San Diego officials finally closed the zoning loophole pitting neighbor against neighbor in coastal communities — but angst continues over the many backyard apartments it has already allowed directly along property lines. Two neighbors in Crown Point haven’t spoken for months, and a new backyard apartment on their property line remains unfinished because one neighbor won’t allow the other to access his yard to stucco the last wall. “Everything’s done except for that wall,” said Heidi Martin, who is building the backyard apartment for her 25-year-old daughter to live in. “My neighbor put up a ‘no trespassing’ sign.” Martin is in the unusual position of needing access to the yard of her neighbor, Marc Umemoto, because of a loophole that was just recently closed by the City Council and the California Coastal Commission. The loophole allowed backyard apartments — which many call granny flats, and which city officials call accessory dwelling units — to be built directly next to a neighboring property with no setback or buffer zone. The City Council outlawed building backyard apartments on property lines in April 2022, but the new rule couldn’t take effect in the city’s coastal neighborhoods without a second approval from the California Coastal Commission. That approval wasn’t finalized until Sept. 12 of this year — nearly two and a half years after the city’s move. In the interim, dozens of backyard apartments were built directly on property lines in coastal neighborhoods. Umemoto, the neighbor who won’t allow the stucco work, said the battles between neighbors are an example of the city going too far in its efforts to solve the housing crisis with looser construction and zoning rules. “It’s not a win-win situation,” he said last week. “The city is trying to solve the housing crisis at the expense of others.” Heidi Martin’s ADU home next to Marc Umemoto’s house in Crown Point on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker for The San Diego Union-Tribune) While it’s easy to blame the rule disparity on how long it took the Coastal Commission to approve the city’s policy change, Umemoto notes the problem initially began in 2019, when San Diego loosened its rules for backyard apartments. That included allowing backyard apartments to be built directly on property lines all across the city. Not requiring buffer zones made backyard apartments more feasible on smaller or unusually configured properties. Public backlash prompted the city to retreat in 2022 and update its rule to begin requiring minimum setbacks of 4 feet for ADUs built next to residential properties. But Martin and her husband were allowed to build their backyard apartment right on the property line anyway, because their property is located in the coastal zone, where the rule change didn’t immediately take effect. Umemoto and some other coastal residents lobbied city officials to block construction of the backyard apartment, and Umemoto threatened to sue. He said last week that he eventually decided not to because his lawyer said construction had progressed too far to make an injunction likely. “You’ve got to weigh your options when you’re spending thousands of dollars,” he said. But he hasn’t relented or agreed to allow Martin’s contractor to stucco the final wall. “I don’t hate anyone in the world, I just choose not to deal with them,” he said of the Martins. “It is what it is at this point.” Umemoto said he offered to allow access to his yard if the contractor would agree to provide some documents — a release of liability, a scope of the project and a plan for avoiding damage to any plants on his property. “They offered a note, but they refused to sign anything,” he said. Umemoto concedes he’d rather look at stucco than an exposed wall covered only in yellow gypsum-based sheathing board — but he said Martin has more to gain by finishing the wall. “I would think you’d need exterior weatherproofing,” he said. “That yellow board is made to be covered.” View of Marc Umemoto’s backyard with new ADU home with neighbor Heidi Martin’s ADU home next to it in Crown Point in Pacific Beach on San Diego, CA on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker for The San Diego Union-Tribune) Martin said the situation is highly frustrating. “We couldn’t stucco it because we’d be in his airspace,” she said. “Things got kind of yucky.” Martin said she and her husband sent letters to several neighbors before they started the project, including Umemoto. She said he didn’t respond. “We would have 100% worked with him,” she said. Umemoto contends the new backyard apartment hurts his property values, saying it walls off his yard like a prison, blocks natural light and air flow and changes the entire character of his home just a few blocks from Mission Bay. Martin notes that the apartment was built above an existing garage that already touches Umemoto’s property line. And she said it’s common in densely populated Crown Point for structures to be built next to property lines. Martin said she has spent thousands on legal advice during the battle. She also said it was frustrating for neighborhood leaders to single out her backyard apartment. “People who don’t even know us know our story,” she said. “It’s unfortunate the way it happened.” Heidi Martin stands in front of a new ADU home on her property in Crown Point on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker for The San Diego Union-Tribune) City officials often express frustration with how slowly they get approvals from the Coastal Commission, which must handle new legislation from hundreds of California cities and which only meets three days each month. One factor complicating this instance was the fact that the backyard apartment policy change was included with dozen of other policies in something called a city housing action package. That package included a variety of developer incentives and several other regulation changes. Because the Coastal Commission requested revisions to some of those changes when it initially considered the package in April of this year, the final approval was delayed until September. The commission made no adjustment to the city’s policy change on backyard apartments. ADUs made up just under 20% of the 9,692 new housing units approved by the city in 2023, or 1,908 projects. They made up just over 12% of the new housing units approved by the city in 2022 — 651 of 5,314. The ratio was higher in 2021, the last full year when no setbacks were required. In 2021, 871 of the 3,650 units approved were ADUs — just under 24%. Numbers for 2024 will be available early next year. Marc Umemoto stands in his backyard, behind him is his neighbor’s property where an accessory dwelling unit is being built in Crown Point on Thursday, May 2, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)