Otay Mesa housing challenge with 450 townhouses will get metropolis approval

San Diego planners gave unanimous approval Thursday for an Otay Mesa challenge with 450 townhouses.

The Candlelight challenge is situated in one of many few undeveloped areas of San Diego County, a couple of mile from the U.S.-Mexico border on vacant land. Though the plan had beforehand been authorized, modifications to the unit sorts required a brand new vote.

Environmental considerations, and plans for mitigation efforts, have saved the challenge within the planning levels, on and off, for roughly 12 years. After Thursday’s vote, the developer anticipates beginning work on the location in September, with the primary properties opening in late 2025.

Ure Kretowicz, CEO of developer Cornerstone Communities, stated he envisions the challenge as workforce housing as a result of early price estimates put townhouses within the mid-$500,000 to low $600,000 vary. Even the priciest fashions can be beneath the $802,500 median dwelling value in January.

“It’s for working-class households,” he stated Wednesday in a cellphone interview.

Candlelight’s massive change was shifting from a wholly two-bedroom challenge to a mixture of two-, three- and four-bedroom items. The pondering is there may be extra of a necessity for a mixture of housing sorts for various household sizes — one thing the commissioners stated they had been glad to see.

Whereas the seven planning commissioners unanimously authorized the plan, a number of stated they wished Candlelight would have extra income-restricted housing. Based mostly on metropolis inclusionary housing legal guidelines when the challenge was authorized in 2021, Cornerstone was required to have 9 deed-restricted items. If the challenge was authorized in the present day, it will have to greater than double that quantity.

“All we are able to do is ask you to play by the principles,” stated Commissioner Matthew Boomhower. “I simply want we had been getting extra reasonably priced items out of this.”

The deed-restricted townhouses are put aside for consumers incomes the county’s space median earnings, $81,750 for a person.

The developer stated the three-story properties will vary from 1,344 sq. toes to 1,904 sq. toes. Personal courtyards and balconies are deliberate for residents to reap the benefits of the climate.

Candlelight is immediately south of one other Cornerstone challenge, the 363-townhouse challenge Vista Del Sur that opened in 2022, and near San Ysidro Excessive College and the San Ysidro Performing Arts Heart.

The vacant land Candlelight will likely be constructed on goes over a few of Dillons Path, a novel spot in San Diego County historical past. Within the Nineteen Eighties, the world turned a haphazard settlement of trailers, cellular properties, shanties and different unpermitted buildings.

Most of the roughly 100 households who lived there had legally bought tons, however most lacked entry to water, sewers, energy or rubbish pickup — and didn’t get permits for a lot of something. The town of San Diego moved to evict most tenants from buildings in 1987.

Environmental considerations are on the forefront of the Candlelight improvement. The challenge web site is 44 acres, however solely 24 acres will likely be used for properties. A lot of the land will likely be used as open house for environmentally delicate areas that embrace naturally occurring momentary ponds, referred to as vernal swimming pools, which will have federally endangered fairy shrimp; maritime succulent scrub; and grasslands.

Different environmental issues had been included, similar to electrical car charging infrastructure, photo voltaic panels, energy-saving home equipment, drought-tolerant landscaping and bushes to minimize down on the so-called city warmth island impact. Cornerstone stated the challenge will likely be virtually all-electric, not utilizing fuel for heating and cooking.

Deliberate facilities on the improvement embrace two swimming pools (the one place the place fuel will likely be used for heating), shaded out of doors workstations and walkways to attach with close by mountain climbing trails.