By Paul Krueger
After repeatedly dismissing — and even ridiculing — public concerns about San Diego’s “Bonus ADU” program, Mayor Todd Gloria is trying to take credit for our grassroots effort to limit the damage inflicted by multi-unit backyard monstrosities.
Worse, the Mayor and his planning department now dare to congratulate themselves for “…ensuring projects are consistent with the scale and character of San Diego’s neighborhoods.”
And it’s damn near Orwellian for the mayor’s publicists to claim the City “…monitors its housing programs to ensure they are achieving the desired results, and often makes adjustments based on feedback from the community…”
Those of us who have fought in the trenches on this issue know the reality: The mayor, the planning department, the city council, and the planning commission are directly responsible for the blight caused by excessive ADU construction.
They have consistently rebuffed any criticism of this infrastructure-busting program. They have empowered predatory developers and corporate investors to defy neighborhood concerns, with proposals that will jam up to 126 dwelling units on a single-family lot, with no parking, minuscule setbacks, and give-away waivers for infrastructure fees.
Four years ago, College East residents asked the mayor to talk with them about the looming impact of two multi-unit, two-story backyard ADU projects on 69th Street and Manchester Road.
The 50 neighbors who gathered that afternoon had repeatedly asked project developers about the scale, design, and impact of those six-unit buildings. Their requests for information were ignored.
So they naively thought their elected officials – including a mayor whose campaign slogan promised government “For All of Us” – would listen to their concerns and bring developers to the table.
Gloria and his staff didn’t respond. But they did find time that same day to attend a ribbon-cutting for a vegan cookie shop on Alvarado Road, less than a mile from the meeting.
This has been the scornful playbook for the Mayor and the City Council:
Ignore the community meetings, the public testimony, and the well-documented research that verifies the so-called “unintended consequences” of the Bonus ADU Program.
Misrepresent so-called successes. Move the goalposts when confronted with undeniable evidence of the program’s failures. After finally admitting the “Bonus ADU” program has failed to produce the promised very-low and low-income rental housing, Gloria’s minions now use the nebulous term “affordable,” which, for them, includes small 1-BR apartments that rent for $2629/month.
And when all else fails, resort to name-calling and ad-hominem attacks by dismissing neighborhood activists as old, white, entitled and selfish.
Early this year, the Mayor and his allies were forced to abandon that shell game. They were blindsided by sweeping grass-roots opposition to large-scale ADU projects in Encanto, Chollas View, and other Southeastern San Diego neighborhoods.
“Neighbors for Encanto,” represents homeowners and renters in those “historically underserved and disadvantaged” neighborhoods. The group includes more minority, low-income, and Spanish-speaking activists than groups in North Park, Clairemont, the College Area, and other neighborhoods decimated by Bonus ADUs.
Those communities outside District 4 have been repeatedly snubbed by their elected representatives. But D4 Councilmember Henry L. Foster III listened to — and acted on — his constituents’ concerns. Foster introduced legislation to align the city’s ADU Bonus program with state law, which requires cities to allow just three additional dwelling units on a single-family lot.
It was a gutsy move and a rare demonstration of independence for a city council that consistently supports the discredited “trickle down” approach to affordable housing and depends on building industry and labor’s sizable campaign contributions.
When District 4 residents and their Council member joined our fight, the Mayor faced a dilemma. He couldn’t dismiss them as elitist homeowners. So he resorted to subterfuge.
At a March 4 Council meeting, Gloria’s Planning Director, Heidi Vonblum, defied a principle of good government practice — and likely violated the state’s public meetings law — by issuing a last-minute memo warning the Council of dire consequences if it supported Foster’s motion.
Vonblum’s document was rife with false and misleading claims about the supposedly ruinous consequences of the proposed reforms. But neighborhood activists couldn’t rebut her deceptions because city staff did not post or share her memo with the public before the meeting.
By holding back the memo, Vonblum was able to persuade the Council to exempt a huge number of single-family parcels from the sensible restrictions proposed by Foster and endorsed by residents across San Diego.
But we now know that, thanks to Foster and District 4 activists — and neighborhood groups throughout the city — the momentum is swinging away from destructive density and toward sustainable growth.
We must keep “speaking truth to power.” We must call out the Mayor’s false narratives by wielding impeccable research and graphic testimony about the devastation caused by unbridled development.
Our next opportunity to show our strength and commitment will be May 1 at 9 am, when the Planning Commission discusses the mayor and council’s proposed amendments to the Bonus ADU program.
