Corner of Voltaire and San Clemente. Photo by Geoff Page
17 Condos and 1 Commercial Space to Be Built – Project Originally Called for 21 Apartments and 5 Commercial
By Geoff Page
A new project is coming to Voltaire Street and it isn’t going to make affordable housing advocates happy. The old House of Hui Chinese restaurant on the south side of Voltaire, west of San Clemente Street, has been demolished. Some folks may know it as where Coconut Pete’s used to be.
The adjacent lot to the west, where a beautiful old Crafstman style home once stood, is part of the project. This lot has been empty for many years and was once a community garden.
The new project will be 17 condominiums and one commercial space. It is called mixed-use and there must be some benefit to that designation, hence the token one commercial space. Here is the description on the permit application:
“PENINSULA- (Process 3) Site Development Permit and Map Waiver for the construction of 2 three story 38,589 SF mixed use buildings on one lot, consisted of 17 residential condominium units and one commercial space. The 0.6-acre site is in the CC-3-5 Zone and in the Community Plan Implementation Zone-B of the Peninsula Community Plan Area. Council District 2.”
The “one lot” language took some research to figure out because it appears this is three lots and multiple addresses. A SANDAG Parcel Lookup Tool showed the entire area as one lot with 4103 as the only address. It could be there was some parcel consolidation at one time. A clue may be in the Map Waiver the developer was granted. It states:
“Map Waiver to allow for the construction of a new condominium project on a single parcel that was previously mapped and monumented in a manner satisfactory to the City Engineer in accordance with Subdivision Map Act Section 66428(b). Approved by HO on 12/2/2020 with Reso HO-7362.”
Prior to demolition and construction.
The permit application showed there would be eight townhomes and one commercial space in “Building A” and nine townhomes in “Building B.” It was not clear why these were referred to as townhomes and also as condominiums.
There is some history to this piece of land going back to 2006 when a developer brought his project for this location to the Peninsula Community Planning Board. The developer was Jim Lester.
The reason affordable housing folks might be upset is because the original project was for 21 apartments and five retail spaces, not condos. However, they probably would have been converted to condos during construction with a Map Waiver.
If a project starts as apartments, it can avoid the local planning board review step. What has happened routinely over the years is, once the permits are in place and construction has begun, the developer would apply for a Map Waiver to convert from apartments to condos and these were always granted. This resulted in some crappy projects around Point Loma.
Lester’s project was denied by the PCPB according to the meeting minutes “due to Board’s concern that additional development in highly impacted traffic with existing streets already below acceptable Level of Service(LOS) and further development not recommended until a formal, independent, objective traffic impact study is performed and mitigation measures taken.”
Upper Voltaire across from new construction.
The project was approved by the city despite what the PCPB had to say. No traffic study was ever performed so no mitigation measures have taken place. Part of the concern was another project across the street was also being developed at that time, Upper Voltaire on the north side of Voltaire west of Nimitz.
The project stalled in 2008, probably because the economy went in the dumper, lots of projects suffered the same fate in those days. Lester passed away in 2018 and had been in poor health for some time before that. Even though the economy improved, nothing happened.
The new owner listed on the permit application is Desert Coast Enterprises. A search for that name came up with Desert Coast Enterprises, Inc. and Desert Coast Enterprises,LLC, both of which are suspended or canceled. The owner’s address is a residence in Oceanside. The project developer is CityMark Communities LLC.
Here’s one rendering of the project:
