In recent years, San Diegans have invested billions in trolley lines, the SPRINTER, and COASTER upgrades. But outdated regulations that prevent new homes from being built near stations mean fewer people will be able to use them — and the outcome is predictable: underused transit, congested freeways, and working families pushed out of the region.
Senate Bill 79, a proposed law under consideration in the state legislature, would change that by making it legal to build apartments near frequent transit stops.
For years, highly restrictive housing rules have kept new homes from being built near transit. At the El Cajon trolley stop, for example, empty parking lots dominate where housing could go.
Just one stop away is sprawling Grossmont Medical Center, whose nurses struggle to afford housing. A typical nurse’s salary can support roughly a $340,000 mortgage, while La Mesa’s median home price is in the $800,000 to $900,000 range.
The housing math does not work, so nurses must stretch their budgets, commute long distances, or leave San Diego. Workers shouldn’t have to choose between financial ruin and a reasonable commute.
This problem also extends to new trolley stations on the Blue Line up to UC San Diego. When neighborhoods near University City ban modest apartments, then universities and hospitals struggle to hire, and graduates depart for more affordable regions, taking talent and tax base with them.
These shortages are not an accident. Rules from the 1960s created a patchwork where some stations allow apartments nearby while others ban them outright. This disorganized system doesn’t benefit San Diego.
The ripple effects are everywhere: teachers switch districts for housing they can afford, and restaurants lose staff. Young people are priced out of the communities they grew up in, forced to move away, and become isolated from their friends and family.
SB 79 flips the presumption: moderately scaled apartments (about six stories) near existing frequent trolley or train stops would be allowed by default. Cities keep control over design standards and affordability rules, and projects must include homes for lower-income residents. This aligns with local climate goals by reducing car trips and climate pollution when homes are built near existing transit.
Opponents argue that more housing near transit will worsen traffic. Evidence shows the opposite: people living near transit drive less, while long-distance commutes clog freeways. If growth is blocked in high-demand neighborhoods, demand spills into farther, cheaper areas, raising rents and lengthening commutes. Research indicates that allowing new housing near transit is associated with a lower risk of displacement compared to blocking it.
San Diego already knows the solution. The city of San Diego’s Complete Communities program and San Diego’s regional planning agency’s own plans both call for more homes near transit corridors. SB 79 removes legal barriers that slow or stop those plans.
The choice is clear: keep following outdated rules that push workers out of our communities and clog our highways with soul-crushing traffic and pollution, or allow housing near the transit we have already paid for. It’s time to stop planning the future using the policies of the past.
San Diegans need homes near jobs and schools. SB 79 makes it legal to build them.
Eadie DeMarcus is the vice president of the YIMBY Democrats of San Diego County and grew up in East County, and now resides in San Diego.
