Why this matters
Residents who oppose the Klauber Avenue project have pointed to southeast San Diego’s makeup — with higher proportions of Black and brown residents and lower household incomes than the rest of the county — and say the footnote amounts to discrimination.
A resident-led planning group has successfully stalled a housing project in its neighborhood after raising alarms over a once little-known zoning law applicable only to their southeast San Diego communities.
The San Diego City Council last month voted to grant the Chollas Valley Community Planning Group’s appeal of a project that would build more than two dozen, single-story homes across more than 5 acres on Klauber Avenue in Encanto.
At the center of the debate: a controversial footnote quietly added to the municipal code in 2019 that allows a developer to build single-family homes at a higher density in the area.
Without the footnote, the Klauber Avenue site would only permit a maximum of 13 single-family homes.
City officials, while continuing to say they’re unsure how and why the footnote was inserted, are now working to remove it.
For now, the Klauber project is halted.
“There’s a certain amount of relief that we have reprieve for a time,” Andrea Hetheru, chair of the Chollas Valley Community Planning Group, told inewsource. “But the history of the city has made me suspicious (due to) their lack of transparency and seeming desire to want to appease developers at the expense of the community.”
The footnote allows developers to build more single-family homes on less land in what the city designates as the Chollas Valley planning area compared to the rest of the city using the same zoning rules.
That area includes the neighborhoods of Encanto along with Alta Vista, Broadway Heights, Chollas View, Emerald Hills, Lincoln Park, O’Farrell and Valencia Park.
How does the footnote work?
The footnote applies to land designated as RS-1-2, one of several types of zoning that allows single-family homes. The footnote covers both the Chollas Valley and the Southeast San Diego planning areas, but RS-1-2 currently exists only in Chollas Valley.
In this case, the Klauber Avenue project only needs a minimum of 5,000 square feet to build one house, though it would need a minimum of 20,000 square feet elsewhere.
Residents who oppose the Klauber Avenue project have pointed to southeast San Diego’s makeup — with higher proportions of Black and brown residents and lower household incomes than the rest of the county — and say the footnote amounts to discrimination.
Some residents said they want a park built on the land instead.
City staff and elected officials say they still don’t know how the footnote was added, though city Planning Director Heidi Vonblum acknowledged the lack of transparency surrounding the addition of the footnote.
She said her staff is reviewing city records in an attempt to determine the origins of the footnote.
Vonblum was one of the Planning Department’s deputy directors when the footnote was added. When asked if the footnote came across her desk, she said “not that I’m aware of.”
Michael Hansen, Vonblum’s predecessor and the department head at the time, said he doesn’t know why the footnote was included in the 2019 city code update.
“I didn’t give direction for it to be included and don’t know who drafted it,” Hansen said in an email.
Vonblum had presented a three-month plan to remove the footnote at a Chollas Valley planning group meeting after the appeal, but residents rejected it and voted to recommend the mayor take executive action.
Vonblum, however, said the mayor doesn’t have that authority.
“When emotions are running really high, it is hard to kind of understand what the true outcome is on the ground,” Vonblum said. “And I do not want to dismiss anybody’s feelings, especially related to any feelings where people feel like they were not included as part of an inclusive and transparent process. I would like to reset that by removing the footnote.”
The city’s Planning Commission first needs to recommend removing the footnote. Then, the City Council would need to hold two hearings before a casting final vote to amend the municipal code.
Until the footnote is removed by the City Council, developers can use it, Vonblum confirmed. That means a proposed project to build single-family housing where radio towers sit in the Emerald Hills neighborhood can still move forward.
“A lot of times there is a difference between morality and the law,” she said. “Ideally they align all the time, but they don’t all the time.”
The planning group paid the $1,000 fee to appeal the Klauber Avenue project — not by contesting the footnote, but by challenging the city’s environmental determination. The developer applied for a subdivision permit to build 25 homes, but the community plan approved by councilmembers has additional density rules that would limit the project to 23 homes.
The planning group also raised concerns after the city applied the payment to an additional appeal filed against the project.
Councilmember Henry Foster III, who represents the area, told city staff that while the discussion around the appeal is complex and confusing, the burden falls on the city to educate the public and improve discourse.
“This could have been avoided if we would’ve communicated properly, and really looked at things and paid attention to what we were doing,” he said.
The Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the footnote on Dec. 19.
La Mesa-based Klauber Development Corp. is behind the project. CEO Cindy Phan declined to comment before hanging up on an inewsource reporter when reached by phone.
A city spokesperson said the Planning Department anticipates the developer to reapply, this time with the maximum 23 units.
Public meetings about the Klauber Avenue project have also been covered by San Diego Documenters, an inewsource program that trains and pays citizens to cover meetings. Read more about the program here.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
