Letter to Editor

In January, the City of San Diego released its most recent draft of the College Area Community Plan (CACP).

The CACP provides updated zoning for the College Area and grand ideas on how the College community should look in the future. Not surprisingly, the update describes San Diego State University (SDSU) as the “heart of the community”, and the plan envisions “A college town with vibrant mixed-use corridors, villages and nodes that connect to neighborhoods and San Diego State University and enhance the community”.

What the plan doesn’t mention is that SDSU, being a state university, is not subject to local zoning and other land use restrictions and has its own university master plan. While the CACP uses words like ”urban village” and “promenades” SDSU is doing little to help achieve this vision.

SDSU’s most recent display of disinterest in working with the community is its “Evolve” Student housing proposal. SDSU is planning to build five 13-story and one nine story towers at the end of 55th street on a cul-de-sac at the northwest corner of campus surrounded by canyons, on land classified as a “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone”. Evolve also includes the “University Towers East Component” which is planned to replace the parking lot immediately east of the existing University Towers building at Montezuma Road and 55th Street.

Besides being in a high fire zone, this massive project is totally out of scale for the area and would further stress the area’s infrastructure. The Montezuma fire demonstrated that SDSU doesn’t have the resources to safely evacuate the area under current conditions, let alone after adding another 5,200 students to the area.

For long-time residents, SDSU’s lack of working with the community is not new.

In the early 90’s the university built Chapultepec – a massive 11 story student dorm at the western edge of the campus across a finger canyon from single-family homes, to the dismay of the people living in the adjacent neighborhood. In 2017, SDSU proposed building a mega dorm project, similar to Evolve, in Aztec canyon, which residents blocked due to its massive size and the destruction it would have caused to the canyon.

While SDSU might not be the best neighbor, it certainly knows how to ask for a favor.

When San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) first planned the Green Line Trolley, SDSU’s station was located at College Avenue and Interstate 8, and required riders to walk up a steep hill to get to campus. SDSU lobbied MTS to spend tens of millions more to tunnel underneath the university and locate the stop near the center of campus. MTS also covered the cost of the pedestrian suspension bridge that goes over College Ave. The reason for having the station on campus, besides being more convenient for riders, was to help spur redevelopment of the area and increase ridership.

However, in the 20 years since the opening of the green line, SDSU has placed or attempted to place much of its student housing at the western end of campus, nearly a mile away from the trolley station, even though there are numerous lots that need redevelopment adjacent to the station.

In 2018, SDSU asked and got approval from voters for it to purchase and redevelop the Mission Valley Qualcomm Stadium site. Part of SDSU’s sales pitch to voters was it had limited space on its main campus and needed the stadium site to build student housing and classrooms. Today the only structure on the site is Snapdragon stadium.

It is time for SDSU to start acting like a better neighbor. It can do so by shelving the ill-conceived and dangerous Evolve project, and either redevelop the Qualcomm site with high density student housing or help create an urban village around the SDSU trolley station/transit center. There are two asphalt parking lots on the east side of College Avenue that can be redeveloped, the Olmec/Maya dorms need replacing, there is a parking structure behind the KPBS building that could also be redeveloped along with several other underperforming parcels.

It’s time for SDSU to truly start listening to the community and hopefully become the “heart of the community”.

Rene Kaprielian

Área universitaria