A difficult-to-pronounce street name in Black Mountain Ranch will be changed under a unanimous vote today of the San Diego City Council, but Zaslavsky Place will end up on a nearby roadway.
The current Zaslavsky Place, which runs between Nighthawk Lane and Lone Quail Road, close to Del Norte High School, will soon by known as Del Sur Ridge Road -- because the new name is easier to pronounce.
A city staff report said all of the property owners along Zaslavsky Place support the name change, which also garnered the backing of the Rancho Penasquitos Planning Board. No one went to the meeting in opposition.
"It will be a much easier name to say,'' said Councilwoman Sherri Lightner, who represents the area.
But Zaslavsky Place will be given new life, Black Mountain Ranch Senior Vice President Bill Dumka told City News Service.
He said the developer allowed an elementary school to auction off the naming rights to the street for a fundraiser five years ago, and the winner was Ilya Zaslavsky, a research scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego.
Zaslavsky wanted to name the road in honor of his then-grade school-aged son, Maxim, but the San Diego Municipal Code only allows last names on streets, according to Dumka. Thus, Zaslavsky Place came to be.
"He's quite a bright kid,'' Dumka said of the youngster who, according his Facebook page, goes by Zaz. "It's intimidating how smart he is.''
However, with an elementary school about the be built in the vicinity, parents and school officials expressed concern about the pronunciation of the street name, so the company decided to support the name change, Dumka said.
He said that since Ilya Zaslavsky purchased the naming rights, Zaslavsky Place will be the name of a nearby street that's in the development stage -- so it doesn't need City Council approval.
