Neighbors in Southeastern San Diego lost a half-century fight this week. A housing development will proceed on a hilltop they were hoping to see become a park.
The Emerald Hills property offers a panoramic view from La Jolla to Mexico. It’s precious land in a neighborhood overburdened by pollution, heat and lack of green space. Neighbors have wanted a park there since the 1970s.
“We are the people who know our community the best. We are the people who live here. We are the people who fight here. We are the people who carry the history forward,” Marry Young told the San Diego City Council on Tuesday. “We are asking for a space to honor our legacy and to show our greatness. The legacy that belongs to the people who have built it here.”
Homes are coming instead — 123 of them. The owners will have the ability to add two accessory dwelling units on each lot. The project relies on a footnote in city code that allowed for much denser housing only in the city-designated Encanto and Southeastern Planning areas. Neighborhoods there are majority Black, Latino and low-income.
The council repealed that footnote last year after community members discovered and fought to overturn it. But the city had already marked the Emerald Hills development’s application complete.
On Tuesday, the council rejected the neighbors’ appeal.
Several council members pointed to the city’s housing crisis. The San Diego Housing Federation estimates about 150,000 more homes are needed to balance the market.
“I want every family, every young person in District 4 to have the same opportunities that I have had,” said District 4 City Councilmember Henry Foster III. “And home ownership, the building of generational wealth, is critical to long-term sustainability and success.”
San Diego County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, who was the district’s councilmember when the footnote was originally added to city code, appeared at the meeting to speak during public comment. She shared a similar argument.
“My motivation in supporting this project lies in the principle that I want others to have access to the same opportunity that I had in life, a chance to grow up in a home that I knew would always be there for me to dwell in,” she said.
Her mother, Patricia Montgomery, is a real estate broker and co-owns a local construction company with her husband, Steppe’s father. She also spoke in support of the development.
“I’m hoping that people in the community will have the opportunity to not just live in an apartment or a rented property that’s owned by someone else, but to be able to go and purchase their own home,” she said.
The development includes 13 “affordable units.” They will be priced above what a typical household in that area can afford, based on census data on median income.
The city estimated the project will also yield $3.5 million in development impact fees, which can be used to build public facilities like parks, libraries and sidewalks.
Neighbors who opposed the development said they are not against housing altogether. Appellant and Chollas Valley Community Planning Group Chair Saige Gonzales Walding proposed a “land swap” solution — saying an equal amount of land could be identified elsewhere that could be used for the development, while preserving the hilltop for the park. The council’s discussion did not address that proposal.
Both Foster and Montgomery Steppe pointed to a history of large lot sizes being used to exclude Black people from white neighborhoods. Since the footnote was repealed, the council has not moved to rezone lot sizes citywide.
District 7 Councilmember Raul Campillo was the only one who voted to support the appeal and stop the development. Campillo called the footnote a “poisonous tree” that can only yield poisonous fruit. He argued the footnote violated federal law around fair housing, and consequently any rights granted to the developer based on the footnote are invalid.
Before the hearing, protesters voiced what their next step would be if they lost the appeal.
“Vote them out! Vote them out!” they chanted outside the building.
Two council members are running for reelection in November, including Foster.
