Why this matters
Community members are voicing safety and environmental concerns over a construction project nearly a decade in the making.
This spring, construction crews broke ground on a 120,000-square-foot self-storage facility in east Chula Vista.
Now, neighbors are pushing back.
The project site is near State Route 125 and Eastlake Drive, next to a neighborhood of single-family homes. The previously designated open space that neighbors said was home to coyotes and other wildlife is now a large patch of dirt occupied by construction equipment.
The storage facility has been in the works for years, made possible by councilmembers rezoning the space in 2020 for commercial use.
Dozens of residents raised concerns at a City Council meeting this month when councilmembers were set to take action on tax districts tied to the project.
Residents expressed dissatisfaction over the project’s design, the city’s community notification process, the construction’s environmental impacts and more. Neighbors, some of whom brought their young children to show the area’s high number of families, stood up during each other’s speeches in a show of support.
They also vocally opposed the developer’s proposal to build an emergency access road that would connect to Saint Germain Road, a single-family residential street.
Daniella Castillo, who grew up near the street, said that route would pose a risk to the safety of the neighborhood.
“Most of the neighbors have raised children, started raising children” over the past 20 years, Castillo said. She expressed concerns that the emergency road could increase the risk for crashes.
Amanda Alba, a resident on Saint Germain, agreed.
“How does anyone think that’s a good idea, to build a road through a cul-de-sac for a for-profit commercial building?” she said.
Mayor John McCann told inewsource that city staff met with the developer, UTEX Storage Partners, and determined that the emergency road was not required for the project. UTEX expressed an openness to removing the route entirely, McCann said.
Scott Wyckoff, the managing principal of UTEX, confirmed that developers will not build the road. Company officials also met with community members at a meeting earlier this week, he said.
Wyckoff said UTEX purchased the project in 2025 from the original developer, Floit Properties, which spent years working to satisfy conditions related to environmental permits.
“A lot of work was being done behind the scenes, at least sporadically at different times in that time period,” Wyckoff said.
Aside from the removal of the emergency route, he added, “We don’t anticipate any other modifications or changes.” The project still includes plans to add a turn lane on Eastlake Boulevard.
Crews are building nearly 1,300 storage units across two three-story buildings, along with boat and RV storage. The 9-acre lot has long been open space, with councilmembers even rejecting a housing proposal there in 2014.
Residents say they didn’t hear any updates after the project was approved in 2020, until noticing construction activity at the site in May. A city spokesperson previously said that community outreach was conducted throughout the planning process in 2017 and during public hearings in 2020.
“I do not like the construction in general at all, just for the safety of the community and the safety of my home,” said Cynthia Garcia, whose home borders the site. “The city has not been transparent with anything that they have done.”
She said she hopes to work with neighbors to advocate for a possible stoppage to construction entirely.
“I see some hope, but I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel yet,” she said.
Alba said neighbors had originally been planning to hire a legal defense team and a traffic engineer to survey their roads. But she felt their voices were heard after a community meeting that McCann attended.
“I still don’t feel comfortable to just sit back,” Alba said. “I’m going to attend the council meetings and make sure that they’re following through.”
The council delayed a decision on the tax district and is expected to take up the issue again at its Aug. 11 meeting. A UTEX representative is expected to attend.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