Please join us at city hall to demand nothing less than the long-overdue and very sensible reforms championed by an overwhelming number of San Diegans.
Paul Krueger is a founding member of both www.nfabsd.org For A Better San Diego and the San Diego Community Coalition.
I remain impressed by the leadership Paul Krueger has demonstrated in the battle to save the City of San Diego from land developer con artists. Make no mistake, this is the same building industry lobby that jammed high density housing projects in rural San Diego County that created the underlying problem of far too expensive housing and no place for the elderly, working class, and young people to live at $2629 a month rent. It is time for change at City Hall and sweeping change in departmental management to represent the voters and not the building lobby.
Thx very much for the compliment, Ron, but the real credit goes to the literally thousands of San Deigns who have risen up to protest the city’s destructive “Bonus ADU” Program.
We’re urging everyone who wants the council to make sensible reforms to this policy to show your support for our effort at the Planning Commission’s May 1 meeting. It’s at 10 am, in the city council chambers, at 202 C St.
For more info on the problems caused by the Bonus ADU program, and it’s failure to produce the promised low-income housing, visit http://www.nfabsd.org
Thx!
Thank you Paul for a great article.
Neighbors for Encanto are still waiting for our mayor to sign away footnote 7, (changing zoning from 20000 sq ft lots into 5000 sq ft lots in district 4 only, totally illegal) which after 7 weeks, he hasn’t done.. why? Is he trying to make sure DR Horton and Cindy Phan get their illegal developments built on our parkland? neighbors for Encanto demand a park at the radio towers and a park on klauber at bittern st as per our chollas valley community plan specified in 2015. This has publicly been reiterated to city council various times in the past few weeks… crickets…
Our mayor thinks equity means dumping more crap into Southeast SD. Mr Gloria and his investor developer cronies like to applaud themselves on the tricks up their sleeves, hence the litigious city planner and the YIMBYs tech
bros who live in their million dollar homes, pointing at the poor plebs in district 4, meanwhile buying up every inch of Encantos large lots to invest in. In the meantime, those investor lots could be rented to real families! One investor owns 169 properties!! Not to mention INFRASTRUCTURE! No sidewalks or Stormdrains, streetlights, crosswalks, and hella no paved roads. The fire station is a tent, but go ahead and build 150 units within 1/2 block of each other! Enough!
Give communities and their planning group the power to determine what they want in their neighborhood. Make it make sense.
Thank you Paul for this excellent article. As you stated, the Bonus ADU Program has not created low cost rentals. It has however, jeopardized the safety of our neighborhoods with irresponsibly exponential density and without regard to the increased infrastructure needed. A major concern (and there are many!) is in severe fire hazard safety zones where increased traffic and numbers of people often with only 1 way access in and out of a street or neighborhood is a catastrophic situation just waiting to happen.
In addition to attending the May 1 meeting, please write THIS WEEK to the Mayor and all the San Diego City Council members and urge them to eliminate or at least reform the Bonus ADU Program before disaster strikes.
I’m all for “affordable” housing-rents that cost less than $3,000, which excludes all the new luxury hi-rise apartment buildings, and rents that cost less than $2,500 for a 450 sq. ft. studio, which excludes most of the new ADU apartment complexes built behind a small house. The 12-unit ADU complex on Firestone, Clairemont remains unrented and is still for sale on Netloop, listed as an apartment complex, almost a year after its completion.
The point I’m making is the mayor needs a new mirror. He sees himself in ermine and silk. The crowd sees him naked.
Mr. Mayor, I have asked our city’s firefighters where do they live. 1) not in ADUs, 2) not in this city. Alpine, Chula Vista, San Clemente. Most are married with a family. No can do ADU.
Stop pushing RHNA housing quotas as the reason for this nonsense ADU policy. UCLA and UC Riverside scholars have exposed the errors in RHNA.
Maybe this idea started with good intention but it’s over. Loss of DIFs, lots of tiny units nobody wants. Not firefighters. Not teachers. Not service workers I talk to. Not the old people shopping at Costco I talk to.
Thank you for the great piece, Paul, and for putting into words what we all know and feel about Mayor Gloria and his minions’ dismissive attitudes towards the hundreds of thousands of San Diegans who are sick to death of seeing these Bonus ADU projects destroying our neighbors and jeopardizing our safety. We have protested the egregious ADU Bonus Program relentlessly for years, but the mayor, planning commissioners and planning department have simply ignored us. No other city in California would be dumb nor careless enough to implement such a reckless initiative that isn’t doing anything to provide truly affordable housing.
