![\"Hillcrest](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/sonya.jpg\")
<\/a>In the small, wide-windowed HBA office located on Fifth Ave. just south of University Ave. she discussed her first three weeks on the job, her vision for the association, and what she\u2019s seen so far in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been really good learning all over what I did several years ago,\u201d Stauffer said about her brief period on the job thus far. \u201cIt\u2019s been about 14 years of economic development working for Cedar City, [Utah], then working for myself all those years, and now going back and working in this sector. It\u2019s been a fun change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stauffer, a Seattle native who transitioned to real estate in \u201995 after working in economic development for Cedar City, said working to ensure the continued success of established Hillcrest festivities was a big focus starting out.<\/p>\n
Outgoing HBA Executive Director Benjamin Nicholls left his post to take a job at MacFarlane Promotions, which oversees five of the biggest events of the year, including Taste of Hillcrest and San Diego Pride. She said \u201cworking side by side with them a little bit closer,\u201d would be a top initiative.<\/p>\n
Stauffer acknowledges that her extensive real estate background is a key reason she was appointed to this position, and hopes to leverage that by working with development to \u201cmake it a better neighborhood for business.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Nov. 5, the city council unanimously approved the Mid-City Interim Height Ordinance, which, in a nutshell, will limit the height of buildings in Hillcrest to 65 feet until a permanent community plan comes into effect, expectedly around the end of 2015. When asked her opinion on the matter, Stauffer said that while she didn\u2019t know the exact height of the larger buildings here in Hillcrest, she generally supported vertical expansion in the name of economic development.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlways when there\u2019s a supply and demand in real estate, people are going to want to go up, because\u2014and it does limit if you look at it that way\u2014a lot of times they don\u2019t start breaking even until developers have a certain amount of condominiums they can build, or parking spaces they can build,\u201d Stauffer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe profit comes from the addition,\u201d she continued. \u201cThere\u2019s always that break even number for any developer or investor, so if you are limited, then for a lot of people it wouldn\u2019t make sense to build or to do any type of development \u2026 so you\u2019ve got to go high.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what from Nicholl\u2019s tenure as executive director she would like to see continued, Stauffer mentioned several initiatives.<\/p>\n
She said \u201cworking closely with the businesses and being more proactive in our involvement with them\u201d was something she knows Nicholls would like to see done. Stauffer also reiterated that working with the events already established was a \u201cgreat moneymaker here in Hillcrest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond that, she said streamlining the office procedures internally, as well as circumventing sluggish bureaucracy were two big pushes Nicholls would advocate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a lot of times when you get involved with committees and groups, you get politics, which makes it difficult to drive things home and that\u2019s why it takes so long,\u201d Stauffer said. \u201cGetting everyone on board and keeping everyone focused is always difficult, so continuing that and just the teamwork and focus is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
The conversation then strayed from politics into what attracted Stauffer to the Hillcrest community, which she\u2019s relatively new to, having made the permanent move to San Diego in 2012.<\/p>\n
The draw was that [Hillcrest] was a smaller community, not the City of San Diego,\u201d Stauffer said. \u201cI was used to working in a population of 25,000 people, so I liked that the community was smaller and the opportunity to get a few more things done hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, we have to deal with San Diego as well, but hopefully in a smaller community like this \u2026 we can drive a few things home and get a few things done,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
She also stated that she saw Hillcrest as a place where her skills and experience in real estate would be well utilized.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see myself working with the businesses [similar to my work] with Cedar City development, and a lot of times these positions are about development and working with the businesses, and best use of land and buildings,\u201d Stauffer said.<\/p>\n
When she\u2019s able to escape the daily grind, Stauffer enjoys outdoor activities\u2014right now, the season calls for snow skiing, she says\u2014and getting out of the city for road trips.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get away on these kind of power weekends,\u201d Stauffer said. \u201cBefore I took this position, I took a trip up through Flagstaff and did a little bit of the Route 66, popped off a little bit here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, now that she\u2019s been interacting with the plethora of local businesses, she has quite a few to recommend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was able to stop by at [Chocolat Bistro]\u2014really good, and we had one of our meetings at D Bar, also really good,\u201d Stauffer said. \u201cThe d\u00e9cor in there is really nice, and the food is excellent. I would definitely invite my friends to come dine there.\u201d \u201cAnd I love babycakes, we shoot over there all the time to have quick meetings outside of the office,\u201d she continued. \u201cHaven\u2019t eaten a lot of cupcakes, but I take them to my friends and family all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the interview \u201cofficially\u201d drew to a conclusion, Stauffer spoke of the importance of inclusion within the Hillcrest Business Association, saying that the HBA could only prosper when the businesses in Hillcrest are involved and feel accepted. For more information about the HBA, visit hillcrestbia.org.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Meet Sonya Stauffer, the new Executive Director of the Hillcrest Business Association<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":246718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Meet Sonya Stauffer","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}