UCSD’s Development Set as Hue and Cry Dies Down

A controversial $67-million land development project at UC San Diego that once outraged La Jolla residents is expected to break ground in late summer, after a delay of almost two years. Last week, the University of California Board of Regents signed a 55-year lease with Sickels, O’Brien & Associates, the signal to go ahead and build 121 town houses and an executive conference center on the UCSD land.

The 23-acre parcel, known as Blackhorse Farms and once used as a riding academy, is south of the Salk Institute, opposite the university’s Revelle College, and fronts North Torrey Pines Road.

Before gaining approval in 1985 from the City Council and the California Coastal Commission, the developers’ plans drew the fire of neighbors, UC students, and La Jolla community and planning groups.

Today, the developers say, a more friendly state of affairs exists.

“We have an excellent relationship with the La Jolla Farms Property Owners Assn.,” John O’Brien, one of the developers, said Friday.

Such was not always the case.

A coalition composed of property owners immediately south of the project, the La Jolla Town Council, La Jollans Inc. and the community’s Parking and Business Improvement Assn., fiercely opposed the plan. Only when the developers dropped two elements from the original plan did the La Jolla Farms residents acquiesce, a move that took the wind out of the sails of other opponents.

Initially, the Blackhorse Farms plan included 58 town houses, a research and development center, a shopping center, an office complex and a 162,900-square-foot conference center-hotel.

Proposal Was Pared

Faced with strident opposition, the developers dropped the R & D, office and shopping complex, but upped the number of residential units to about 200. Students protested the loss of the proposed stores, and residents and students opposed the increased housing, saying it would exacerbate existing traffic congestion and reduce already-limited student parking space.

Eventually, the developers scaled the project down to 121 town houses and a 210-room hotel-conference center.

Despite those changes, the La Jolla Town Council still objected to the project because it is a breach of the La Jolla Community Plan, which calls for a maximum of 24 residences on the property.

However, UCSD, a state entity, does not have to abide by local zoning ordinances.

The Town Council eventually dropped its opposition.

The developer also toned down the ambitious scope of the project, said Nancy Ward, a Town Council trustee. “As long as the plan was accepted by the city,” she said, “we felt that there were enough safeguards built into the plan.”

Reason Given for Delay

The Blackhorse Farms conference center will cost $33 million. The residential complex will have a price tag of about $34 million. O’Brien said one reason for the two-year delay was that his former partner and lender on the project, Westside Savings & Loan of Seattle, went into receivership in August, 1985, only six months after the project was approved.

The developers then exercised an option that gave them until Dec. 1, 1986, before they had to sign a lease with the university.

Last September the developers signed their new funding partner, Radnor La Jolla, a branch of the Radnor Corp., a real estate developer based in Radnor, Pa. Although the agreement with the university was signed on March 17, it was effective as of Dec. 1, 1986, O’Brien said.

The development is patterned after a similar project at Stanford University that allows residential buyers to prepay the entire 55-year ground lease for their property in the purchase price.

In San Diego, residential buyers of the six-phase project will pay for the entire 55-year lease, with a 10-year extension option, O’Brien said.

The first phase, consisting of 20 two- and three-bedroom town houses, and five model town houses in the 2,100- to 3,000-square foot range, is expected to be completed by January. O’Brien, a partner with Christopher Sickels in the project, said the entire Blackhorse Farms complex should be built before the end of 1989. Davidson Communities is the builder.