I am surprised that the mortgage lending industry isn’t up in arms over unlimited ADU’s. Mortgage originators and investors are increasingly at risk if the homes where they hold mortgage debt become devalued and undesirable due to ADU construction. Sure, things are fine right now because property values have trended up in recent years. When the market turns downward (and it always does) the negative effects that ADU’s have on an area will undoubtedly make those homes far less vaulable. Where traffic and parking have become intolerable, where infrastructure deficiencies are magnified and where streets, parks and other public accommodations are overwhelmed by new numbers of people they were never designed to serve -this is the fallout from destroying single family home neighborhoods. We have allowed Texas-style, anything goes zoning to infest California. And for what? Several hundred low-income homes that must be inspected to see whose renting and whether or not the landlord is living on site? The enforcement of these two conditions alone will cost the city a small fortune and will prove impossible to do. Many ADU’s will likely end-up as Air BnB’s or other short-term, highly transient housing that will do nothing for affordable housing and everything for developers and landlords. If the city of San Diego wants more affordable housing the most effective, long-term way to provide real relief is for the city to build and operate more low income housing in mid-rise and high-rise structures where the tenants can be verified and the actual numbers of units could quickly reach 5000 built annually until an adequate supply is available. I would rather be taxed for a real solution, than have my neighborhood ruined because no one elected to serve this city has the courage to fight for our homes. And one final thing to please understand. All the ADU’s and low-income housing WILL DO NOTHING to get the unhoused, fellow San Diegans off the streets. Low-incomThee housing isn’t remotely affordable for the the vast majority of homeless people in San Diego and our elected officials have been outrageously deceptive in not speaking the truth about how ineffective all these efforts to build more units will be for the homeless. The city must get onboard FULLY with the concepty of HOUSING FIRST. Put a permanent roof over the heads of homeless people and stop this madness with shelters which do little but perpetuate the status quo.
WEF founder wants everyone in tiny homes, owning nothing and eating bugs. People must resist
And I’ve lived the nightmare of an ADU (apartment buildings) project in my neighborhood. I initially tried to reach out to the developer to see the plans to help us mitigate the damage his project would inflict on our quiet little neighborhood. Stiffed me, no alternative date., no response. Went to channel 8, and broadcast from one of his other properties, trying to find the one that looked like the most egregious example of what his type of “development” was like, and how damaging this project was to the neighbor next door. I hit a nerve, when I finally did meet with him. Didn’t bring the plans, not like I was expecting him to. The DSD is an arm of Gloria.. They rubber stamp his orders, no matter if it’s in a fire zone or not, whether it affects the lives of adjoining neighbors, with ministerial reviews, where people usually find out through word of mouth (me, 10 days after it was sold by a realtor that I still harass), or “what happened?!? ” when the bobcats and concrete is poured for 3, 2 story apartment buildings in what was once a backyard with trees and chirping birds. Less trees, more fire hot spots. Then, when the DSD approves it, the City gives the attitude that “it’s your problem now”– YOU get to deal with a shyster developer, financier, 3rd rate construction company that doesn’t put up their identity on the project (I only knew because I went over there once and saw the company name on the shirt, looked up their number)… and then realized that the construction foreman had the mentality of a 9 year old, each time you attempt to have a civil discussion. Your council rep is nonsupportive, and won’t get involved…. The construction people, leave the site a mess, toss their garbage on the street, into neighbors trash cans, play loud music, double park (multiple times) I don’t care what they’re offloading, get a forklift and don’t block the road. Continued complaints to the DSD (BLUE) resulted in a form letter suggesting “mediation” Emails to inspectors that go unanswered, only getting a response, if you go to his superior or a very higher up at the DSD How do you “mediate” with this band of shady characters, who don’t respond to you or anyone else? The City continues to infer that “it’s your problem now” A mess they unnecessarily created by the forming of the BONUS ADU PROGRAM, and expect their tax paying constituents to do all the dirty work for them.
Meanwhile, there’s another, soon to be approved, 10 unit project going up at 4760 54th. That second house on Atlanta north of Collier is going to become a fishbowl for this project (1/4 acre) The disease will continue to spread in what I hoped was a quiet retirement…..
A thug developer who gets paid to screw over a neighborhood, his work blessed by the mayor. Sounds like something from the Sopranos. What’s the address? I want to Google earth it.
Yes, Soprano’s entered my mind. The underbelly of this program is full of these type of stories, of directly affected neighbors (zero who say they like this monstrosity gracing their once quiet neighborhood) , who I have had no issues talking to at other projects of, especially this certain developers projects (he has 23 of them)
PM me privately at sjamboked@steric.net.
