Stop Columbia High Rise

What’s Wrong With This Development

Irresponsible Development

San Diegans support responsible development to provide affordable housing. There are better development options that fit into this hillside neighborhood, than high-rise, high-density buildings that tower over the existing homes.

Current base zoning for this property allows 1 unit per 1500 square feet, which amounts to 11 total units over the two lots.  

Increased density is possible while complying with the base zoning setback and height limits. High-rise apartments are not the only solution.

Destroys Historic Community Character

The 172-foot-high-rise destroys the character of the Middletown hillside above India Street International Restaurant Row. 

The larger neighborhood is densely populated with older homes — bungalow, cabin, Cape Cod, mid-century styles that abide by the 40’ height zoning restriction. The hillside is complemented with apartment and condominium complexes. It’s a distinctive neighborhood character.

The homes in this specific Middletown Addition Block 19 were built starting ~1909. San Diego’s first Fire Chief Alex Cairnes owned one of historic homes abutting the proposed development.

The City’s website describes Middletown as being “established on May 27, 1850, and the streets still carry the names of the original founders…Today, Middletown is recognized for its magnificent historic buildings, its convenient location to Centre City and its unrivaled view of the harbor. Middletown contains a mix of single-family and multifamily development, along with a variety of commercial uses which front on India Street.”

Does Not Address Affordable Housing

Only 6 of 161 units are designated as affordable (very-low, low and moderate income).

The proposed development site currently consists of 3 low to moderate income rental units (per AMI, Area Median Income). These would be replaced by 161 units, nearly all at much higher market rate prices.

The developer may opt to build the 6 affordable housing units in a different neighborhood since the City allows developers to fulfill their low-income housing quotas through off-site construction.

The neighborhood already supports affordable housing with its multi-unit older homes and low-rise apartment buildings. The new high-rise construction is of little to no benefit to improve affordable housing for the neighborhood.

Corporate Greed & Unappealable City Decisions

The Corporate developer advertises their objective as “delivering exceptional returns for investors.” The City is prioritizing the interests of one developer over the hundreds of neighborhood residents. The City is bypassing all community comments to approve the building permits.

Using the City’s Complete Communities policies and other Mayoral directives, the City is allowing developers to bypass base zoning laws (density, lot building setbacks and heights) without any variance process or community reviews. The community has no formal avenues to review and protest.  This project (DSD project PRJ-1126254) is assigned for Ministerial Review only. 

Corporate developers are using the City’s policies to maximize the profits for their private investors, as the expense of the hundreds of neighborhood residents. In this specific instance, the developer, Elda Development, advertises their objective as “delivering exceptional returns for investors” (eldadevelopments.com). 

Our neighborhood is supportive of responsible development to alleviate housing needs and is not resistant to change. Increased density can be achieved while abiding by existing zoning setback and height laws – high-rise apartments are not the only solution for every neighborhood.

Public Safety

The Columbia one-lane divided street is too narrow to support emergency vehicle access for the proposed high-rise building, according to the International Fire Code (IFC). 

There are too many fire-safety exceptions for this project which impact the neighborhood and complicate our fire fighters’ efforts to effectively respond.

The San Diego Fire Department (SDFD) stated that the building height can’t exceed 30’ since they are not able to use their aerial ladder trucks on this narrow street, per IFC D105.1 criteria (Columbia St is ~20’ width, and the IFC requires 26’ width). The developer is seeking an exception.

The newly proposed fire hydrant does not provide adequate roadway clearance (26’ minimum, exclusive of shoulders), per IFC D103.1. The developer is seeking an exception.

The high-density apartment building does not provide the required 2 separate access roads for multi-family residential projects over 100 units, per IFC D106.1. The developer is seeking an exception.

The narrow street configurations do not support large quantities of fire vehicle deployment (street widths, turn radii, building setback). Major fire response to this high-rise building would block at least one (if not both) of the two egress routes for the hillside neighborhood.

Located Directly on an Active Earthquake Fault

The California Geological Survey (CGS) states that an active earthquake fault is “accurately located” directly through these two lots. State law restricts residential housing along earthquake faults and zones.

California’s Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act (APFEZA) regulates development near active faults. The CGS Alquist-Priolo fault trace and zone map depicts an active earthquake fault running through the two lots.
Reference the 3677 Columbia St address on the interactive fault map showing the Alquist-Priolo fault traces and fault zones at maps.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/informationwarehouse/eqzapp/.
Supporting Fault Evaluation Reports (FERs) are accessible at https://maps.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/informationwarehouse/apreports/.

