The city of Carlsbad has created more than 2,300 below-median-income homes in the three decades since the launch of its housing trust, according to an annual report presented to the City Council on Feb. 6.
The trust fund was established in April 1993 under the city’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance, which mandated that new residential projects with more than six units reserve 15% of the total number of their homes for low-income households, or satisfy all or part of the requirement through fees. The Housing Trust Fund is used to confirm that fees collected are applied to lower-income housing.
In fiscal year 2022-23, Carlsbad used more than $4.5 million for various projects geared toward housing and services for those earning between 30% and 80% of the region’s median income, which was $116,800 in 2023, according to San Diego County figures.
According to the staff report, Carlsbad’s Housing Trust Fund spent $4,503,588 on:
✔ New affordable housing: $4,087,226
✔ Tyler Court (senior complex) maintenance: $84,002
✔ Preservation of affordable housing: $20,647
✔ Homeless services: $55,990
✔ Administration: $155,723
✔ Other administrative support: $100,000
The report also noted the start of construction in April 2023 on the $36 million, 70-unit Aviara affordable-housing development in partnership with the county’s Housing and Community Development Services Department.
“Partnering to build affordable housing is more important than ever, across our entire region,” Nick Macchione, the county’s director of Health and Human Services, said in a news release at the time.
Although housing trust funds have been in use since the 1970s, Carlsbad was at the forefront of the trend by 1993, when there were fewer than 200 such trust funds in the United States, according to the nonprofit Housing Trust Fund Project. Today, there are nearly 800 state, city and county trust funds across 47 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.
A California statewide fund was created in 1985, according to a Housing Trust Fund Project document. The city of San Diego launched its housing trust fund in 1990. The county launched its Innovative Housing Trust Fund in 2017.
