How to make San Diego more affordable? Mayor Gloria is betting on this kind of housing

San Diego is launching an effort to make its pricey single-family neighborhoods more affordable to young families by rezoning some properties to allow duplexes, cottages, townhomes and bungalow courts.

City officials say the cheaper options would blend well visually with single-family homes and create more options for middle-income families beyond renting apartments in towers or saving for single-family homes they might never afford.

Mayor Todd Gloria said it’s fortunate the new housing options the city needs are similar enough in size to single-family homes that they won’t damage neighborhood character by adding startlingly large structures.

“It’s intended to be a gentle form of density,” Gloria told The San Diego Union-Tribune on Tuesday, contending the new zoning would help more talented young people stay in the city. “We have to signal to these people that they are wanted and welcome here.”

San Diego’s recent efforts to solve its housing crisis have focused mostly on encouraging the development of high-rise and mid-rise apartment buildings, mostly on the outer edges of single-family neighborhoods.

While Gloria said he’s proud of those efforts and believes they have reduced rents in some neighborhoods by increasing the housing supply, the mayor said San Diego must help people who prefer to live within single-family areas.

Those opportunities would be created by the city rezoning some properties in single-family neighborhoods to ...