I’ve been on the news 8 times about it, with a couple of appearances in my neighborhood. The first address I broadcast from was Bryan White on Channel 8 on Jan 31, 2023, from 5160 69th st. A elderly lady next door, moved away because of that, and other factors.
Once again, EXCELLENT, factual article Paul. Heidi vonBlum did the same thing with not noticing the public on the 30th. Street parking removal in North Park, in 2019. The night before it went to a Council vote, what WAS a sewer and water line replacement, on 30th. St., was turned into a bike lane project. The City had to get more money, and went to SANDAG to ask for more, to do the bike lane project. Save 30th. more money vote was NOT approved by the Supervisors, but Gloria’s Council Rep Montgomery (I think), called for a 2nd. vote because the City’s of SD and Chula Vista have 2 votes each, and only because they have two votes each the original vote was tossed out and Save 30th. Street Parking lost. Yep, Heidi is a pro at springing surprises on the opposition and in a published picture, she’s hugging buddies with Gloria. So whatever he wants she gets it done.
Mr. Krueger.
As a 50+year volunteer and contributor to the City of San Diego and someone who has participated in depth in numerous City of San Diego planning initiatives, I want to THANK YOU for one of the best-written, best-thought out opinion pieces I have ever read.
I am embarrassed by our municipal elected officials from city councilmembers, to the City Attorney and right on to the Mayor. Aside from the District 4 council representative no one has stepped up to preserve and protect San Diego’s single family home neighborhoods. No one has had the courage to call-out the disastrous ADU “affordable housing” and portrayed it accurately for what it is: A big, unregulated Trojan Horse stuffed full of developers whose pockets are overflowing with ready cash earmarked for campaign contributions. I truly am ashamed of the whole lot of them.
I spent 32 years in the real estate sales and development arena. I am a landlord. I always considered myself to generally favor the construction of housing for a growing community. The City of San Diego’s ADU policies serve a narrow special interest that enriches developers and landlords at the huge detriment to neighborhoods and constituents who relied upon city officials to uphold 200+ year old zoning ethos that has done well as the very foundation for “America’s Finest City.”
I hate to point this out, but the municpal government of the City of San Diego in its governance around the ADU issue looks more like the Trump White House than the protector of a unique and special home to 1.4 million San Diegans who believed their elected representatives would have their backs. The disappointment is palpable and the stench associated with this issue won’t easily be scrubbed from the future career plans of those who ignored the deafening consituent outcry.
Please continue the fight. This place is worth preserving. This city means more to its residents than crooked pols might fathom and we will not acquiesce or yield in this matter.
James, you should go and tour some of these RS1-7 areas Density Bombs have gone off all over the place, especially in the College area. Check out E. Falls View, Rincon, Tipton, Catoctin, Leo, Ewing, Baja, Defiance, Prosperity, 54th, and now leaking into Adams, Collier, Atlanta, Baylor, Austin…. Compare what you see from 2020, when all these bombs went off. The area is not recognizable. Single home after single home have been taken off the market by about 15-20 developers with private fund money, all gaming the snot out of the BONUS ADU PROGRAM… A disease that must stop.
It is beyond hysterical that Mayor Gloria is promoting himself as a champion of local communities. That is not true, and we all know it. NOW, after years of overbuilding, lying about affordable housing, NOW, after hearing voices in protest around the city, NOW he is suddenly a champion of community character. Sorry Mayor G, not buying it. There is no way to put the charm back in communities which have been paved and climbed to unthinkable heights. There is no way to reverse what has already been done. It is not funny. not even chuckle-worthy that the Mayor and his council, who have broken, changed, and written laws that favor builders, now advertising themselves as heroes for local communities. Please!!!!
One of our Community Coalition members sent a written comment via email to the Planning Commission and received this reply:
Thank you for your email. We will distribute to the Commissioners, but to be officially recorded, please submit your comment via the Planning Commission webform. https://www.sandiego.gov/planning-commission/agenda-comment-form
We need our comments to be officially recorded. I completed the webform. Here’s what I learned about “required fields.”
The “contact info” fields ask for personal information (name, email, street address). For “meeting info” fields:
Meeting date is “05/01/2025.”
Comment type: Click “Agenda Comment.”
Agenda Item Number is “1.”
Position: Click “In Opposition to Item” (we oppose weak City revisions)
Comments: Cut and paste your comments
The more the City complicates the process for public input, the more determined we must be. Thanks.