{"id":481358,"date":"2026-10-01T07:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481358\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T07:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T07:28:10","slug":"latest-challenge-to-controversial-emerald-hills-development-alleges-racial-discrimination-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481358\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest challenge to controversial Emerald Hills development alleges racial discrimination"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another lawsuit is challenging the controversial development coming to Emerald Hills \u2014 123 homes on a hilltop that neighbors have long hoped would be a park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andrea Hetheru was the community planning group chair in 2024. She didn\u2019t understand how the development was allowed. The area wasn\u2019t zoned for that density. It sent her down a long, complicated rabbit hole.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I think it was going to take two and a half years of my life? Hundreds of hours? You know, not going to sleep \u2013 for how many days have I not had any sleep at all over Footnote 7 and particularly this issue? Heck no,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The city council voted to add Footnote 7 to city code in 2019. It allowed for much denser development only in the mostly Black, Latino and low-income neighborhoods in southeastern San Diego.<\/p>\n

It allows developers to build more densely but only in historically redlined neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Hetheru and her neighbors discovered and fought that footnote. The city council repealed it last year. But already approved projects were allowed to continue.<\/p>\n

They appealed to stop those projects, but the council rejected their appeal<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n

Another resident is suing<\/a> to overturn that rejection for environmental reasons.<\/p>\n

That argument is valid, Hetheru said, but it\u2019s not what she sees as the community\u2019s core issue with the project \u2013 racial discrimination and an unjust process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just didn’t want to see that disappear from the judicial record. Now, can I carry this case by myself indefinitely? Absolutely not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She filed the legal complaint<\/a> herself, but said that was just to buy time to find pro bono legal help.<\/p>\n

The community already tried fundraising for legal fights related to the footnote. Hetheru said they managed to raise $35,000 over two years. It wasn\u2019t enough. They ran out of money fighting another development approved under Footnote 7 and had to drop the suit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody knows that the deck is stacked in favor of the party who can sustain the fight the longest in the court,\u201d she said. \u201cCommunities like these \u2013 how do we compete?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an uphill battle for residents of a low-income neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The City declined to comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another lawsuit is challenging the controversial development coming to Emerald Hills \u2014 123 homes on a hilltop that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-481358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}