CGS Special Publication 42 provides a reference to comply with APFEZA, governing what residential housing may be built within the fault zone setback. Reference conservation.ca.gov/cgs/publications/sp42.

A new high rise on top of this active fault is a public safety concern for the City’s emergency preparedness plans; and also to neighboring properties which may be damaged by a high rise structural failure.

No Green Space or Sunlight

The high-rise encroaches into lot set-back zoning requirements, Neighboring properties lose sunlight to their organic garden spaces. The high-rise makes no contribution to the greenery landscape benefits.

The Developer is seeking waivers to encroach into the lot setbacks, bypassing zoning requirements: front setback (required 15’ to 1.5’), side setback (required 5’ to 4’) and rear setback (required 15’ to 5’).

Waiving these zoning requirements creates an injustice upon the neighboring property owners, who have abided by these laws. Further, it diminishes their property value without any compensation. Only the Corporate Developer reaps a reward which is returned to their set of limited investors. Corporate greed triumphs over the neighbor.

Neighboring properties lose sunlight to their organic garden spaces.

Neighboring properties lose sunlight to their green-energy solar panels.

The new development makes no positive benefits of greenery to the neighborhood landscape – replacing trees and green space with concrete.

Parking Issues

The 161-unit project makes the current parking issues worse for residents and India Street businesses. 

Adding 161 units onto 2 lots (total 100’ street width) with inadequate parking worsens an existing problem for all existing residents.

  • The City’s Transit Priority Area (TPA) policy waives car parking requirements for this high-rise.
  • The developer is seeking a waiver to provide only 54% of the required bicycle storage and 65% of the required motorcycle parking.

Parking is extremely limited in the current neighborhood, for both restaurant business employees and residents. 

  • The Fire Department is requiring removal of all 16 street parking spaces along the east side of Columbia St to support their necessary fire lane.
  • The west side of San Diego Ave is purposely non-metered to provide parking for restaurant employees. If high-density residential buildings without adequate off-street parking are developed, then this will significantly worsen an existing problem. High-rise residents will use the non-metered parking, forcing employees into the scarce neighborhood parking.
  • This hillside community has narrow streets. One side is purposely painted red to ensure emergency vehicle access, a lesson-learned from the 1991 Oakland Hills fire storm – this has already cut the residential parking by 50%.
  • The community has experienced scoff-law parking issues for decades. Specifically, cars are parked in red zones for hours; some use the area as their free airport parking for multiple days; some park their business trucks and trailers on the street for weeks at a time.
  • New CA state law (AB413) prohibits parking within 20 feet of an intersection, to provide “daylighting” visibility for pedestrian safety. This will further remove parking spaces within the neighborhood.

Allowing such a development does not foster neighborhood peace but creates unhealthy tensions. 

Traffic Congestion

This project creates traffic flow problems on the narrow divided one-lane street, impacting traffic flow for all homes on the hillside and India Street businesses.

Columbia Street is designated as a “local street” in the Uptown Community Plan (Section 3.4), meaning that it serves the abutting properties and has low vehicular movement. The one-block of Columbia Street in front of the proposed development is a divided street, with the narrow ~20’ wide lanes separated by a ~10’ wall. Adding high-density housing along Columbia Street adds a multiplier effect to the vehicles that transit the street, which is often blocked or impeded.

Traffic along Columbia Street, behind the India Street Restaurant Row gets congested. Restaurant supply delivery trucks are often parked in the middle of the road (since there is no parking) throughout the day, creating narrow car passage areas and pedestrian safety concerns.

The natural traffic flow for restaurant patrons includes Columbia Street, in their search for a nearby parking spot in our residential neighborhood.

There are only 2 egress routes out of the hillside neighborhood – Winder to India Street, and Columbia to Chalmers to India Streets. Traffic out of the high-rise will use the Winder to India route and add to the restaurant row traffic backup. The other route would be for cars to make a U-turn at Columbia/Winder intersection and head south on Columbia to Chalmers. There is a lot of traffic at the Columbia/Winder intersection from residents and business patrons.

The Developer is seeking a waiver to provide less than the required waste collection space, stating that this building will have more frequent trash pickup service. Trash collection trucks will completely block the one-lane Columbia traffic for extended time-periods, backing up traffic into the hillside neighborhood.

The Developer is seeking a waiver to not provide any off-street loading parking. Since the street is a single lane and most of the frontage is now a fire-lane, then moving trucks will regularly completely block Columbia Street. This impacts the entire hillside traffic flow since Columbia Street is the only means to bi-directionally transit north-south through the hillside community.

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