The owners of two Pacific Beach homes that were in the process of being converted into mini-dorms agreed to stop construction and revert the properties to single-family dwellings.
At a downtown press conference Thursday, April 12, City Attorney Mike Aguirre announced that representatives from W.T. Haaland and Millennium Construction, Michael Haaland and Ian Sells, agreed to halt the conversion of a three-bedroom home into a nine-bedroom home at 1222 Chalcedony St., and the addition of four more rooms to a three-bedroom home at 1145 Opal St.
Both Haaland and Sells were on hand at the press conference but did not speak to reporters or take questions.
According to Aguirre, the two also pledged not to go forward with their plans to convert three additional Pacific Beach homes into mini-dorms.
The city will allow the two developers to finish three mini-dorm conversions in the College Area. Those homes have been granted final permits and are nearly complete.
In June, the City Council will hear proposed amendments to the municipal code to close the loophole that allowed Haaland and Sells to build additions that increase neighborhood density, but it doesn’t address the parking and noise issues associated with 18 students living in a single-story house.
Aguirre put together a proposal and questionnaire for the city’s Development Services Department to address the necessary code changes.
The first step is to label the dwelling a multi-family unit when it’s obvious a conversion is taking place. Aguirre’s questionnaire would help inspectors make an official decision by the number of rooms being added, how many residents could be expected to own vehicles and determining if the residents would be living independent of each other as roommates or sharing responsibilities like a family.
In his proposal, Aguirre also pointed out that if the house on Chalcedony Street had been labeled a multi-family dwelling by the Development Services Department, the builder would have been responsible to provide a minimum of eight off-street parking spaces. The parking requirement would have prevented Haaland and Sells from getting started on the mini-dorm conversions on Chalcedony and Opal streets.