Key facts
- Gloria said permit reviews for affordable and transit-oriented projects now average about nine days.
- San Diego historically issued about 4,000 new-home permits a year, Gloria said.
- Gloria said roughly half of permit complaints to his office traced to private-side delays.
- San Diego's state housing assignment is 108,000 new homes over about eight years.
- Gloria said his internal target is roughly 15,000 homes a year, near late-1970s output.
- Gloria said a lot-subdivision and condo plan, Neighborhood Homes for All of Us, is still moving through the local process.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said executive orders and staffing changes have cut permit review times for key housing projects to an average of about nine days, from months or sometimes years, and have roughly doubled the city's annual housing production. He made the comments in an interview with HousingWire Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler on the HousingWire Daily podcast, published on November 12, 2026.
The first executive order, issued in 2023, directed staff to process all affordable housing applications in 30 days or less; Gloria said those reviews now average about nine days. A second order extended the 30-day target to all transit-oriented development projects, which he said are also turned around in roughly nine days. The city backs the timelines with additional staff and fee-supported resources in its permitting, planning and economic development departments.
Gloria said the reforms have been more about people than technology, though COVID-era remote work pushed San Diego to adopt electronic plan submission and consolidated digital files. That let departments review applications in parallel and track whether a file is waiting on a city reviewer or on an architect or contractor. He said roughly half of the complaints about stalled permits that reached his office turned out to be delays on the private side.
Gloria said San Diego historically issued about 4,000 new-home permits a year, then roughly 10,000 two years before the interview and more than 8,000 to 9,000 in the year before it. Most of that building has been infill, transit-oriented multifamily rental development rather than greenfield expansion. He said the production is starting to flatten or reduce rents, while homelessness, affordability and access to homeownership remain challenges.