Over the next 30 years or so, the residents of Hillcrest and University City will see a lot more housing construction. But it likely won’t be as much as people who are critical of new long-range plans for those communities fear. That doesn’t mean residents are going to like it any more. On Thursday, a
Over the next 30 years or so, the residents of Hillcrest and University City will see a lot more housing construction. But it likely won’t be as much as people who are critical of new long-range plans for those communities fear.
That doesn’t mean residents are going to like it any more.
On Thursday, a San Diego City Council committee approved community plan updates for University City and Uptown —- which includes Hillcrest, Mission Hills, Bankers Hill and University Heights — that feature eye-popping maximum density thresholds. The plans would allow populations in both areas to about double.
In theory, that may be possible, but the reality almost certainly will be different. To reach those maximums, virtually all the properties would have to be built out to the fullest extent allowable. And that just doesn’t happen.
This isn’t to say buildings of 20 stories or more won’t be built in Hillcrest or that the amount of eventual development won’t stress roads, transit systems, parks and other amenities in both planning areas. Nor does it guarantee the character of the neighborhoods won’t be changed over the projected lives of the three-decade plans, should they gain final approval.
Make no mistake: San Diego elected officials want a lot more development in those areas and elsewhere, in part to avoid a long-term affordable housing shortage the city is currently experiencing.
The plan changes also reflect the ongoing effort to shift from a suburban-commuter culture to more centralized, compact, transit-oriented neighborhoods. Much of the future development is expected to be clustered around transit routes and commercial areas.
The changes likely will be slow in coming.
A plan update for downtown approved in 2000 allowed housing for 90,000 new residents, but as David Garrick of The San Diego Union-Tribune recently pointed out, the neighborhood has added fewer than half that many people 24 years later.
A new growth blueprint approved for Kearny Mesa in 2020 allows 20,000 new homes, but none have been built so far, Garrick added.
Regardless, it’s hard to fault critics for latching on to the maximum development figures for Hillcrest and University City. After all, they are in the plans.
For example, the proposal for Hillcrest allows for up to 218 units per acre in some areas and as many as 290 units per acre in some limited areas. That’s double and nearly triple the existing density allowed now, which is 109 units per acre.
At maximum, the updated community plan for the Uptown area could allow the population to grow from about 40,000 to more than 100,000 by 2050.
The proposal for University City could add more than 64,200 residents to the current population of 65,400.
But “could” is an important word here. City planners and commissioners stressed that notion late last month as the planning commission endorsed the community plan updates.
“Capacity doesn’t always translate to what is actually built,” Planning Commissioner Ted Miyahara said.
Shannon Mulderig, the senior city planner for the Uptown project, added: “The proposal will likely result in mid-rise buildings likely around 15 stories, max, with smaller unit sizes.”
Commissioner Matthew Boomhower, who expressed strong support for the update, nevertheless acknowledged that zoning in some areas “might be a little aggressive.”
What often isn’t discussed are the economics — such as market demands and financing — that can drive development more than zoning. Sometimes building bigger isn’t as profitable or desirable as something smaller. Also, a given property might just not be suitable for maximum density development.
This may not be an exact parallel, but the theory versus reality of the controversial Senate Bill 9 might be instructive here. The bill, carried by state Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, allows up to four housing units on most single-family home lots in California.
Before the bill was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2021, the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley released an analysis of SB 9 that concluded the likely effect would be neither as good as advocates had hoped or as bad as critics feared.
Because of the way development would pencil out, the study found that “the vast amount of single-family parcels across the state would not see any new development,” David Garcia, policy director at the Terner Center, told the Los Angeles Times.
The Terner study found that, under the bill, a total of 714,000 new homes would make financial sense to build, and it would take years to build them — if homeowners wanted to develop or sell their property.
The state has 7.5 million single-family lots, according to the study, which said it would make financial sense for property owners to add those homes on 5.4 percent of those properties — or 410,000 parcels now zoned for only one house.
Development under SB 9 got off to a slow start and then a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles County in April declared the law unconstitutional as it pertains to certain cities. Del Mar was among five cities that filed suit challenging SB 9. It’s unclear what happens next. The state could appeal or lawmakers could try to devise a legislative fix.
This isn’t to say only a small percentage of lots in Uptown and University City will be fully built out, but all of them won’t.
All this context isn’t likely to provide even cold comfort to those worried about how the community plans will alter their neighborhoods.
Big change is coming, but it may not be clear how much for decades.
What they said
The Sacramento Bee
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