Despite ADU Reforms, Residents in College Area Decry Insufficient Infrastructure and Lack of Communication from City

By Calista Stocker / Mission Times Courier – Times of San Diego / Sept. 8, 2025

San Diego City Council’s accessory dwelling unit reforms went into effect on Aug. 22, but many residents of the College Area feel that the efforts are too little, too late.

The set of 25 reforms, which passed 5-4 on June 18, set new requirements and new maximums for the city’s Bonus ADU Program. Previously, the program was mostly unlimited, with the general requirement that half of the units built must be affordable. [Editordude: this is not true.]

Now, single-family homes are only permitted to add one converted ADU, one detached ADU and one junior ADU, or JADU. Other maximums include four units for lots smaller than 8,000 square feet, five units for lots between 8,001 and 10,000 square feet and six units for lots bigger than 10,000 square feet.

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Other key changes include structure distance minimums for fire safety, sidewalk requirements for Sustainable Development Areas and the allowance of ADUs to be sold separately as condominiums.

Not mentioned in the list of reforms, residents say, are their concerns about community betterment and equivalent infrastructure developments.

“Many of the areas where the ADUs are being built have inadequate parks, they have inadequate libraries,” said Julie Hamilton, a lawyer specializing in land use and environmental law, and a resident of the College Area.

“You’re putting these bonus ADUs in places that can’t support them. So, it was a step in the right direction to reduce the number of bonus ADUs allowed, but we’re still in a position where these communities can’t sustain that much increase in density without a requisite increase in infrastructure.”

Previously, bonus ADUs smaller than 750 square feet were not required to pay the citywide Development Impact Fee used to support recreational infrastructure and public facilities. Now, new bonus and affordable ADU constructions must pay an equivalent Community Enhancement Fee.

While proponents of the bonus ADU program celebrate its ability to create more housing and more deed-restricted housing to support the growing housing crisis, opponents like Hamilton argue that it is ineffective.

“I don’t have the [solution], but I don’t think you can build yourself into affordable housing. I don’t think that achieves a goal,” Hamilton said. “And what we’re doing right now, with just approving density on density on density, with no ability to provide the infrastructure to support the density, we are essentially building projects.”

According to data from SANDAG, of the nearly 5,000 ADUs permitted by the city from 2018-2023, 11% were approved as Low or Very Low Income, defined as less than 80% of the average median income.

Also included in the recent reforms are new parking requirements, with one parking spot required for detached ADUs bigger than 500 square feet that are not located in a residential permit parking district or a Transit Priority Area. [TPA]

TPAs are defined as a half-mile radius within an existing or planned major transit stop. According to SANDAG data, 55% of ADUs built between 2018-2023 were located in a TPA.

Additionally, all individual home addresses are allowed up to four parking permits in their district, meaning that a single-family house with a detached ADU could receive eight permits.

“Even if they get eight parking permits, there’s no street parking lot,” Hamilton said. “So what’s happening is people park across the sidewalks. I have a senior dog, and I walk her in a stroller, and you have to go out in the street. You can’t walk around College Area on sidewalks.”

With a higher density of housing also comes more trash bins, which College Area residents say also affects parking.

“It’s basically parking wars out here,” said Jean Hoeger, who paid for the installation of a blue zone parking space for her husband in front of their property.

Hoeger, who has lived at her College View Estates home since 1986, feels for her neighbors who live closest to the many ADUs on the street being rented out by investors.

Recently, one of Hoeger’s neighbors passed away at 101 years old, and she said his house was sold to an investor almost immediately.

“I hate that they go to investors because, they talk about, ‘Don’t you want your kids to be able to buy a house for lower?’ Well, sure, but because of the investor situation, every one of these houses that went to an investor and are now rented to students, those are houses that a new, young family can’t even buy.

“They don’t even have the opportunity to buy it because they can’t outbid these investors, because a lot of these investors are groups,” she said.

Eric Rosenzweig, another College Area resident, has been active against the bonus ADU program and has even met directly with a major investor in his neighborhood, as well as San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera.

“The woman across the street who lived here since the ’50s, 93 years old, and they built that monstrosity next to her,” Rosenzweig said. “She couldn’t handle it, so she moved to Reno, Nevada.

“Lived her whole life in San Diego, now she’s forced to move to Reno, Nevada. And the Teslas were lined up to buy that property because it’s got the big lot. And, fortunately, she took less money than she would have otherwise [in order to] sell it to a family.”

Rosenzweig first got involved with ADU policy after a six-unit, two-story development was built overlooking his backyard in 2021.

“Instead of the developer paying, I spent thousands, with an ‘s’, of dollars,” Rosenzweig said, pointing to the line of trees in his backyard. “As soon as I knew this was coming, I planted 34 trees …

“And then, while those were growing, because they started at like six feet, my wife would look out the window and cry as they were building it. So, we spent more thousands to bring in a full-size oak tree here … so that it would block the view.”

Recent reforms now cap ADUs at two stories, but many of College Area’s original single-family houses are one-story.

For the last few years, Rosenzweig watched many ADUs appear around his neighborhood. He explained that there were no attempts to accommodate homeowners, many of whom he says have lived there for decades. There is no communication, he said.

“You have no idea that this is happening until somebody puts a shovel in the ground. I mean, that’s the problem. I found, literally by being sneaky about it with the city, trying to see the plans before they actually got permitted. I had to do a bunch of shady stuff just to figure it out, which is long enough to do that.”

After attending many board meetings and speaking out to news organizations, he now feels a sense of discouragement despite the policy changes.

“It’s remarkable that all these communities can agree on something, from La Jolla to Scripps to down south, and they can all come up and agree, and then the city just ignores it … It disenfranchises you,” he said.

“Why should I participate in trying to make my community better, or attend the Community Council meetings or the planning boards, when the city seems to just ride roughshod?”

Though he believes the Bonus ADU reforms could have gone further, touting his support for the “four is fair everywhere,” Rosenzweig hopes other neighborhoods will see the benefits.

“It’s certainly helpful,” he said. “Our neighborhood’s shot, so it’s too late for us. But, hopefully, it’ll stop some of the other stuff.”