On the last day of San Diego Pride month, Mayor Todd Gloria signed Plan Hillcrest during a press conference at Rich’s nightclub. The plan allows for increased density in the neighborhood balanced with protections for legacy LGBTQ+ businesses and history by naming Hillcrest an LGBTQ+ Cultural District.  

“Commonly you can sign these things in my office and just get on to the next thing, but this is absolutely worthy of pause and a celebration. This is really a momentous day, not just for Hillcrest, but for our entire city,” Gloria said, recollecting first having community charettes around this in 2009. “It may have taken a while, but we are now here.” 

The day before on July 30, City Council unanimously voted to approve Plan Hillcrest, a focused amendment to the 2016 Uptown Community Plan, a plan which did not have any upzoning in the neighborhood.  

In public comments to the City Council, Stephen Russell said, speaking as a queer elder who has lived in Hillcrest for 40 years, “When I first moved to that community, we were being hollowed out by the crisis of AIDS. We are now seeing a second hollowing out… Our gay seniors are unable to stay in the neighborhood where they feel safe.”  

One such senior is longtime LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activist Susan Jester who spent the last couple years chairing the community task force which made recommendations on the LGBTQ+ Cultural District. She developed a walking corridor through significant historic sites with possible interpretive elements. While doing this work, Jester lived in Normal Heights in a studio she is concerned she will not be able to afford in a year. If possible, she would move to Hillcrest “in a heartbeat.”  

In her speech at the press conference, Jester remembered when couples could be arrested for holding hands on the sidewalk and when SDPD said there would never be a Pride Parade in San Diego. In that time, Hillcrest became the home of the LGBT Center, HIV/AIDS organizations, and gay bars. She said, “We look on with horror that still today our young people are still afraid because of intimidation and attacks. This is why the creation of this plan is so important.” Jester said the community cannot assume Hillcrest will automatically stay a safe space. Instead, the cultural district enshrines it in law. 

Champions of Plan Hillcrest hope with incentives to build affordable housing and allowances for increased development, more middle and naturally affordable housing will occur, welcoming LGBTQ+ seniors like Jester back into the high resource neighborhood and providing new opportunities for young people who work nearby. With the advent of new developments, the Commercial and Entertainment District in the plan writes in protections for the nightclubs and bars which have long been a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community.  

“Just like churches were a safe haven for the African American community during the Black Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, so were and are our Hillcrest bars and nightclubs,” Nicole Murray Ramirez said to the City Council. The entertainment district designation means developers will be required to have double-paned windows and inform residents they are moving to an area with loud noise at night. Plus, patio restaurants can stay open an hour later.  

The Flame, San Diego’s historic women’s bar, closed in 2004 partially due to noise complaints. Hillcrest’s Gossip Grill is the only women’s bar in San Diego and the only women’s nightclub in California. Owner Moe Girton said with the needed housing will come obstacles, “The LGBTQ Cultural District will help protect us against that and help protect our vital queer spaces.” 

The plan changed based on community feedback over the past four years. City staff went to Uptown Planners 23 times, held two Vibrant Uptown town halls with hundreds of attendees, interviewed LGBTQ+ stakeholders, and conducted two online surveys. At first, staff wanted to make Hillcrest an historic district. The business community, led by Hillcrest Business Association’s Ben Nicholls, pushed back on this plan and wanted a cultural district instead. Nicholls said a historic district only protects buildings, but a cultural district protects what happens inside buildings, which is what matters to the LGBTQ+ community. The plan has provisions for legacy LGBTQ+ businesses so they will not be displaced or outpriced as the neighborhood grows.  

Between its passage in committee and vote before City Council, staff did add a small historic district surrounding the intersection with the Hillcrest sign. That intersection could change more as the transit aspect of the plan calls for sections of University and Robinson avenues being converted into one-way couplets to make space for bus lanes, bikeways and sidewalk promenades with rainbow pavers. With other transit changes and the possibility of 17,000 additional housing units, the amendment will reshape Hillcrest over the coming decades, but aspects of the LGBTQ+ cultural and entertainment districts promise to preserve what makes Hillcrest special to so many in San Diego today.