Apartment Project Has Talmadge Up in Arms

Residents of the Mid-City community of Talmadge are outraged over the city Planning Department’s approval of a blockwide 138-unit apartment complex that they claim will destroy the residential fabric of their neighborhood, adding congestion to already crowded streets.

But the developer of the apartments insists he has designed a project that far exceeds the zoning requirements for the neighborhood.

At issue are the planned Kensington Garden Apartments, which a developer wants to build on 44th Street, between Meade and Monroe avenues in Talmadge. Next Thursday, the city Planning Commission will consider an appeal of the planned three-story complex that would replace the 19 single-family houses now occupying the property. The city planning director approved the project on Jan. 27.

Putting 138 new units where 19 now stand will violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Mid-City Community Plan of 1984, Talmadge residents claim.

“It goes against the stated goal of the Mid-City plan, which is to have buffers between high-density and low-density areas,” said Talmadge resident Dennis Michel. Michel’s wife, Peggy, said: “We liked the fact that (the neighborhood) is not all yuppies. It’s a nice mix, including some older people.” Dennis Michel, principal bassoon in the disbanded San Diego Symphony, said the apartment complex would double the population of his immediate neighborhood.

Werner Heuschele, director of research at the San Diego Zoo, lives a block north of the proposed apartment complex. “It would completely change the whole complexion of the neighborhood,” he said. “The idea of a three-story apartment is rather intimidating. I’m seriously thinking about moving.”

Technically, the project by Playwrite & Associates meets the requirements for the buffer zone called for in the plan. Developer Jack Guttman of Guttman Construction Inc., which is building the project, said it complied to “the nth degree to the Mid-City plan.”

Guttman pointed out that, until last year, the land was zoned for a much higher density--up to 178 units. But the Mid-City Community Plan, approved as an ordinance last year, effectively cut the allowable density in communities such as Talmadge, Kensington, Normal Heights, City Heights and Rolando.

The plan was designed to provide for higher-density housing adjacent to commercial strips and attempted to separate single-family neighborhoods from higher-density neighborhoods, said Gary Weber, a private planning consultant who worked on the plan.

Weber said that, besides clustering projects with the highest density around El Cajon Boulevard, the new plan sought to ease other Mid-City problems, especially the lack of parking and the spread of ugly apartment buildings.

“There was an attempt to get higher-quality products,” Weber said. “The old multifamily units are extremely unattractive.”

Weber said that many Mid-City apartment complexes add to the area’s serious parking problem because they provide little or no off-street parking.

Guttman said his proposed apartment complex is a “first class” project that meets the community plan’s quality and zoning requirements, including the necessary off-street parking. The project has been designed with high-security underground parking. Additionally, the plans call for 17 diagonal parking slots along 44th Street, where there are now 11, Guttman said.

“In actuality, we’re providing more on-street parking than there is now,” Guttman said. “We’re significantly under on setbacks (the distance buildings are from the street). Plans for the Kensington Garden Apartments call for a 25-foot setback, where the community plan requires only 10. The height of the tallest building on the project is only 37 feet, compared to the 50 feet allowed under the community plan.”

Guttman, who said his general partnership spent “millions” acquiring the land, stressed that the project was not “like one massive building.” It has been designed with 40-foot spaces between the three main apartment buildings.

Guttman also said an effort has been made to have the complex mesh with the single-family housing to the north. His drawings show that the units at either end are only two stories high, rather than three.

However, Peggy Michel, who lives one block north of the proposed project on 44th Street, questioned Guttman’s setback figures. She claims that the planned diagonal parking is included in the setback. “In reality, from where the diagonal parking ends, the setback is only eight feet,” she said.

It also disturbs her, she said, that people who park in the diagonal slots would be required to back out into fast-moving traffic that has just rounded a curve.

“It’s an extremely dangerous curve,” she said. “There have been a lot of accidents here.”

More than 50 Talmadge residents met Tuesday night to map out strategy to oppose the project.

“They seem to be putting in almost an entire city on one city block,” said Doug Baker, who lives just around the corner from the project on Highland Avenue. “It seems to be out of proportion to the neighborhood.”

Stephen Temko, an attorney and Mid-City resident who was active in having the new community plan drawn up, was surprised to hear that the plan would allow a large apartment complex to abut an area zoned R-1, the single-family housing designation.

“We never anticipated having a humongous project next to R-1,” said Temko. “If it’s not consistent with the neighborhood, it’s not consistent with the plan.”

However, Weber said, such situations are almost inevitable.

“We tried to provide separate single-family neighborhoods from higher-density areas, to provide a transition from single-family to two-family to multiple-family,” Weber said. “Two-family looks very much like a single-family neighborhood. But right across the street you will have a higher density. It’s an awkward situation.”