Nineteen new homes will be coming to University Heights after a single family home is renovated and turned into apartments.
The project is an example of the city of San Diego’s Complete Communities Housing Solutions program, but some neighbors in the area have concerns.
The program lets developers build more homes than a parcel’s zoning would allow, if they include affordable units.
The goal, according to the city, is to create a variety of housing options, especially at low- and moderate-income levels.
The development at 1526 Meade Ave. in University Heights falls within the Complete Communities footprint, because it’s near the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) rapid bus 215 that runs on Park Boulevard.
That meant the property owner could apply to build a development that far exceeds the lot’s current zoning, which allows a maximum density of one unit for each 1,500 square feet of lot area.
When 1526 Meade Ave. sold for $930,000 in July of last year, it was abandoned and uninhabitable. Its lot is 3,920 square feet, according to Zillow, meaning the city’s base zoning would allow only two homes on the property.
The city’s Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Bonus program would allow four ADUs on the lot as well.
The Complete Communities program increased that number substantially, allowing the application for a five-story, 19-home development in a neighborhood that is mostly single family homes and low-rise apartment buildings.
Some neighbors are unhappy with the proposal, and staged a protest in front of the property earlier this month.
“We don’t like the fact that there’s not enough affordable housing happening here,” said Marc Johnson, president of the University Heights Community Association. “We also don’t like the fact that it’s in the middle of a couple blocks where it’s all single family, two family and low density, six- to eight-unit rental properties.”
Johnson said a five-story building in this location would change the whole makeup of the block.
“And then if you look around, there’s already a parking problem for a lot of folks that live here,” he said.
According to Johnson, putting a larger development on a block that is mostly single-family homes impacts the infrastructure and traffic patterns as well. He said that type of housing should be limited to roads like El Cajon Boulevard. that have transit lines.
“We would much rather see that investment in affordable housing happen about two blocks in that direction,” Johnson said.
In University Heights, the typical single family home sells for more than a million dollars, according to Zillow. The average home in a multi-family building in the area sells for just over $600,000.
And the average rent in the neighborhood is around $2,000, also according to Zillow. But for the 11 single-family homes available to rent, the average is $4,044.
Research from the American Enterprise Institute looked at what happens following redevelopment of single-family homes in Seattle. It found when properties were redeveloped into a new single-family home, the median price increased by 182%.
But when the properties were redeveloped into four townhomes, the median price was virtually the same as the original price of the property. The price decreased when five or more homes were built.
According to researcher Tobias Peter, when a developer was allowed to build more than one home, they almost always chose to do so, resulting in more housing units and more affordable prices.
“When we looked at the people who bought these new townhomes,” Peter said, “It was … lower, moderate income people, younger people and more diverse people who could afford these townhomes because they were moderately priced, rather than the McMansions, which not many people can afford.”
Other properties in the area that were upgraded but remained single-family homes demonstrate Peter’s point. For example, 1417 Van Buren Ave, which was originally built in 1936 in University Heights.
At 3,000 square feet, this lot is smaller than the lot at 1526 Meade Ave. with a similarly sized home. It sold for $776,000 in 2019, then resold for $1.3 million in 2024.
Another home at 4457 Maryland St. was originally built in 1933. It has a bigger lot, at 5,227 square feet, and the home is a couple hundred square feet bigger than 1526 Meade Ave. It sold for $1.2 million in 2022 and then sold again in 2023 for $1.59 million.
In the University Heights neighborhood, there are several homes available for purchase at a price far below a million dollars. They’re all condos, and they are smaller than the single-family homes on the market.
For example, 4565 Cleveland Ave., Unit 8, is on the market for $699,000. The 2-bedroom 2-bath condo is 987 square feet, and doesn’t include a backyard like a single family home. But at $708/square foot, the home is cheaper even for its size than every single family home listed above.
Other homes, including 4430 Cleveland Ave., Unit 21 and 4180 Louisiana St., Apt 1H are also smaller but at prices well below $1 million.
San Diego is facing a housing shortage that keeps driving prices higher. Experts say the way out of this problem is building housing.
“It’s pretty amazing that you can actually do something for affordability by building new housing,” Peter said. “You just need to allow more housing to be built.”
But there are always questions over where, and in whose backyard, the new homes should be built.
“We as a community have been super thoughtful about, we're not saying, ‘not in my backyard’,” Johnson said. “We're saying, let's do it smarter. Let's do it where we can put things where they make the most sense and disrupt things the least so that we can keep what makes this community so attractive for people to come here.”
