Panel Revises Its Downtown Hotel Plan : Single-Room Residential Owner Sees New Idea as Workable Solution

The San Diego Housing Commission moved Monday to preserve the city’s aging but badly needed stock of downtown residential hotels, adopting a compromise plan that allows hotel owners to convert or demolish the buildings as long as the total number of rooms citywide remains above a specified minimum.

The vote reaffirms most of a plan approved conceptually by the commissioners in August. If approved in coming months by the City Council, the new regulations will replace a 21-month-old emergency ordinance that has halted hotel demolitions and conversions, sparking the anger of hotel owners who oppose restrictions on the use of their property.

“I think it is a good compromise,” said Celia Ballesteros, a Housing Commission member and city councilwoman from the 8th District, where almost all of the hotels are located. “What we’re trying to do is provide a package that does protect this very, very critical form of housing.”

Small Single Rooms

Though there are some variations, San Diego residential hotel rooms are typically small, single rooms that rent by the day, week or month at prices ranging from $200 to $375 per month. Bathrooms and kitchens are usually shared.

Because only one hotel, the Baltic Inn, has been built in the past 70 years, the hotels are old and, in many cases, in poor condition. But plans are on the books for more than 1,250 new residential hotel rooms.

Under the ordinance, the Housing Commission would conduct a survey in January to determine the city’s total number of residential hotel rooms, then set a threshold based on that number. As long as the supply stayed above the minimum, hotel owners would be free to demolish their buildings or convert them for other uses, such as bed-and-breakfasts for tourists.

But if the supply dropped below that number, owners would be required to build one hotel room for every one they demolished, or contribute to a replacement fund. Those provisions, currently in effect under the emergency ordinance, have effectively halted demolition and conversion citywide because of the expense of complying with the rules.

Dan Pearson, president of the Downtown Owners and Residents Assn., which represents residential hotel owners, said that the plan “sounds like a formula that would work.”

“If there’s a fair threshold and intermittent checking of occupancy (of the rooms), we can live with that,” he said.

Predicts Rise in Total

Dana Blasi, who manages 10 downtown residential hotels, predicted that an accurate survey would reveal that the city has about 4,000 hotel rooms, up from the 3,425 counted in a 1985 survey. Though he opposes an ordinance of any kind, Blasi said the new one “best accomplishes the goals of both proponents and opponents.”

“This ordinance has a life of its own,” he added. “This is the ordinance that would not die. And whether it’s economical or not, we’re going to have one.”

In August the commissioners requested a plan that would use both supply statistics and the residential hotel vacancy rate to trigger the protective regulations. On Monday they adopted a plan that does not include the vacancy rate because commission staff members said that the rate fluctuates daily and would be difficult to calculate accurately.

But at the request of housing commissioner and City Councilwoman Gloria McColl, the commission will report vacancy rate statistics every six months. Should very high or very low vacancies persist, the City Council could vote to adjust the threshold, said Steve Mikelman, coordinator of programs and policy for the commission.

The ordinance will be reviewed next by the council’s Public Services and Safety Committee, along with a previously adopted ordinance on relocation benefits for tenants evicted as a result of demolition or conversion of a residential hotel.