by Dorian Hargrove / Times of San Diego / May 6, 2026
The saga over a proposal to build a 136-unit accessory dwelling unit project in Pacific Beach continues.
Pacific Beach residents discovered public notices were placed near the parcels on Pacifica Drive and Chalcedony, indicating the property, referred to as Chalcifica, is in default and heads to auction on May 28 if developer SDRE does not catch up on the amount owed.
Opponents of the project should not get their hopes up.
The president of the development company that now owns the Chalcifica says the notices are part of a dispute with the lender.
“The foreclosure is without merit,” said Brian Doyle, president of Infill Innovation. Doyle says his company acquired ADU-developer SDRE in April 2026.
Doyle says the property is still in the company’s possession.
Any foreclosure of the Chalcifica property would have signaled the end to a nearly three-year-long fight between residents, the city and SDRE and its owner, Christian Spicer. In June 2023, Spicer’s SDRE development company submitted an application for a grading and lot design permit to the city.
Over the course of several months, SDRE revealed the scope of the project to the city, stating the project would include “[One] Single Family House with 125 ADUs .” A later permit application modified that to contruction of two homes and 134 ADUs.
A group of Pacific Beach neighbors, joined by residents throughout the city, immediately opposed the plan. Residents objected to the size of the project in addition to traffic concerns, fire hazards, and claimed the development would impact historically significant Kumeyaay lands.
In August 2025, the group of neighbors, referring to themselves as “Neighbors for a Better Pacific Beach,” sued the city and SDRE to stop the project. In a preliminary decision last December, a California Superior Court judge sided with the resident group, temporarily halting construction as the court case moved forward.
On January 9, 2026, weeks after the judge’s ruling, Spicer filed papers to create Infill Innovation, a new development company that focuses, according to a subsequent press release, on “bringing attainable housing solutions to land-constrained markets.”
An April 2026 company release revealed that Spicer was stepping down as SDRE’s president.
Infill Innovation president Brian Doyle tells Times of San Diego that the company is working with Pacific Beach residents on an “amicable resolution” to end the lawsuit.
