By Patty Ducey-Brooks
Elda Developments CEO, Ahmed Eldahmy, has made several recent statements to the press that community members “refuse to participate in the solution” for his proposed 14-story high-rise, located in the heart of a Middletown residential neighborhood. He has also characterized the opposition as “wealthy neighbors living up the hill” who “do not care about the housing crisis and instead appear only to care about protecting their net worth.” Furthermore, he recently paid for a KUSI informercial with Roy Roberts that aired on August 4th where he claims to be trying to work with residents.
The Stop Columbia High Rise effort is supported by over 1,000 residents, including renters, homeowners and local businesses. They are opposed to this high rise for the many harmful issues it creates, documented here (www.StopColumbiaHighRise.org). Eldahmy’s attempt to mischaracterize the opposition as wealthy landowners reveals the company’s disregard for the neighborhood and its tone-deafness to the growing resistance.
Eldahmy describes himself as someone who is “working tirelessly to help solve San Diego’s housing” needs. As the company’s website and investor package advertise, this development is all about 161 market rate luxury units to maximize corporate investor returns. The majority of the 161 units are small studios and one-bedroom apartments, which do not accommodate displaced families and also minimize development impact fees and school fees for city infrastructure upgrades.
We reject Eldahmy’s statement that the community members “refuse to participate in the solution.” Prior to last week’s protest rally, Elda Development has not made any overtures to talk with the neighborhood or participate in a solution. Residents are also ignored by the City’s process, which locks them out of any review and comment, and feel that Elda is using its political levers to push this through against the will of the community.
Eldahmy states that they are redesigning the 14-story high rise. However, this Complete Communities high-rise project has not been retracted at the City’s Developmental Services Department, so the City is continuing with the current plan. Further, the company website continues to advertise the high-rise structure; and the KUSI infomercial highlighted multiple views of the high-rise. If Elda’s statements are accurate, the Complete Communities high-rise project should be formally withdrawn at the City.
The community looks forward to participating, reviewing and commenting on a modified design. We hope the developers will engage in good faith, rather than issuing misleading press statements to repair their reputation.
Agreed that the developer is being dishonest about community engagement. The developer has not even requested a project review by the Uptown Community Planning Group, the obvious first step (and one that the city at least pretends to recommend).
But it also merits notice that the Uptown CPG has not voted to formally request such a review nor any meeting with the developer, much less issued a statement of opposition to the project. The CPG discussed the project months ago as part of an information item titled “a pro-active approach to a project review process,” but since then no such pro-active review has taken place on this or any other project.
Of course, Complete Communities allows developers to avoid meeting with Community Planning Groups, and such groups cannot force them to meet. Plus, information about pending projects often is not available to the public until the city’s approval process is well under way or even already completed. But, still, CPGs can take the initiative of calling out developers of projects such as this one and forcefully stating their position on them to the city administration.
That is an important part of each CPG’s role as an officially city-sanctioned groups voted in to represent a diverse range of community members on land use and development issues.