The Mayor’s Planning Department Knowingly Using Outdated 2013 SANDAG Projections for Current Community Plan “Updates”
Last December, SANDAG adopted Series 14 projections for population and housing growth through 2050. These projections take into account the latest California Department of Finance population projections. Despite the availability of these updated projections, the Planning Department continues to plan based on outdated, inflated data. This leads to unnecessary, harmful impacts.
For the City as a whole, the new SANDAG Series 14 data projects 132,000 less people living in San Diego in 2050 versus Series 13 numbers. That is 19 percent population growth versus 28 percent population growth previously expected.
SANDAG Series 14 projections are available by community planning area, where the differences versus Series 13 can be huge. The College Area is a great example.
The Planning Department is using a SANDAG Series 13 projection of 49,000 people in 2050, while Series 14 data projects 34,000 people – 15,000 or 31 percent fewer.
For housing, the outdated Series 13 projections call for 18,000 total units, while the Series 14 data calls for under 14,000 units – a decrease of 4,000 housing units or 24 percent, which even alleviates a substantial amount of overcrowding. To make matters worse, the Planning Department has proposed two plans for the College Area which include 10,000 and 20,000 new housing units while the Series 14 data project the community will only need an additional 5000 housing units in 2050 on top of the 8,700 units they had in 2020. The Planning Department is producing plans based on inflated, outdated projections and overreaching even those goals.
The demographic projections are also significantly different. The outdated Series 13 projections expected almost 13,000 children 0-19 in 2050, a 110 percent increase over 2020, whereas the current Series 14 projections are for 8600 children, only a 9 percent increase over 2020.
Would you budget for 2022 based on 2013 information? Of course not. A data-driven government would use the most recent information available. The Mayor’s Planning Department must “update” community plans based on the most accurate projections available!
Dana Givot, Concerned Resident of the City of San Diego
Category: featured, Government, Local News
