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SOHO Leads Effort on Adaptive Reuse Ordinance
May/June 2022
 Sisters of Mercy Hospital Annex in San Diego’s Hillcrest community, adaptively reused as Better Buzz Coffee Roasters. Photo by Sandé Lollis, 2018 |
Alongside preservation stakeholders and community activists, SOHO is spearheading substantial and growing support for the City of San Diego to develop and implement an adaptive reuse ordinance (ARO), similar to those in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and Long Beach. The reuse of older buildings benefits the City’s climate action and housing priorities while supporting historic preservation, neighborhood revitalization, and a circular economy.*
San Diego’s older building stock is an underused asset with regulatory and zoning barriers that block its full potential. An adaptive reuse ordinance would provide welcome incentives, flexibility, regulatory relief, and technical assistance to unlock the full potential of older buildings by identifying areas with the highest reuse opportunities, creating adaptive reuse overlay zones, and establishing alternative building code regulations.
Since an ARO would help retain buildings, and their adaptive reuse would support affordable housing, sustainability, and historic preservation, SOHO recently collected support letters and submitted them to promote an ARO during the annual Land Development Code update process (ended March 31, 2022). This will be an ongoing effort until the City adopts an ARO.
Please see the sample letter below and join SOHO in supporting this effort! Feel free to sign the letter as is or to personalize it. Either way, send your letter to SOHOSanDiego@aol.com. We will include it in our next request to the City to adopt an ARO.
Sample support letter HERE (editable Word doc).
For further information about the workings and benefits of AROs, see links below.
*According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “A circular economy reduces material use, redesigns materials to be less resource intensive, and recaptures ‘waste’ as a resource to manufacture new materials and products.”
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