Supporters say the proposals to transform Hillcrest and University City with high-rise homes are ‘desperately needed’ to alleviate a housing crisis.
Proposals to potentially double the populations of Hillcrest and University City by allowing high-rise housing in more places got unanimous approval Thursday from the San Diego City Council’s housing committee.
Those unanimous 4-0 and 3-0 approvals, which came despite ardent protests from residents about gentrification and congestion, signal that the proposals are likely to be OK’d by the full nine-member council in July.
Council members said the two neighborhoods are ideal for high-rise housing and dense development because they are already job centers in appealing locations with strong demand for housing.
“Both Hillcrest and University City are amongst the few areas with a high propensity for homes and services,” said Councilmember Kent Lee, whose district includes University City.
Councilmember Stephen Whitburn said it makes sense to add significantly more housing in both neighborhoods because San Diego is experiencing a housing crisis that threatens everyone, young and old.
“The reality is San Diego’s high housing costs are pricing out residents who live here, sometimes with tragic consequences,” said Whitburn, referring to seniors on fixed incomes who become homeless. “I want our city to embrace our older San Diegans who retired here and our younger San Diegans who want to stay here.”
Other supporters of the plans have characterized Hillcrest and University City as the two city neighborhoods that could best be described as second downtowns for San Diego.
Council members and city officials stressed that both plans are 30-year visions that are unlikely to have immediate impacts that would damage community character.
A similar update to the growth blueprint for downtown approved in 2000 allowed housing for 90,000 new residents — but 24 years later, the neighborhood has added fewer than half that many people.
A new growth blueprint approved for Kearny Mesa in 2020 allows 20,000 new homes. So far, none have been built.
Both plans allow dense development in dozens of new places, but officials said that’s to give developers a lot of choices in the hopes they will at least take advantage of a few.
“Planning capacity is extremely different than housing production,” said Heidi Vonblum, the city’s planning director. “These are long-range plans that are built on assumptions. This plans for the opportunity for things to occur, but certainly does not mandate anything to occur.”
Supporters also stressed that residential areas in both neighborhoods would be mostly preserved.
More than 95 percent of the new housing proposed for University City is in the community’s northern section near the trolley line, leaving mostly single-family-zoned south University City relatively unchanged in some ways.
The high-rises proposed for Hillcrest are allowed only in community commercial areas, not areas zoned exclusively residential.
The proposal for University City would add more than 64,200 residents, nearly doubling the neighborhood’s current population of 65,400. It would do that by adding just over 30,000 housing units.
It would also aim to add about 72,000 new jobs by changing zoning in many places to allow developers to build 20 million more square feet of commercial projects.
The proposal for Hillcrest would add 17,000 new homes, some of them in buildings with 20 stories or more. It would swell the population of Uptown — a wider area that also includes University Heights, Mission Hills and Bankers Hill — from about 40,000 to more than 100,000 by 2050.
Many residents in both neighborhoods raised concerns about gentrification, congestion, evacuation routes and insufficient parks.
Other key concerns for opponents are plans for major street changes in both neighborhoods.
In Hillcrest, the new blueprint would make Robinson and University avenues one-way streets between First Avenue and 10th Avenue, with Robinson traffic moving east and University traffic moving west.
In University City, Governor Drive — the main east-west route in the southern part of the neighborhood — would be narrowed from four car lanes to two car lanes to make way for bicycle lanes.
“There is no need to double the density of the past accepted development plan for Hillcrest,” said Jacque Lynn Foltyn. “We don’t need a second downtown, and there’s already gridlock on University and Washington at rush hours.”
Jane Hargrove in University City raised similar concerns.
“It proposes Governor Drive be two lanes, which would cause horrendous congestion and deadly circumstances if we needed to evacuate,” she said.
But some residents were more upbeat.
“This plan will allow more housing, expand transportation choices, create new public spaces and help meet our climate goals,” said Council District 3 resident Erick Vieyra of the Hillcrest plan. “All of these changes are desperately needed by the city of San Diego and must be treated as a priority.”
But the outgoing planning group for Hillcrest and the neighboring area, Uptown Planners, was harshly critical. The group is being replaced by a more development-friendly community planning group.
“This proposal would not materially address the city’s housing affordability crisis but rather worsen it, due to the incentivized loss of naturally occurring affordable housing and higher rents that will result from instantly increased land values,” the group said in a statement.
The planning group for University City lobbied for a plan with less density. They suggested adding a more modest 22,500 homes instead of 64,000, and 55,000 jobs instead of 72,000.
For details on the Hillcrest proposal, visit planhillcrest.org.
For details on the University City proposal, visit planuniversity.org.