The Developer Behind The Towering Building Proposed For San Diego
News has recently broke that a 23 story building is slated to be built at the address of 970 turquoise street in Pacific Beach, San Diego. A building this tall does not and has not ever existed in any of the San Diego coastal communities. There is a strict height limit of 30 feet to prevent people from destroying the wonderful view of the beach. So, you are probably wondering, how can a 238 foot building be allowed to circumvent the 30 foot height limit? There is a state law that was enacted in 1979 known as the density bonus law which allows developers to ignore the height limit ordinances if they dedicate some of their units to low income housing. This law has been invoked successfully multiple times throughout California. Unfortunately, the state law takes precedent over any local ordinances like the 30 foot height limit in San Diego coastal areas. Fair and equitable housing is a noble cause, however, the Pacific Beach project, known as project Vela, is obviously taking advantage of this law to sneak in a massive building by using the density bonus law in an unfair way. When all is said and done only 5% of units of this project will be dedicated to low income housing.
Rendering of the proposed building.
Things become even more interesting when we analyze the developer behind this project. It comes as no surprise that a company who is so flagrantly exploiting a law to their advantage has a tumultuous reputation. The development company, known as Kalonymus (a quite apropos name) is in fact a shell company of a much larger business known as Carmel Partners. Ron Zeff is listed as the Principle Officer on the LLC statement of members on a form filed with the California government. Zeff is the CEO of Carmel Partners.
Ron Zeff as the Principle Officer of Kalonymus Holdings I LLC
I found it strange that such a big company like Carmel Partners is operating under a smaller LLC for this Pacific Beach project. I am sure there are some business reasons as to why it is beneficial to have a separate LLC. However, I do think that the main reason the company is operating under a shell for this project is due to the bad PR that Carmel Partners has received in the past for some of their real estate development projects, especially in LA. Carmel successfully usurped local height limits by invoking the density bonus law in a several LA communities even though there was a staunch pushback from residents in those communities. It eventually came to light that Carmel Partners was involved in a bribery scheme within the Los Angeles city council. The main culprit helping to run this bribery scheme was Los Angeles City Councilmember José Luis Huizar, a man who was sentenced to 13 years for his involvement with various types of corruption. Huizar was helping to expedite the approval process for some of Carmel Partners controversial deals.
Ron Zeff and Jose Huizar (Credit: Desiree Stone/Getty Images, and iStock)
If you are interested there has been an entire article written about the history of Carmel Partners and their involvement with Los Angeles politics. It was quite the fascinating read and it helps to know the behavior and tactics of the company behind the pacific beach project.
Link to article: https://therealdeal.com/magazine/national-october-2020/to-live-and-bribe-in-la-the-sweet-past-and-sticky-present-of-carmel-partners/
Will the developer successfully be able to break ground on project Vela and build a 238 foot building in Pacific Beach? We will have to wait and see. Judging based on their ruthless tactics, their past successes, and the fact that the density bonus law state laws takes precedence over local law, there is a high probability that this project will be seen to completion unless there is a serious organized effort by community members to help thwart the plans. It would be fun and energizing to see the local community stop this so called Goliath of Carmel Partners from getting their way. It is clear to everyone that their invocation of the density bonus law is in bad faith and they are doing so just so they can build an extremely profitable building.
As a personal form of protest, I made this website: https://www.calinonymus.com/making fun of the Kalonymus and their shady tactics. Maybe this fund can raise enough money to build a large building using the density bonus law in Ron Zeff’s community ;)
Just here for the profits