SAN DIEGOSAN DIEGO — Hillcrest and University City got one step closer to becoming more urban and heavily populated Thursday when the San Diego Planning Commission approved aggressive new growth blueprints for both neighborhoods.
The new blueprints, which aim to double the populations of both neighborhoods within 30 years, now move to the City Council’s housing committee in mid-June and then the full council for final approval in July.
The Planning Commission’s unanimous vote came despite ardent opposition from many residents in both neighborhoods. They raised concerns about insufficient parks, gentrification, congestion and evacuation routes.
Planning commissioners 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.
They characterized Hillcrest and University City as the two city neighborhoods that could best be described as a second downtown for San Diego.
“The university neighborhood’s always been our second downtown,” said Commissioner Matthew Boomhower. “More housing and employment options here make so much sense.”
He said a new trolley line with six stations in University City should exempt the neighborhood from the common complaint that San Diego approves too much high-density housing in areas with inadequate transit.
“Here we’ve got our transit, so let’s go ahead and exploit that,” he said.
In Hillcrest, Boomhower noted that the new growth blueprint would reverse a 2016 decision not to increase housing capacity in the neighborhood because of community opposition.
“I’m simply not going to be dissuaded from this by anti-housing and anti-density single-family homeowners,” he said.
The Hillcrest proposal includes what would be the city’s first protections for businesses considered “legacy tenants,” which city officials said could be forced out by rising rents and property values caused by the new growth.
While commissioners praised the concept, they suggested city officials hadn’t adequately fleshed out the details. Commissioner Kelly Moden suggested requiring protections for legacy tenants be on property titles.
Moden also had a broader message for residents who oppose updating the growth blueprints based on fear of changes to their neighborhood’s current character and way of life.
“It will take years if not decades to even see any kind of tangible impact to the community,” said Moden, stressing the 30-year time horizons of both plans. “It takes a long time for land to get turned over and redeveloped.”
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.
A subcommittee of the neighborhood planning group — the University Community Planning Group — suggested adding a more modest 22,500 homes and 55,000 jobs.
Andy Wiese, chair of that subcommittee, said the current proposal is too intense.
“The UG s robust residential and commercial development in University City,” he said. “However, we believe the UC plan, as written, is overbuilt.”
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.
One of the key concerns raised by critics in both neighborhoods was the limited amount of additional park space included in the two proposals, especially with both proposals aiming to double neighborhood populations.
Neighborhood leaders say the University City proposal would only provide new park space for about 25,000 of the new residents, leaving 40,000 new residents without any.
City officials say that’s not quite true. They say the plan calls for the provision of privately-owned and publicly-accessible open space areas that would create additional recreational space.
Wiese said not providing adequate park space has been a trend across San Diego as the City Council has been updating neighborhood growth blueprints.
“Added to the Hillcrest plan and others, hundreds of thousands of San Diegans in the future will not be served by park facilities,” he said. “We believe these deficits are a red flag that the plan’s land-use scenario is overbuilt.”
The city’s Parks and Recreation Board declined to approve both growth blueprints this month based on such concerns. City officials chose to move forward anyway.
Other key concerns for opponents are the blueprints’ 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.
Uptown Planners, the neighborhood group that has represented Hillcrest, opposes the new growth blueprint primarily because they believe it doesn’t include adequate infrastructure to the new housing.
Mat Wahlstrom, chair of a group subcommittee devoted to the blueprint, said it was clear to him that city officials had no intention of making changes in response to resident complaints.
“We’ve been asked to stuff 10 pounds into a 5-pound bag,” he said.
Another concern raised by critics in both neighborhoods is that new development allowed by the updated blueprints could lead to the demolition of older affordable housing and force out longtime businesses and residential-serving retail like grocery stores and dry cleaners.
Business groups don’t seem to share those concerns.
“The housing crisis is real — we see it every day,” said Ben Nicholls, executive director of the Hillcrest Business Association. “Hillcrest is prepared to do its part.”
The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce said the growth blueprints are key to solving the region’s housing crisis.
“Our city’s lack of available housing is probably the biggest barrier to San Diego companies, including our , attracting and retaining talent,” said Evan Strawn, a policy adviser for the chamber.
The Hillcrest proposal also calls for celebrating the legacy of the neighborhood’s gay community — which continues to thrive after emerging in the 1970s — with a special historic district featuring public art, preserved buildings, plaques and other attractions.
The City Council last week voted to replace Uptown Planners, which has been criticized as aggressively anti-development, as the recognized community planning group for the area.
They instead opted to let the community group Vibrant Uptown create a new called the Uptown Community Planners Group. The new group won’t take over until it elects board in coming weeks.
On Thursday, the Planning Commission also unanimously approved a related proposal that would change San Diego’s citywide blueprint for growth to prioritize climate-friendly housing opportunities near jobs, schools and mass transit.
For details on the Hillcrest proposal, visit planhillcrest.org.
For details on the University City proposal, visit planuniversity.org.
