Pacific Beach community leaders are taking the unusual step of fighting for a more dense development and a greater number of homes on one of the rare pieces of available land in the neighborhood.

A developer is proposing 30 luxury homes near the neighborhood’s border with Crown Point, but a large group of residents say they would prefer twice as many smaller homes with lower price tags.

It’s rare for community leaders to fight projects because they aren’t large and dense enough, but these residents say the available land is an opportunity for roughly 60 units of low-cost housing, including dozens of granny flats.

They say neighborhoods like PB need to fight developers who opt for million-dollar homes and their wider profit margins, because such projects make it harder for ordinary residents to afford housing.


“We need to house the teachers, lifeguards, policemen and business owners,” Kristen Victor, a member of the PB Planning Group, said by phone. “All of these people are working to enhance our community, but they can’t afford to live here. So we’re looking for any opportunity to make our community stronger and richer from a human perspective.”

The residents will make their case on Tuesday when the City Council is scheduled to vote on their appeal of the San Diego Planning Commission’s unanimous approval of the project in March.

Planning Commissioners echoed the disappointment that the project doesn’t include any affordable housing, noting that the city is facing a severe shortage of housing for low-income and middle-income residents.

But they praised the design of the homes and the developer’s commitment to environmental sustainability. The project’s carports would all have charging stations and the project’s laundry water would be recycled.


Silvergate Development, which has proposed the project, says the development would help replace the many single-family homes in the area that have been replaced over the years with multi-story condominium and apartment buildings.

They also say the homes, which will cost roughly $1.5 million based on comparable properties in the area, will provide an opportunity for families ready to move up from condos or smaller homes.

Ian Gill, owner of Silvergate Development, didn’t respond this week to a request for comment on Tuesday’s appeal hearing.

The project would feature 30 single-family homes, each with at least three bedrooms and three bathrooms, on a 1.64-acre site near Mission Bay that is bordered by Fortuna Avenue, Roosevelt Street and Shasta Street.


It would replace a defunct residential care facility and the former site of the Pacific Beach Community Garden, which closed in 2015 after nearly 40 years of operation to make way for a new development.

A key issue is whether the project fits with the character of the area around it.

The residents say their proposal would fit better with the multi-family housing that dominates many of the lots to the north of the site.

The developer says his proposal for what would essentially be row homes is an ideal transition between the single-family homes of Crown Point to the south and the taller apartment buildings of PB to the north.


Some members of the planning commission endorsed that concept, while others said it’s hard to make community character arguments about projects in PB because the neighborhood features such a variety of development.

Victor, who helped found the beautifulPB nonprofit advocacy group, said the site would be ideal for a vibrant community featuring residents of all ages, noting that the developer owns an adjacent parcel that could have been included.

Instead, the developer is upgrading the 24 apartments on the adjacent property, which will mean an increase in rents that could displace some longtime PB residents.

“They could have created a community here, but developers just want to make as much as they can,” she said. “In the Pacific Beach area, developers are buying up land and building projects that are as expensive as possible.”


Victor said convincing residents to join the fight against the project was an unusual challenge.

“We’ve been educating the community on increased density,” she said. “A lot of people are against it because they don’t really know what that means.”

To help preserve community character, the developer has agreed to add deed restrictions on the homes that would prevent short-term vacation rentals, which are a significant problem in the city’s beach communities.

In addition, the developer has stressed that the project will feature custom-style homes with varied designs so the new neighborhood won’t resemble tract housing.


Tuesday’s City Council meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. at City Hall, 202 C St.

Renderings of the proposed project can be seen here.


david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick