![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sut-l-spicer-adu-005.jpg\")
An ADU construction site in Linda Vista on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in San Diego. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\nTo many critics of a generous backyard-apartment incentive San Diego is poised to rein in, most of the problems with the controversial program trace back to one man \u2014 a local developer named Christian Spicer.<\/p>\n
Spicer and his investors, they say, are responsible for scores of large-scale projects that defy common understandings of what an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, is supposed to be.<\/p>\n
Spicer\u2019s development team has spearheaded two separate projects that each put more than 100 ADUs on a single site. They\u2019re responsible for several others with more than 20 ADUs each.<\/p>\n
To city officials, these projects are outliers that nobody intended or foresaw. Last month, they moved to prevent such projects by scaling back the incentive to cap the number of units allowed.<\/p>\n
To critics, the projects are a perhaps inevitable result of a misguided local incentive Spicer exploited \u2014 a program that went beyond what state law allows to let property owners build a potentially unlimited number of ADUs.<\/p>\n
But to Spicer, the projects are a responsible, by-the-book response to San Diego\u2019s shortage of affordable housing \u2014 \u201cbuilding within the city\u2019s policies to help address the region\u2019s housing crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Only a property manager as recently as 2019, Spicer has quickly become the city\u2019s most prolific ADU developer while building a company, SDRE, that now has more than 50 employees, with separate wings devoted to homebuilding, general contracting and design and engineering work.<\/p>\n
An ADU construction site in Linda Vista on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in San Diego. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Spicer told the The San Diego Union-Tribune this week that he became focused on the city\u2019s ADU bonus after careful analysis uncovered its enormous potential.<\/p>\n
He understands why some of his projects have raised concerns. But he thinks the city\u2019s ADU incentive is an important policy to help create more homes in a region that sorely needs them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe homes we build benefit everyday San Diegans, like working families, young professionals, seniors looking to downsize and others who are simply trying to find a place to live in the city they call home,\u201d he said in a prepared statement. \u201cWe work to design thoughtful homes while helping address the real housing shortage San Diego faces.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have always followed the city\u2019s policies and guidelines and will continue to do so as new rules come into effect,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
A generous incentive<\/strong><\/p>\n San Diego\u2019s incentive, created in 2020, allows property owners to build bonus ADUs in areas near transit with good jobs and other resources. For every ADU they\u2019re willing to build that is deed-restricted for low- or moderate-income tenants, they can also build one bonus ADU and charge market-rate rent for it.<\/p>\n The only significant limitation has been\u00a0that property owners can\u2019t exceed the maximum square footage allowed per acre \u2014 called the floor-area ratio \u2014 for the particular zone.<\/p>\n On ordinary shaped lots, the incentive has typically worked well. But on larger, oddly shaped lots that curve and meander, developers like Spicer found ways to fit dozens of ADUs.<\/p>\n When the City Council voted last month to rein in the incentive, council members said they were motivated by projects like Spicer\u2019s, and by public outcry over how opponents felt they would hurt neighborhoods.<\/p>\n \u201cI think everyone in this room seems to agree that a 20-, a 50-, a 150- or a 750-unit project is not what was ever intended,\u201d Councilmember Kent Lee said.<\/p>\n City officials stress that exploitation of the incentive has been rare. Of 4,308 projects that took advantage of the incentive from 2021 through 2024, only 51 had between four and six ADUs, and only 29 had more than seven.<\/p>\n But that only counts projects that have already been built. Many other large projects have been approved but not yet built, including the two with more than 100 ADUs each that Spicer is handling.<\/p>\n Another local ADU developer, Daniel Shkolnik, praised the city\u2019s bonus program last week as a crucial way to spur construction of workforce housing in neighborhoods where it\u2019s hard to build new projects.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognized the power of the program to move the needle,\u201d said Shkolnik, who has built upward of 20 projects involving bonus ADUs.<\/p>\n Although he\u2019s faced criticism from people living near some of his projects, Shkolnik has mostly escaped the aggressive backlash that Spicer has faced, with angry residents calling him out by name at City Council meetings and calling him greedy or unscrupulous.<\/p>\n Shkolnik has mostly avoided such treatment, perhaps because his projects have far fewer ADUs than many of Spicer\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cWe felt we should be the stewards of responsible development,\u201d Shkolnik said. \u201cIt was most important that we didn\u2019t create projects that stuck out.\u201d<\/p>\n Housing advocate Saad Asad said he understands the backlash against large-scale ADU developments, such as ones with three-story buildings critics call \u201cgranny towers\u201d \u2014 a riff on the \u201cgranny flat\u201d nickname for ADUs.