The San Diego Planning Commission on Thursday endorsed an update to the College Area Community Plan that aims to add more housing near San Diego State University.
The plan, which was last updated in 1989, would keep the majority of the neighborhood zoned for single-family homes. But properties adjacent to SDSU and on major corridors like Montezuma Road, College Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard would allow medium- to high-density housing.
City Planning Department staff said the proposal is in line with the city's climate goals, which prioritize high-density housing in walkable neighborhoods near public transit and employment hubs. The plan update also calls for more protected bike lanes and bus-only lanes to encourage travel without a car.
Several residents told the Planning Commission the College Area lacks the parks, fire stations and parking to support the scale of development that the plan would allow.
"I'm sorry to say it, and I hate to say it, but we're creating slums," said Julie Hamilton, president of the College Area Community Council. "We're creating housing warehouses with nowhere for people to go."
Staffers said the College Area has few vacant properties that could be purchased and converted into new parks, but that the plan does contemplate linear parks along major roads and public plazas alongside new developments.
Planning commissioners said they understood and sympathized with the concerns of longtime homeowners, but that the city is in desperate need of more homes to accommodate both current and future residents.
"The staff and the Planning Commission have a job, and that's to consider the concerns of current residents but to balance that with the needs for future generations that are going to live, work and play in this neighborhood, long after many of the older current residents have moved on," said Commissioner Matthew Boomhower. "We need to be planning for Gen Z and Gen A, not for Baby Boomers or my generation, Gen X."
