny units in their backyards. Hence, this type of row-housing is OK for families, but not for active singles. Finally, many cities are now permitting just a certain number of Airbnbs/VRBOs in neighborhoods; this maintains housing units for residents and not visitors.
This is “my take” on how to create better housing options for SLO!
Donna Shanske
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in May 11-21, 2023.
This is a great idea.. I would like to see significant financial incentives for the developers to make it worthwhile for them to build more intelligently. Like everything else, it comes down to money.
Really, you need a car to get to Madonna Plaza from the new development on Madonna Rd. The plaza has healthcare, groceries, banking and more.
That’s an awesome idea. Remove the parking minimums for downtown construction and make spots available (for rent) in the new garage downtown. Each parking space costs developers about $23,000 remove that from downtown construction and you have all the incentive you need. For those who want a car, rent a spot in the downtown garage. For those without cars.. .BAM affordable (not low income) housing!
If you want to know why more houses are being built than rental apartments, look at the impact of California’s landlord/tenant laws which make it so hard to be a landlord, and discourage the building of more rental property. Evicting deadbeat tenants is a long, expensive process, and restrictions on credit reporting make it hard to know who the deadbeats are. You are often forced to pay off deadbeats to get them to leave. Rental control limits your profits, but not your potential loses. New law requires renting to Section 8 tenants. This list goes on and on. If someone has money to invest, why would you use it to buy problems by investing in rental property? These legal restrictions sounded great to tenants when they were passed, but now they’re suffering the reaction
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