City still hasn’t disclosed origin of zoning law targeting Southeast San Diego

The San Diego City Council has unanimously voted to remove a controversial footnote from its zoning laws that singled out certain southeast neighborhoods. But officials have yet to answer how the rule landed in the city code five years ago.

A Planning Department spokesperson told inewsource last week that staff had no updates nearly five months after launching an internal investigation to determine the origins of the footnote.

The rule allows developers to build homes at a higher density in parts of southeast San Diego: While a minimum of 20,000 square feet is needed to build one, single-family home across the city with certain zoning designations, the footnote drops that requirement to just 5,000 square feet only in Encanto. Councilmembers adopted the rule in 2020, though some residents have said they didn’t learn about it until last year.

The council will hold another vote on removing the footnote on March 4 after receiving a complaint that it violated the state’s Brown Act during its first vote. If approved, the amendment then goes to Mayor Todd Gloria for his signature.

But residents who campaigned for the removal of the footnote still want answers.

“I definitely want closure, and I want accountability,” said Encanto resident Robert Campbell, who also is the vice chair of the area’s community planning group. “I would like the Planning Department to explain their processes, their procedures and how they allowed this to happen.”

Residents say the footnote amounts to discrimination, pointing to the area’s higher proportions of Black and Latino residents and household incomes that are lower than the rest of the county.

City leaders have acknowledged that the footnote should have been directly discussed with residents during the approval process, but denied that it was designed with discriminatory intent.

Officials introduced the footnote in 2019 under a package of nearly 40 proposed updates to the city’s Land Development Code. A staff report said the updates would make the code “more responsive to address the City’s changing land use issues.” That report also described the footnote as “clarification” of the minimum lot size in parts of southeast San Diego.

The footnote was also amended in 2021. An email exchange that inewsource obtained shows that staffers at the time requested the change to clarify which rules to apply for development regulations such as height, setbacks and floor area ratio. 

Read the emails

The 2021 emails were between staff in Development Services, which implements the code and oversees compliance. A city spokesperson said the Development Services and Planning departments work “in close collaboration” when preparing code updates that may “address implementation issues which can include providing clarifying language.” 

Another city spokesperson said earlier this month that the messages were part of a “standard exchange” that came after an Encanto resident inquired about potentially subdividing their lot.

After learning about the emails, Campbell said he believes the correspondence shows that city officials know more than they have been willing to disclose publicly. While questions still remain, he said the emails begin “the process of closure” in Encanto.

Gloria’s office said he will sign the repeal of the footnote.

The council’s first vote on removing the footnote was packaged with an unscheduled, unanimous vote toward ending a city program that allows the construction of unlimited “bonus” accessory dwelling units in areas close to public transit.

Councilmembers took the vote despite warnings from legal counsel that they did not give prior public notice that they would act on the ADU program. Attorneys for SDRE, a developer of some of the city’s largest proposed bonus ADU developments, later filed the Brown Act complaint, KPBS reported.