<\/p>\n While not directly criticizing Spicer, Asad said what city officials and supporters of the city\u2019s ADU bonus incentive envisioned was more like six ADUs per property at most.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one was expecting 120 units,\u201d said Asad, a spokesperson for the YIMBY Democrats of San Diego County. \u201cThere are opportunities to do it the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n But he added that large ADU developments also help counteract notoriously prohibitive zoning in San Diego, where nearly 80% of the city\u2019s residential land is zoned for large homes on relatively large lots.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are restrictions that prevent low-cost housing from being built in much of the city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n San Diego\u2019s ADU bonus incentive is allowing for the development of new housing in areas where it\u2019s otherwise rare, he said.<\/p>\n The ADU bonus has accomplished that in many places, but usually on a much more modest scale than Spicer\u2019s 126-ADU Chalcifica project in eastern Pacific Beach.<\/p>\n He\u2019s planning six three-story buildings, each with 18 to 20 units, across two single-family lots that total just under 3 acres: 2596 Chalcedony Street and 4846 Pacifica Drive.<\/p>\n \u2018He\u2019s only using the rules\u2019<\/p>\n Critics of such projects say large ADU developments damage neighborhood character, make parking more scarce and put pressure on existing local infrastructure and amenities.<\/p>\n Many of those critics are part of a group called Neighbors for a Better San Diego, which opposes the ADU bonus incentive and housing development it says damage neighborhood character and don\u2019t come with the infrastructure upgrades needed to support new residents.<\/p>\n Geoff Hueter, the group\u2019s leader, said the vast majority of the ADU projects that have generated backlash have been handled by Spicer. But he doesn\u2019t think Spicer deserves all the blame, contending city officials created a poorly designed incentive the developer is exploiting.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s only using the rules that the city created,\u201d Hueter said this week.<\/p>\n Other residents have been more critical.<\/p>\n Pamela Beagall, another Neighbors for a Better San Diego member, has compiled a list of ADU projects that she says Spicer or his companies are behind. Spicer said her list appeared to include some properties not affiliated with SDRE but declined to elaborate or share his own list.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Beagall believes Spicer\u2019s projects create problems for sewer capacity and trash collection. \u201cI have concerns with this huge volume of ADUs crammed into these residential backyards,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Such concerns have often been shared by other residents at City Council meetings, including last month\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cThese developers are buying up starter homes in older neighborhoods and turning them into investments, not homes,\u201d Stephanie Pfaff told the council, singling out Spicer\u2019s Chalcifica project.<\/p>\n \u201cThese large apartment-like complexes are ruining our neighborhoods,\u201d said Lee Townsend.<\/p>\n And Merv Thompson said that although San Diego adopted its incentive to address its housing crisis, the intended solution was making things worse. \u201cYou don\u2019t solve a crisis by creating another crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Spicer, for his part, acknowledged the backlash from residents but characterized it as an ordinary aversion to change.<\/p>\n \u201cFor some, change feels like a disruption. For others, it represents an opportunity,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve found is that no neighborhood volunteers for changes or feels like it\u2019s the right place for adding housing, but the need exists throughout our region.\u201d<\/p>\n Such backlash first prompted the council in March to demand Mayor Todd Gloria\u2019s planning staff come up with options for a rollback.\u00a0When those options were presented to the city\u2019s Planning Commission in May, commissioners too agreed something had to change.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not the way I envisioned ADUs would work,\u201d Commissioner Ken Malbrough said. \u201cI want housing, but I don\u2019t want to ruin neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n The city\u2019s incentive has even been singled out by academic researchers.<\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-adu-vote-1.jpg\")
People filled a City Council meeting in mid-June to determine a cap on the number of accessory dwelling units allowed under the city\u2019s bonus unit incentive program. (Ana Ramirez \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-adu-rollback-0130-012.jpg\")
A 17-unit ADU bonus program project being built on Almayo Avenue in Clairemont on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. The lot originally housed a 1,018-square-foot single-family home. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n![\"Kyle](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-adu-vote-002.jpg\")
Kyle Candee of Linda Vista, holding sign, left, and others urged council members to roll back San Diego\u2019s ADU incentive before a committee\u2019s vote on it Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Howard Lipin \/ For The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-adu-clairemont-003.jpg\")
A 10-unit ADU bonus program project, consisting of five separate buildings, is being built on Shoshoni Avenue in Clairemont, shown here on April 27, 2025. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n