An eight-story building is coming to 30th street in North Park. It’s going to have more than 70 apartments that will be income-restricted and considered affordable housing. NBC 7’s Dana Williams has the details.
A new 78-unit affordable housing development is coming to one of North Park’s busiest streets.
The 0.2-acre lot that will be transformed into an eight-story building is the former home of a community garden on the corner of 30th and Gunn Street. It is owned by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which just celebrated 100 years in 2023, according to Colin Mathewson, the church’s co-pastor.
“This lot that we’re now building housing on has always had a sacred use to it,” Mathewson told NBC 7. “We think that God created all of us to thrive in this world, but it’s really hard to thrive in San Diego when you have to pay so much for housing.”
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Mathewson said that the concept for the corner space to become affordable housing started seven years ago, but it wasn’t until recently that he felt it would actually come to fruition.
“Honestly, it was just a few weeks ago that everything finally sort of became real,” Mathewson said, adding it is an “uncertain funding time.”
The church, which is owned by the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, leased the land to Trestle Development for a century, Mathewson said. He shared that the majority of their congregation are former refugees and that many of them end up living in East County where they can find affordable housing, far from the faith community that makes them feel at home.
“People just can’t afford to live here,” Mathewson said.
Mathewson said he wished he would had more time to communicate the plan with neighbors, despite it not being required by the process.
“There’s going to be a lot of time, with at least two years of construction, to let folks know what, exactly, this will be about,” Mathewson said.
Across the street, Joe Wombacher has lived in his single-family home for 22 years and heard about it through community rumblings.
“My gut reaction was kind of how big is it going to be and then when I heard it was going to be eight stories, I was a little freaked out by that,” Wombacher told NBC 7. "It’s going to change the nature of this block quite a bit."
Wombacher added that he understands the need for more affordable housing and feels this is an unavoidable evolution of the community.
“I’m very sympathetic to the younger people who need to get into homes, and I’m very sympathetic to the older people like me who are kind of stuck in their homes,” Wombacher said.
“I’ve decided I’m just going to adapt to it and live here with it, and see how it goes,” Wombacher added.
On the other side of the church, Fergal O’Dougherty told NBC 7 he feels as though the decision to build the site was made without any discussion or prior acknowledgment for those, like him, who would be impacted.
San Diego Housing Stories
“It just looked like everything’s really rushed,” O’Dougherty said. “We would like to be asked, and we were not asked, and I think a lot of people were hurt and kind of upset we didn’t get that kind of question.”
The building will have 77 units that are income-restricted for residents, the 78th will be for the building manager, with occupants earning between 30-70% of the San Diego County Area Median Income. It will be a combination of 361-square-foot studios, 509-square-foot one-bedroom apartments, and 847-square-foot two-bedroom.
The building will have commercial space on the first floor, according to a letter outlining the project written by the California Housing Finance Agency, which estimated the project will cost a total of $37,222,498 and, in the letter, stated the “California Housing Finance Agency has determined that the project will have no significant impact on the human environment.” No parking will be provided for the commercial space or tenants.
“That is outrageously wrong and a disservice to the rest of the community,” Cathy Greene said when she found out there would be no parking.
“It’s going to effect the light on Ray Street," Don Leichtling said when he visualized how tall it would be. "It’s going to screw those people and their property values
The development falls within the city of San Diego’s Complete Communities initiative and the State Density Bonus Law, so it didn't need to be approved by the San Diego City Council or local planning groups, and why it wasn't required to get feedback from neighbors in North Park, or include parking.
“It’s good that we’re building more affordable housing," Shane Waters, who lives in North Park, told NBC 7. “I think we need to start moving away from housing as an investment and more like a basic human need everyone should get. As cities develop, they grow. Buildings are going to get taller. A lot of people are coming to San Diego. We have to increase capacity somewhere.”
Mathewson told NBC 7 that St. Luke’s plans to have a community groundbreaking event on Friday, Mar. 28.
With reporting by NBC 7's Eric S. Page — Ed.
