Protected: Clairemont’s Mt. Etna Project: The Affordable Housing Misnomer

When seniors moved into the Paul Downey Senior Residence affordable housing complex in Clairemont, they say they were promised three things: affordability, parking, and safety. After a year of living there, the seniors say that everyone involved has failed them in all three areas, including renting taxpayer-subsidized housing to a registered sex offender and former elementary school teacher (500 feet from the nearest school). The senior residences are part of a 404-unit apartment complex at Mount Etna Drive and Genesee Avenue that also includes multi-family units. Mayor Todd Gloria, San Diego Housing Commission, District 2 City Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, and County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe tout this project as a huge success and say it's a model they'd like to replicate throughout San Diego. Campbell, Gloria, Steppe, Chelsea Investment members at ribbon cutting for Mt. Etna affordable housing project SDHC’s role is financial and programmatic. It administers affordable housing funds, awards development loans, allocates rental housing vouchers, and may support multifamily housing revenue bond financing tied to specific developments, such as Mt. Etna. A Resident Reverses Course SDHC prominently features Paul Downey resident Georgia Hornback as a success story, front and center on its website and its YouTube channel. But Georgia has had a change of heart after her first year living at the apartments. In addition to a rent increase after seven months, she is gravely concerned about safety. The registered sex offender (who passed away last week) lived on her floor. "I had more neighbors come to me asking, 'What are we going to do [about living near a sex offender]?' And I'm like, 'Keep your doors locked and stay away from him," said Georgia. "And just yesterday, three cop cars pulled up to the building, and they stayed a good 45 minutes." One of hundreds of public comment emails prior to approval of the Mt. Etna project Promises Made, Promises Not Kept Prior to completing their first year of residency, the seniors were notified on Thanksgiving Eve that their rent would increase by 8.8%, more than triple the Social Security cost-of-living allowance of 2.8% they receive annually. The assigned parking spaces they were promised never materialized because there simply aren't enough parking spaces to accommodate all residents' cars, so it's first-come, first-served parking instead. Explore Clairemont reached out to SDHC, Chelsea Investment, Hyder, ConAM, Mayor Todd Gloria, Jennifer Campbell, City Council President Joe LaCava, and Serving Seniors regarding resident and neighbor concerns . Only SDHC responded. "SDHC is only responsible to monitor the affordable housing units at these developments for compliance with the affordability requirements set for each respective property. Property owners are allowed to increase rents as long as the units remain affordable at the specified Area Median Income (AMI) level for the unit and are within local and state maximums," said Scott Marshall, Vice President of Communications at SDHC. During the public planning and community outreach phases, developers and city officials explicitly pitched 465 parking spaces to address neighborhood concerns that nearby streets could not absorb the massive influx of cars. However, the legal framework shifted mid-stream when the San Diego City Council, under Mayor Kevin Faulconer, passed Transit Priority Area (TPA) parking reforms in March 2019, completely eliminating residential parking minimums for properties near major transit lines. Following this policy change, records show that when Chelsea signed the January 2020 Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA) with the County, the project’s garage obligations were tied to "applicable parking requirements," alongside provisions allowing the developer to seek efficiencies in the overall footprint. Later, during the ministerial permitting phase, Chelsea used these 2019 TPA reforms and density-bonus waivers to quietly reduce the final garage count to 240 spaces for the 404-unit campus, establishing a final ratio of 0.59 spaces per apartment. And security at the complex? It consists of a single camera at each entryway, but the seniors say they aren't all operational and don't monitor hallway activity. One resident experienced someone aggressively banging on her door in the very early morning hours, frightening her, and there was no video to pull since there are no cameras in the halls. Senior Residents Hope for Power in Numbers The residents say they have reached out to all parties involved about their concerns: Chelsea Investment Corporation (the developer) , Hyder & Company (property management for the senior complex) , CONAM (property management for the family complex) , SDHC, and Serving Seniors (a nonprofit that provides meals and social services on-site). They say the response has been tepid at best. They tried to negotiate a rent increase to align with their cost-of-living allowance and were denied. Several residents have moved out because they can no longer afford to live there. Fueled by frustration, many of the seniors banded together to form a coalition they call the Senior Residents Council, in hopes that, together, their voices will carry more weight. Bill Joyce and David Moody are the council's chairmen and handle most of the communication with the aforementioned parties. