Fundamentals of Affordable Housing: Design and Development

Learn the nuts and bolts of affordable housing design and development.

Fundamentals of Affordable Housing: Design and Development is a professional learning series that strengthens sector knowledge through real-world case studies. The series explores how affordable housing projects are designed, financed, approved, and built across San Diego County, with an emphasis on collaboration, problem-solving, and lessons learned.

All sessions are hosted as morning coffee gatherings, creating an accessible and welcoming environment for learning, conversation, and connection.

The program centers the voices of developers, architects, builders, public partners, and residents, offering honest insights into what it takes to move projects from concept to completion.

Why This Series

Affordable housing projects face increasingly complex challenges, including financing constraints, regulatory hurdles, community engagement, and construction realities.

This series creates space for practitioners to learn directly from peers through shared case studies, while strengthening relationships across the disciplines involved in delivering affordable housing.

Program Format

The 2026 series includes three events, all hosted as morning gatherings with coffee. The format is intentionally designed to support informal conversation, peer learning, and relationship building alongside structured discussion.

Architect Panel
A moderated panel featuring leading affordable housing architects, focused on design excellence, feasibility, innovation, and collaboration. Date: Thursday, April 30, 2026, from 9 am - 11 am. More information on the Panel can be found here.

Property Tours and Case Study Conversations
Guided site visits to Ruby Awards-winning or nominated properties. Each tour serves as a live case study with a facilitated conversation on-site. Property tours are still being determined. If you’d like to sponsor or host one, please let us know.

What We Explore

Each property tour focuses on:

• Project vision, goals, and population served

• Development and design approach

• Key challenges during planning, approval, and construction

• How teams navigated tradeoffs and constraints

• Post occupancy reflections, including what worked and what did not

• Lessons learned to inform future projects

Partnership Approach

Participation is collaborative and intentionally designed to be low lift. SDHF handles planning, facilitation, registration, and logistics.

Project teams are invited to share their experience, insights, and lessons learned in a way that feels authentic and manageable.

Contact

For more information, please contact:
Sarah Buchanan, Executive Vice President
sarah@housingsandiego.org