A new housing complex is coming to La Mesa, although some nearby residents have qualms about how it will impact congestion and safety.
During an unusually long meeting on May 13, the La Mesa City Council grappled with the city’s need for more housing and concerns about whether existing infrastructure can support it. Ultimately, the council approved the planned development.
Residents nearby worried that the 73-unit development, which sits on about 3.5 acres, will flood residential streets with traffic, making the streets unsafe for bicyclists, pedestrians, and children.
“This is not about saying no to housing,” said Wayne Allen, who said he worries for his children’s safety walking and biking to school. “This is about saying yes to smart, thoughtful development projects that align with the long-term visions of our neighborhood and include real input from the people who live there.”
Vice Mayor Patricia Dillard said she understood the concerns as a homeowner herself. However, she also noted the need for affordable housing. The median sale price for a home in La Mesa was $840,000 in April.
“We have to think about the people who would like to buy a home, who cannot buy a home,” Dillard said. “Not just in La Mesa, but San Diego has one of the highest rents in the country. It’s a big, big struggle, and I really want to see some more first-time homebuyers in the city of La Mesa.”
The Jericho Road development will have 73, three-story townhouses with 2-4 bedrooms each. Each unit will have a two-car garage. The starting price for the units will be about $790,000 in today’s market, and eight of the units will be price-restricted for moderate income households. The state defines “moderate income” as between 80 percent and 120% of the area median income (AMI).
For San Diego County, the 2025 AMI is $130,800 for a family of four, setting the “moderate income” parameters at approximately $104,640 to $156,960 annually.
By including those eight units, Meritage Homes, which is developing the land, will qualify for state density bonuses, which provide lenience on certain requirements in exchange for creating affordable housing. It also earned a city density bonus for including amenities like family housing and enclosed parking.
The project received waivers to development standards such as space between buildings, open space requirements, and mechanical equipment within setbacks.
“We believe in missing middle housing as a solution, also known as workforce housing,” said Louisa Feletto, forward planning manager at Meritage Homes. “The missing middle housing is market-rate designed to fit into existing neighborhoods by developing more compact home on infill properties such as this one. Workforce housing is designed to meet the needs of residents, where home ownership has started to become more financially unattainable to the workforce that supports our communities, such as nurses, teachers, other public employees, teachers, etc. How is this achieved? By building smaller homes at higher density.”
And, Feletto said, Meritage tried to create a development that would fit in its neighborhood. Had Meritage opted on a fully affordable development, it could have built more units, at a higher height, with no parking. The proposed development, she said, took community needs into mind.
However, not everyone in the community agreed. More than a dozen people spoke during public comment against the development, and dozens more comments were submitted to the city ahead of the meeting.
“This project will create the potential for an additional 146-plus vehicles using Jericho Road, resulting in more congestion, noise, and exhaust pollution,” said Bruce Potocki. “It could affect safety.”
A group of residents also appealed the La Mesa Planning Commission’s approval of the project, though that appeal was denied.
The appeal, in part, suggested that the traffic study conducted ahead of the planning commission’s approval of the project, was invalid due to concerns such as it being conducted on a holiday weekend. City staff maintained that the study was valid.
“We, the residents, hold that it is unwise to put a densely-populated building in such an area with only one way in and one way out,” said Carlos Drago, the appeal’s appellant. “We appeal to your common sense to seriously consider this argument and oppose the Jericho Road construction project, which will reduce our safety.”
The council, though it ultimately approved the project, was sympathetic to the concerns of the community. Councilmember Genevieve Suzuki said she would also feel concerned if she had lived in a quiet neighborhood for decades and saw changes coming.
Suzuki said it was important to respond to the community’s needs, and asked that Meritage Homes make some concessions: to increase the number of guest spaces in the development from five to 10, to work with city staff to identify locations for additional catch basins that would address any drainage concerns, and to conduct another traffic study before receiving its certificate of occupancy, the final step in the construction process. Meritage agreed to these terms.
The council also discussed potentially requiring resident permits for nearby street parking so that guests could not inundate neighborhood streets.
Still, the council agreed that more housing was needed and described how home ownership helped them, their voices at time hitched with emotion. Additionally, the project will help La Mesa to meet its state Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), which requires cities to rezone for affordable housing.
“I make less than 80 percent of the area median income at my day job, but I was able to become a homeowner because interest rates were low, and because there was housing available that I could afford,” said Councilmember Lauren Cazares. “That is changing every single day. Everyone who grows up here in La Mesa deserves to be able to stay here in La Mesa, and that’s really my number-one priority.”
Councilmember Lauren Lothian, however, did not support the project, which is less than half a mile from the Amaya Drive trolley station.
“Sacramento’s mandates for high-density buildings on public transit are ruining La Mesa,” she said. “La Mesa is going to look like Lemon Grove, Mission Valley, El Cajon, Chula Vista, Miramar, Kearney Mesa. Everywhere I turn, I see another high-density building.”