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R5PH6MBj5LI Members of the Senior Residents Council unanimously share safety concerns "We have about 12 to 15 members who come consistently [to meetings], and it's always open to the public," said Bill, as he pointed to the wellness center where Serving Seniors staff post up during daytime hours. "We used to have meetings in there. It's listed as a common space in the lease, but we can't be in there unless a staff member is in there." Now, he said, they meet on the rooftop deck, where there is no restroom, it's windy, and there's traffic noise. "A couple of times we had to meet in the hallway because it rained," said Bill. Bill and his wife, Barbara, moved into the senior complex last year, excited about the new venture."We thought we were moving to our forever home," Bill said. Bill and Barbara Joyce, residents But Bill explained that the excitement quickly wore off when he and Barbara began experiencing frequent hot-water outages, feeling unsafe walking across campus with cars speeding by, and struggling to find parking. For 173 senior units, Bill said there are 5 accessible parking spaces, and a total of 12 for the entire complex. While the number of accessible parking spaces does not violate any code, given the senior population, many of whom have physical disabilities, it is inadequate. "The word I'm tired of hearing from the city and the property managers is 'compliance,'" said Bill, as he made air quotes and noted the responses he receives are ones where they tell him, "We're in compliance." This is where the lines between being ethical and being compliant blur. The rent hikes and reduced parking are legal, but communication was characterized by omission rather than transparency, leaving tenants and nearby residents in the dark about plans. On and Off-Site Violations Areas that do not appear to be in compliance but rather in violation of code include daily parking violations in the complex and on residential side streets, as well as water runoff. Residents in nearby homes are seeing spillover in front of their homes, with cars parking daily in front of a fire hydrant, blocking driveways, parking in red zones, and parking well beyond the curb. There have also been regular incidents of stormwater runoff from the campus, traveling thousands of feet through neighborhood streets. When hundreds of residents publicly opposed this project, parking and security were major concerns that are now bearing out. Daily parking violations on Mt. Etna Drive Stormwater runoff from the apartments on Mt. Everest Blvd, 3,000 feet away Stormwater runoff on Mt. Etna Drive Regulatory Background and Density Changes Billed as San Diego’s largest multigenerational affordable housing development, the Mt. Etna project grew significantly from its initial scope. Following a 2018 County Request for Proposals for the 4.09-acre former Crime Lab property, initial community discussions centered on a 150 to 200-unit development. After Chelsea Investment Corporation was selected as the master developer, initial planning submissions used density bonuses to request up to 454 units, then reduced the request to 404. This final scale was approved by City Council despite a 14-1 vote against the density by the Clairemont Mesa Community Planning Group and hundreds of public comments opposing it , raising security and parking concerns. Fewer than five residents supported the project in public comments. The project scope called for rezoning the property from commercial mixed-use with roughly 116 units to a City Council-approved Community Plan Amendment, which shifted the site's baseline residential density from 28.36 to 98.78 dwelling units per acre (du/ac). Once this discretionary rezone cleared, subsequent project phases used local and state affordable housing streamlining policies. This allowed final building and design permits to be issued by ministerial action, bypassing additional public hearings or discretionary votes. Public Safety Concerns First Responder Challenges Under California Fire Code Section 505.1 and San Diego Fire-Rescue Fire and Hazard Prevention Services (FHPS) Policy P-00-6, multi-family structures are required to display contrasting numerical street addresses visible from the fronting roadway to facilitate emergency vehicle dispatch. Management documents indicate that a single perimeter directory monument sign satisfies campus-wide compliance guidelines. However, residents say addresses are not clearly visible on all buildings, and there have been numerous occasions when San Diego Fire-Rescue has been unable to locate th eir buildings. To add to the confusion, the senior residences have a Mt. Etna address, but their units are not accessible from Mt. Etna Drive. They are accessible only from Genesee Avenue. The Senior Residents Council requested more numbers six months ago. Ill-Equipped for a Fire Emergency A San Diego firefighter who spoke off the record said San Diego Fire is ill-equipped to handle a blaze if it breaks out at the Mt. Etna campus. He pointed out a 2010 audit by Citygate Associates that stated San Diego needed nearly 29 new fire stations. It has built only seven. And the population has grown by 100,000 since that report. The firefighter said that cities comparable in size to Clairemont, such as Newport Beach and Santa Barbara, have eight fire stations. Clairemont has three, with only one additional east Clairemont station proposed in the City Council's recently passed updated Clairemont Community Plan. He also said firefighters are exhausted and stretched thin, answering up to 20 emergency calls per shift, up from 6-8. The city's recent data backs up these statements, showing that emergency response times in Clairemont average nearly 9 minutes, well short of the standard of 6 minutes and 30 seconds. Policy Outcomes vs. Lived Experiences For city leaders and housing advocates, these projects represent a successful deployment of density tools to address a regional housing shortage. But for the residents managing restricted parking ratios, no on-site security, and a lack of building signage, the focus on statutory compliance has created a living environment that stands in sharp contrast to the success story presented to the public.

Protected: Clairemont’s Mt. Etna Project: The Affordable Housing Misnomer

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