San Diego Heritage On Sale Now!

By Kate Callen

Most San Diegans who heard the news that Horton Plaza is in foreclosure didn’t know anything about the Los Angeles builder in the middle of the meltdown.

But residents of Mission Hills instantly recognized his name. Steven Yari — the developer who has plunged Horton Plaza into debt — is the same man who bulldozed the Little Red Bungalow in 2023 and has, for nearly two years, left a fenced-off crater in its place.

The empty lot at Goldfinch Street and Fort Stockton Drive is a painful reminder that a city’s greatness is measured by the way it protects its architectural treasures – and this city has fallen terribly short. San Diego will remain a third-rate town so long as our history and heritage carry price tags.

And now City Hall has launched a new campaign to scuttle historic preservation measures. If it succeeds, look for more fortune-hunters parachuting into town for more land grabs.

As a highly desirable place to live, San Diego is a prime site for land speculation. When two consecutive strong mayors rammed through saturation density policies – Complete Communities, the Bonus ADU program, Transit Priority Areas, you name it – they essentially hung a sign across the city gates that read:

“Come On Down! You Won’t Believe These Deals! Practically No Zoning! Virtually No Height Limits! Essentially No Impact Fees! And NO Community Input! When the Public Complains, We Stick Our Fingers in Our Ears! LOL!!”

Hordes of corporate developers have answered the call by descending upon San Diego to erect towers of market-rate housing, grab their windfall money, and skip town. Very little of the affordable housing that San Diegans desperately need has been built.

But as Yari’s predicaments illustrate, the push for big profits can lead to overextension. Given the construction industry’s current woes – higher material costs and a worsening labor shortage plus persistent inflation and looming tariffs – we’re likely to see more projects stall as builders run out of cash.

That’s happening on a large scale throughout the country. Two examples:

Across from Seattle’s City Hall, a massive hole in the ground marks the spot where a municipal building was razed in 2005. Two decades later, it’s still a vacant lot. Bosa Development, which owns the parcel, is supposed to build a 58-story multi-use tower there. But construction activity stopped in July 2022, and Bosa is not responding to press inquiries.

Here in California, the City of La Quinta had big plans for a destination resort with a tournament-level golf course. In 2014, the city entrusted its dream project to Southern California developer Robert Green, who rechristened it Talus La Quinta. According to a city webpage on “History of the Talus Project”:

“On August 5, 2024, after numerous delays that put the developer in breach of contract with the City, [Green’s company] filed a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy freezing all activity including plans for a new developer to take over the project.”

What happens to developers who leave giant land pits when their projects stall? Absolutely nothing. They have no ties to the communities they’ve damaged. They face no civic consequences and no mitigation penalties. They can waltz off to other cities with other vulnerable parcels.

Here in San Diego, Bosa and Robert Green both have projects in the pipe line. Bosa has plans for five downtown high-rise (35-plus floors) luxury towers. Green wants to build a 12-story hotel at 4th and J.

With the construction industry in disarray, why is the City now rushing to “reform” historic preservation rules?

Because, as reported by the Union-Tribune’s David Garrick, “[with] so much of San Diego built in the 1970s and 1980s, many more homes and buildings are reaching the 45-year-old threshold that makes them subject to the city’s rules for historic evaluation.”

Great idea. Let’s bulldoze scores of older buildings, a prime source of affordable housing stock, so out-of-town developers can construct more expensive high-rises.

If they run short of money, and they abandon projects and leave behind empty lots, and the surrounding communities complain about the blight, our elected officials will just stick their fingers in their ears.