Opinion: University Heights wants more affordable housing, but within reason

For over seven years the University Heights society has engaged with the San Diego Unified School District on redeveloping the Brucker site along Normal Street This included four large public workshops and over nine task-force meetings to envision debate and revise multiple plans resulting in what we call the AVRP Area Consensus Plan that was publicly presented by district in November and which has garnered over assistance from University Heights residents surveyed The district spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars working with AVRP Skyport Studios to draft site plans conduct population workshops and meet with neighborhood leaders and members After that work concluded the district then hired LeSar Progress Consultants a highly-regarded and politically well-connected consultant to help guide their next attempts At a December workshop LeSar influenced the trustees to restart the process by going out to the area with a Request for Proposal and not to be afraid of going big and disregarding existing plans and population input in the process But on April over University Heights residents and a handful of folks from outside the neighborhood attended a listening session and made their voices very clear Start from the plan we all thought we agreed on There can be no question that we are in a housing problem especially affordable housing The city of San Diego has permitted more than new homes so far this year against a backlog of needed by according to the Regional Housing Requirements Assessment That huge deficit took decades to create and we can t fix it straightaway We certainly can t fix it by putting all of the increased density into a small number of already overburdened communities like University Heights which already lacks the infrastructure to backing the existing massive building that has already happened University Heights which had households in according to the Census Bureau s Statistical Atlas has added nearly housing units since then with another units in the pipeline or pending approval including the Brucker site at units There are hundreds more units in the works either as ADUs expansions or smaller-scale projects that aren t publicly disclosed yet Altogether that will be at least a increase in a decade And that s in a neighborhood of just square miles already with a density of people per square mile It isn t fair to expect University Heights absorb a disproportionate share of high-density projects that will overwhelm our already deficient infrastructure of parks library streets transit water and power It s time for all areas of San Diego to step up to meet the critical housing need equitably and fairly I hope that we can find common ground about housing situation and agreement that building affordable housing is a priority I also hope we can find common ground and agreement that communities like University Heights should not and cannot bear the bulk of the burden to address the entire region s lack of affordable housing maturation Let s find strategies to work together to not only keep our neighborhood the charming wonderful place it already is but patronage a reasonable project that helps more of our neighbors enjoy this awesome place without destroying what makes it so special That is why an overwhelming majority of University Heights residents have responded with Yes In Our Backyard To This Reasonable Project Marc Johnson is president of the University Heights Region Association