Another lawsuit is challenging the controversial development coming to Emerald Hills — 123 homes on a hilltop that neighbors have long hoped would be a park.
Andrea Hetheru was the community planning group chair in 2024. She didn’t understand how the development was allowed. The area wasn’t zoned for that density. It sent her down a long, complicated rabbit hole.
“Did I think it was going to take two and a half years of my life? Hundreds of hours? You know, not going to sleep – for how many days have I not had any sleep at all over Footnote 7 and particularly this issue? Heck no,” she said.
The city council voted to add Footnote 7 to city code in 2019. It allowed for much denser development only in the mostly Black, Latino and low-income neighborhoods in southeastern San Diego.
Hetheru and her neighbors discovered and fought that footnote. The city council repealed it last year. But already approved projects were allowed to continue.
They appealed to stop those projects, but the council rejected their appeal in July.
Another resident is suing to overturn that rejection for environmental reasons.
That argument is valid, Hetheru said, but it’s not what she sees as the community’s core issue with the project – racial discrimination and an unjust process.
“I just didn't want to see that disappear from the judicial record. Now, can I carry this case by myself indefinitely? Absolutely not,” she said.
She filed the legal complaint herself, but said that was just to buy time to find pro bono legal help.
The community already tried fundraising for legal fights related to the footnote. Hetheru said they managed to raise $35,000 over two years. It wasn’t enough. They ran out of money fighting another development approved under Footnote 7 and had to drop the suit.
“Everybody knows that the deck is stacked in favor of the party who can sustain the fight the longest in the court,” she said. “Communities like these – how do we compete?”
It’s an uphill battle for residents of a low-income neighborhood.
The City declined to comment on pending litigation.
