San Diego needs more housing. No serious person disputes that. But a proposed 12-story, 120 “micro-unit” tower in the heart of Mission Hills raises a question the city has consistently refused to answer: Does more housing mean any housing, regardless of whether it serves the people who actually need a place to live?
The project is being developed by Affordable Development 820, an entity connected to Stockdale Capital Partners, a Beverly Hills private equity firm. The building would consist entirely of 288-square-foot micro-units — smaller than many hotel rooms — manufactured in Mexico, with zero parking and only five affordable units. It would be the tallest building in the neighborhood, with zero setback from the street.
The city is processing this permit “ministerially” under its Complete Communities Housing Solutions program: There will be no public hearings, no design review and no community input. If the project checks the right boxes, it goes through. That’s the law, here in San Diego.
Except the attorney who represents our concerned community argues this outsized project doesn’t “check all the boxes.” Our lawyer submitted a formal legal objection to the city’s Development Services Department (DSD) last December identifying two specific violations: the project’s floor area ratio — a measure of building size relative to lot size — of 8.68 exceeds the Complete Communities maximum of 8.0, and the proposed height may violate restrictions under the Airport Land Use Compatibility Overlay Zone. Five months later, the city has not responded to these valid concerns.
When Mission Hills residents requested a meeting with Development Services to discuss these concerns, internal emails obtained through a Public Records Act request revealed that Assistant Director Keely Halsey directed her staff to use a “Standard Ministerial Response” and redirect residents to their elected officials. The city’s own planner, when asked how the project complies with the need for family housing, responded: “Each unit is approx. 288 sf, so not large enough for families.”
The city knows these units aren’t for families. The market knows it, too. A comparable 53-unit micro-unit building one block away has been open for more than two years and is running at roughly 57% occupancy. Micro-units in Mission Hills are not filling a housing need. They are filling an investment thesis.
Complete Communities was designed to accelerate the production of housing near transit corridors — a genuinely good idea. But the program’s increasing density incentives have created a perverse outcome: maximum extraction for out-of-town investors, minimum benefit for the communities absorbing the projects.
Mission Hills residents have not responded by simply saying no. We have proposed an alternative: a 5-story building with a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units that serves the people who actually want to live in Mission Hills — those downsizing from single-family homes, young professionals and small families. It meets San Diego’s housing goals. It fits the neighborhood. It makes sense.
The question before Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, Development Services Department Director Elyse Lowe and City Planning Director Heidi Vonblum is straightforward: Does the Complete Communities program exist to serve San Diego’s housing needs, or to serve Beverly Hills investors? Because right now, at 820 Fort Stockton Drive, it’s the investors, and only the investors, who will benefit from this proposed project.
Poole chairs the Mission Hills Community Review Council and lives in Mission Hills.