SAN DIEGO — A group of residents in Uptown says the city violated its own building code when it granted approval for a 17-story residential development in Bankers Hill.
In a lawsuit filed by the group, Uptown United, members say the 301 Spruce Street proposal violates the city's municipal code and fails to look at the actual impacts that the massive luxury tower will impose on neighbors.
Applicant Cast Development proposes placing 262 dwelling units with 266 parking stalls and more than 5,600 square feet of commercial space inside a 17-story tower at the corner of Spruce and Third Avenue in Bankers Hill.
In September of this year, San Diego's planning commissioners signed off on the project despite numerous objections from neighbors. Neighbors said that the tower is nearly double the 100-foot-tall building requirement for that location and allege that the city did not study the impacts that the tower will have on Maple Canyon.
Despite their concerns, city planners approved the proposal.
Now, residents are suing to stop it.
"...[T]he City failed to consider the environmental impacts associated with [301 Spruce], failed to prepare and circulate required environmental analysis, failed to consider feasible alternatives and mitigation, and illegally segmented project review. [I]t also violated its own Municipal Code and other planning documents," reads a non-conformed November 2 complaint obtained by CBS 8.
The proposal falls under the city’s newly adopted “Complete Communities” building strategy, a plan that incentivizes high-density developments, such as 301 Spruce.
It does so by allowing developers to exceed height restrictions and housing unit requirements in exchange for high-density developments as well as for developments near transit and with park components built into them.
But neighbors in the mostly single-story stretch of Bankers Hill feel the project just doesn't fit, nor should it qualify for the Complete Communities designation.
CBS 8 spoke to some of those neighbors in May 2022, including Frank Fortunato who lives just feet from the proposed highrise.
"It’s going to be 10 feet from my wall to the building’s wall," Fortunato told CBS 8 last May. "This house is two stories. It’s going to be 8-10 times the size of this house. It’s going to command the landscape around.”
The lawsuit is only the latest legal challenge to San Diego's newly-revised building code which aims to increase density and inject more units into the housing supply to ease the current housing crisis.
The city did not comment on the lawsuit, citing pending litigation.
The writ of mandate looking to stop the development will now make its way through the court system.
