Residents in University City Rally For, Against High-Density Housing Plans

Multiple sidewalks in the University City neighborhood were filled with residents holding signs, along with umbrellas, expressing opinions on the potential of high-density housing in the area.

“Serve citizens, not developers.”

“Save the UC we know.”

Signs being held at the intersection of Genesee Avenue and Governor Drive were very different from those two miles away at the trolley station near Nobel Drive.

“Build vertical.”

“Housing is a human right.”

According to the City of San Diego’s website, University City is one of six communities that are in the process of having their community plans updated.

“The City of San Diego is updating the University Community Plan, adopted in 1987,” the website said. “The updated Community Plan will consider current conditions, Citywide goals in the Climate Action Plan and the General Plan, and community specific goals to provide direction for the long-term development of the community.”

While the new plan is not yet finalized, it has a few options that could mean tens of thousands of additional housing units added throughout the 8,500-acre area. The majority of high to medium-density housing would be built near the UTC Transit Center.

“Our community is pretty well built out, you know, we cannot absorb that kind of development,” Nancy Powell said.

Powell has been living in University City for years. She described the neighborhood as having a lot of young families, with people walking dogs or pushing strollers down the sidewalk often. She just doesn’t see how their community could handle high-density housing.

“I mean we’re not against an ADU in a backyard, you know, granny flat type thing,” Powell said. “I’m sure there are other areas of San Diego that are not totally built out that have room for more development.”

For Beth Zanelli, who has lived in University City for 40 years, she gets the need for more housing but, like Powell, does not see how it is going to fit near them.

“I understand that housing is a real problem, but we do not have the resources, we don’t have the infrastructure to add additional housing,” Zanelli said. “Not 500 units, not 600 units. We do the best we can with what we have.”

However, for Aidan Lin, the executive director of Our Time to Act United (OTTA United) who was rallying near Nobel Drive, he sees it differently.

“I was raised in a single-family home,” Lin said. “As a high schooler, basically, I always wanted more neighbors. That’s what it was. I felt like I couldn’t really connect with my neighbors because none of them had children or youth my age and that really hurts the community sense of a neighborhood too.”

Lin shared that many members of OTTA United are UCSD students, who feel it is important to add more housing, along with transit, so that the community can continue to grow.

“We are within University City and we care deeply about the community we’re living in,” Lin said. “We’re community members, we pay rent, we pay taxes, we’re just as much of a community member as anyone else in the community, and so we have a stake in seeing the future of our community be planned out in a way we want to push for."

He also addressed the concern about losing the neighborhood’s overall atmosphere, and said it can be maintained if people on both sides of the issue collaborate to keep it that way.

“We’re used to living in the environment that we’re in now, and a lot of the United States is single-family homes. It’s natural and change is scary,” Lin said. “But, it exists out there, the community-feel in a higher density neighborhood.”

According to the city’s website dedicated to the University Community Plan, there are still a few steps before the plan is adopted, including the public hearing process. As of now, it is expected to be finalized by late 2023.