PEÑASQUITOS HOUSING PLANS AT ISSUE

Residents fighting three projects that would add 1,400 units on one corner

SAN DIEGO

Mostly suburban Rancho Peñasquitos is emerging as a new battleground in San Diego’s efforts to solve its housing crisis by approving dense new residential projects on major transportation corridors.

In a dispute likely to become common across the city in coming years, residents there are mobilizing against plans to build more than 1,400 housing units at one intersection that serves as an entry point to a neighborhood of mostly single-family homes.

City officials have praised three new projects there for providing moderate-income housing in close proximity to Interstate 15, the sprawling Carmel Mountain Ranch shopping area and rapid bus stations in Sabre Springs and Rancho Bernardo.

But residents say the new projects will overwhelm the infrastructure and schools in the area, damage community character and increase the neighborhood’s vulnerability to wildfires by congesting the only evacuation route.

They are lobbying city officials and the developers to shrink the number of units and to provide more infrastructure upgrades, including a potential second route out of the neighborhood to reduce congestion and ease evacuations.

The residents stress that they don’t oppose construction of new housing at the corner of Peñasquitos Drive and Carmel Mountain Road, where the 2015 closure of the Doubletree Golf Resort has freed up more than 100 acres of land.

But the 1,467 new housing units will more than double the number of housing units in the neighborhood — and they will all be on just one corner.

“This is a little landlocked com

munity of 1,400 homes with only one ingress and egress road,” said resident Junaid Razvi, a leader of the Northeast Peñasquitos Action Group.

“They are doubling the number of residential units in our neighborhood just with the projects at this one intersection. And the new developments are all going at the choke point.”

The projects are Pacific Village, a recently completed development of 600 homes; The Junipers, a proposed development of 536 units; and Millennium PQ, a proposed 331-unit project that was unveiled just recently.

The projects appear to meet all of the city’s requirements for dense development. In addition to being near transit and shopping, they include subsidized units for low-income residents, solar panels and new bike lanes and pedestrian paths.

The Junipers would also include a neighborhood park. And each of the projects must contribute development fees to cover expansions or renovations of community amenities, such as municipal pools, fire stations or library branches.

When the San Diego Planning Commission gave an initial green light to The Junipers in 2017, Commissioner James Whalen said the project’s location was so ideal that he would like to see even more units.

He said he sympathized with Rancho Peñasquitos residents, but that they will have to adjust.

“The people who live there have lived there a long time and they’re used to what they have,” said Whalen, noting that most of Rancho Peñasquitos was built in the 1970s and 1980s. “But the world we’re living in now has changed.”

Another selling point for The Junipers is that the project would be restricted to residents age 55 and older, which would reduce its impact on local schools and traffic congestion.

Bill Ostrem, president of Lennar Homes’ San Diego division, which proposed The Junipers, said Thursday that efforts to appease nearby residents during the last three years have been extensive.

“The proposed plans address the concerns we’ve heard from our neighbors, incorporate community benefits and provide muchneeded affordable and market rate housing for seniors,” he said by email. “We look forward to continuing the dialogue with our neighbors as we continue through the city of San Diego’s review process.”

Nearby residents are gearing up for that review process, including scheduling a March 11 meeting with City Councilman Mark Kersey, whose district includes much of Rancho Peñasquitos.

Kersey said this week he is taking their concerns about fire safety seriously.

“Given our region’s history, I understand and share residents’ concerns about wildfire preparedness,” he said by email. “Nothing is more important to me than public safety, especially when it comes to fire risk, and fire safety will be a primary concern when I evaluate any development proposal that comes before the City Council for approval.”

Kersey praised Pacific Village, the largest of the three projects, when the City Council approved it in March 2018.

“Today’s approval of the development of Pacific Village in Rancho Peñasquitos will create much needed workforce and moderate-income housing in our community,” he said in a news release at the time.

Judy Piercey, another member of the resident group, said the neighborhood is willing to compromise with city officials and the developer.

“Our residents don’t want to stop development,” she said. “We just want smart development — which means a reasonable density and safety with regard to fire evacuation.”

Geoffrey Patrick, a member of the Rancho Peñasquitos Planning Board, said the resident uproar has been mostly prompted by so many units being proposed for a single corner.

“One street is being developed far beyond what we see in the rest of Rancho Peñasquitos,” he said.

City officials released this week a comprehensive environmental analysis of The Junipers. Lennar estimates construction could be complete in 2023. The Junipers is much further along in the approval process than Millennium PQ.

The residents have a wesbite, savepq.org and a Facebook page, PQNE Action Group.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com