San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
UNIVERSITY CITY RESIDENTS PROTEST HOUSING PROPOSAL
Draft community plan update raises alarms over density
All four corners of a northern San Diego intersection became ground zero Saturday in a long-running dispute over development and density.
The perpetual question of where future residents might live drew more than 100 protesters to the confluence of Governor Drive and Genesee Avenue in University City, where city planners expect to approve tens of thousands of new homes in coming years.
Demonstrators say the neighborhood cannot absorb nearly so many additional units, and complain that city officials like Mayor Todd Gloria and Councilmember Kent Lee are not listening to their concerns.
“The city is proposing 56,000 units to be built in our little community, and none of it is going to be very affordable,” said Nancy Powell, one of the organizers of the Saturday rally. “We’re not against reasonable development. We are against unreasonable development.”
Hoisting signs bearing messages like “Save the UC U Know” and “No Highdensity Housing,” protesters crowded the busy intersection, which hosts gas stations on all four sides.
They remained for three hours while drivers sympathetic to the slower-growth messages honked their horns as they passed by or waited at red lights.
The demonstration aligned with an ongoing update to the University Community Plan, the long-term planning document that guides land-use decisions for the neighborhood in the years to come.
Michael Kozma was carrying a sturdy slab of cardboard reading “Reasonable and Responsible Housing Solutions.”
The University City High School junior said he has long been politically active and was bothered by plans to add so much density to his neighborhood, where traffic is already a problem and his favorite shopping center is proposed for redevelopment that would add hundreds of new homes.
“Realistically, adding 800 units to the Sprouts center is not going to help low-income families,” he said. “This is UC, so at the very least they are going to sell for $900,000 per unit or rent for $3,000 a month.”
Kozma said he was upset that his council representative — Lee — never answered his letter raising questions about the number of homes that could be developed in his neighborhood.
“I’m disappointed in his lack of response,” he said of the District 6 council member.
The University Community Plan was adopted in 1987, but an update process has been in the works for the past several years.
City planners created a draft document that could add up to 56,000 new housing units to the University Community Plan area over the next 30 years.
But some residents say that’s more than half the 108,000 units called for in the regional long-term housing plan, which spells out housing needs over the next decade.
“We are not NIMBYS,” said longtime University City homeowner Bonnie Kutch, referring to the acronym for not-in-my-backyard objectors. “We don’t have enough infrastructure.”
Kutch said the roads in her neighborhood already are congested, and there are no plans to develop new parks or schools or libraries.
“I totally recognize the fact that we need more housing, but what they are proposing is adding almost half of the required new housing for the city to one tiny area that’s already built out,” she said.
According to a timeline posted on the city website, a final draft of the updated University Community Plan will be released later this year.
A series of public hearings will be scheduled before any planning document is formally adopted.
jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com