The City's ADU Bonus Program
What started this all

If you look around our City you may have noticed a lot of new building.
From multilevel large apartment complexes to massive backyard ADU complexes in a residential backyard. Maybe even your neighbor.

So how did this all start?

Developers made a massive push to the State of California politicians to pass more developer friendly legislation and that would bypass many of our existing laws.

The refrain from the National  developer backed Y.I.M.B.Y organization  (Yes In My Back Yard) convinced a lot of young folks and renters if the developers just built more and more and more apartments and ADU's (Accesory Dwelling Units) their rents would go down and they would be able to someday save enough to buy a home.

Sadly the opposite is happening. 

Rents are soring and square footage is dropping in these new apartments.
Prior  to this massive building craze the average size of a 1 bedroom 1 bath in the City of San Diego was around 750 sq ft.  Now the average is 400 sq. ft or less.  Making it even harder to share the space with a roommate to save money.  

Then in October of 2020 (during the height of Covid shutdowns) the City of San Diego Council and Mayor decided to forge ahead and go above and beyond all the State of California developer friendly legislation and created their OWN program called the ADU BONUS Program.

And here we are..............

The City of San Diego decided to create the ADU Bonus program to help homeowners streamline the process of building an ADU in their backyards.

However this ill conceived program had loopholes built in that were big enough that you could drive a cement truck through them.  And that is what unscrupulous ADU developers pounced on like Mr. Daniel Shkolnik of Atlas West Group and Mr. Christian Spicer of SDRE Homebuyers LLC who recently changed his business name to Infill Innovations Inc.
(exact same website and office address but some new partners/employees this time)

Mr. Shkolnik stated at the June 16th, 2025 City Council meeting  " 6 to 12 ADU's in a back yard is kind of our niche"
Whereas Mr. Spicer demonstrated 18 ADU’s on a lot at the end of a culdesac with no parking was more his style. (See pictures above)
 

Now whether it was naïveté on the City Council members part, or the push by Mayor Todd Gloria to build, build, build or campaign contributions from developers we leave that to others to investigate.

But the disastrous effects reverberated throughout the City and the citizens fought back.

On June 16th, 2025 over 200 citizens got up to voice their opposition to this crazy plan of allowing unlimited ADU’s in a residential backyard.
A vote was taken at that City Council meeting passing with a 5-4 vote.

These are the Council Members who wanted to keep the ADU Bonus program as UNLIMITED number of ADU's in residential backyards.
NO VOTES
Stephan Witburn - District 3 

Kent Lee -  District 6  -  up for re-election Nov. 3rd 2026

Vivian Moreno - District 8 - up for re-election Nov. 3rd 2026

Sean Elo-Rivera - District 9

This amendment to the City's ADU Bonus program NOW is no longer "unlimited ADU's".

The following are the number of ADU's that can be put on a lot after the amendment was passed.
Maximum 4 ADU’s on lots 8,000 sq ft and under
Maximum 5 ADU’s on lots 8,001 to 10,000 sq ft

Maximum 6 ADU’s on lots 10,001 sq ft and larger

On August 22nd the Mayor Todd Gloria begrudgingly signed the new ADU limits into law

https://obrag.org/2025/06/update-adopted-changes-to-the-bonus-adu-program/

BUT WAIT THERE IS STILL BAD NEWS COMING YOUR WAY LIKE A SNAKE UNDER A ROCK WAITING TO STRIKE OUT WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT.

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Any projects for these outrageous “ADU Farms”, as the term coined by Union Tribune writer David Garrick,
that submitted plans PRIOR to August 22nd 2025 can and may go through according to our Director of City Planning, Heidi Vonblum.

Take a moment to look over our list by zip code areas of 6 or more ADU’s that may still be out there waiting for a bulldozer to show up.

So as you can see there are hundreds of these massive ADU sites most yet to spring up in your neighborhood and all with the blessing of our Mayor and City Council.  

Well at least 4 of our current City Council members.

Did we mention seats for District 2, 4, 6 & 8 will be voted on this November 2026?

However in the beginning of 2026, lawsuits started being filed not just by citizens grassroots groups like , www.ProtectPB.org but lawsuits by a lender and a investor in these ADU Farms, against San Diego’s largest ADU developer Mr. Christian Spicer for either non-payment of loans or no work at all on his 75+ sites.

Mr. Christian Spicer promised in his advertising booklets to prospective members that 23 of these address would be completed by 2024 and another 30 would be completed by 2025.  So you can imagine his list of private lenders and investors have reason to be upset with some never even being permitted yet.
 

Stay tuned on that particular front ………..

For more information
Take a look at all our links on the Front Page of this site.
If you want to be kept up to date on news about what is happeing with this fight and other housing issues join our Email Group by clicking HERE.

And thank you to all the citizens of San Diego who have contributed to the information gathered here. 
We could not have done it without all your help.👍
"Many hands make the work light"