Soledad Terrace neighbors are complaining of lack of transparency — and of being ignored — by the city, following the probable sale of the former Pacific Beach reservoir site west of Kate Sessions Park to developer McKellar McGowan. 
If the proposal is approved, the builder intends to construct about 20 single-family homes on the 4.76-acre site of the former, long-inactive reservoir built in 1908.
“This property has not yet been approved for sale by City Council,” said city spokesperson Jose Ysea. “We plan to present this item, requesting approval to sell the site at or above the appraised value of $8.8 million, at the Smart Growth and Land Use Committee on Jan. 31, and the City Council thereafter.”
Not everyone is happy about the prospect of the reservoir being sold.
“This absolutely isn’t about property values,” said Greg Nelson, a neighbor on Los Altos Road, which provides exclusive access to the reservoir site, about his opposition to McKellar McGowan’s redevelopment plans. “Nobody knew this property was being sold until a for-sale sign went up in August.”
Reacting to PB Reservoir’s sale and the site’s possible conversion to homes, District 2 staffer Donna Cleary, on behalf of Councilmember Lorie Zapf, said, “This is a quasi-judicial matter and the council member is unable to comment.”
The PB reservoir on Los Altos Road, recently demolished, served as part of the city of San Diego’s water system for about 80 years. It was originally supplied by the University Heights reservoir, and the city’s original water treatment plant at El Cajon Boulevard and Oregon Street.
When the Alvarado Water Treatment Plant at Murray Reservoir was brought online in 1951, this gravity-fed system was updated with new pipelines and other infrastructure, rendering the PB reservoir obsolete.
The city opted to sell the 4.6-acre unused reservoir site last year, and retained commercial real estate brokers Jones Lang LaSalle for the task.
In August 2017, after it was learned the reservoir site was on the market, a letter written on behalf of 100 concerned residents known as the Soledad Terrace Homeowners Association, was sent to the mayor and District 2 council member.
“We are concerned with the potential that future development of this property will adversely affect the scale and character of the neighborhood, because of the underlying zoning of the [reservoir] property, which is double that of the majority of adjoining properties,” the letter stated. “We hereby request that [the city] initiate a rezoning of the reservoir property so that it bears a zoning designation consistent with the majority of surrounding properties.”
Developers’ representative Chris McKellar characterized his firm’s single-family housing proposal as “a perfect opportunity” and a “cohesive project,” noting 10,000 square feet “is the zoning” on the Los Altos site.
McKellar McGowan has been meeting with neighbors of the project to “see if we can make them happy,”?said McKellar. “Best case, we could start construction in two years, and probably do it in two or three phases.
“There will be beautiful homes — believe me,” McKellar said. “We don’t have a [particular] style. We call it California contemporary, though we build different styles.”
Soledad Terrace is unique. It contains the residence of Kate Sessions, an early San Diego botanist, horticulturalist and landscape architect known as the “Mother of Balboa Park.”
Appropriately enough, the neighborhood of the pioneering environmentalist was designed with nature in mind.
“We don’t even have sidewalks, and we have only 30-foot-wide streets,” Nelson said. Nelson contended that if McKellar McGowan puts 20 more houses in that neighborhood “it will double traffic on our street. Without sidewalks, trash pickup, utilities maintenance, and parking will be just a total nightmare.”
Given that the reservoir had been inactive for 30 years, city spokesperson Jerry McCormick said the city decided to sell the property because it had been determined to be “excess,” and non-essential “to the City Public Utilities Department’s needs.”
“No other city department had a use for the property,” McCormick added.
Regarding claims the city’s reservoir site’s proposed sale was reneging on a previous pledge, McCormick said, “The City’s Real Estate Assets Department is not aware of any pledge not to sell the property.”
Concerning claims the sale was not transparent, and that neighbors weren’t informed, McCormick commented: “The city is not legally required to provide notice to neighbors prior to advertising the property on the open market for sale. There was a for sale sign on the property.”
McCormick noted the reservoir property’s sale “had to be authorized by a resolution approved by the City Council, meetings of which are publicly noticed.”
Nelson said Soledad Terrace isn’t asking the city for anything other than that to which it is entitled.
“The right thing for the city to do is to match the zoning appropriate for the place where it will be,” he said. “With all traffic in the area coming down Los Altos Road, that area will be extremely congested, not to mention the major impacts on our neighborhood. Don’t put higher density in in the lower-density community in which I live in.”
Nelson said Soledad Terrace neighbors are frustrated by the lack of response to their concerns they’ve received thus far from the city, even after repeated attempts. He added neighbors are hiring an attorney to argue their case.