Del Cerro Megachurch Opponents Escalate to Court of Appeal; In-Custody Death Investigated
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One day after Superior Court Judge Carolyn M. Caietti issued her written ruling upholding the city's approval of the Light Project, the resident group Save Del Cerro announced Friday it will appeal — launching what the group says could be a 12-to-18-month legal battle in the Court of Appeal. The ruling had upheld both the city's environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act and the zoning consistency determination for All People's Church's proposed 54,000-square-foot, 900-seat facility at the intersection of Interstate 8 and College Avenue.
The appeal represents a significant escalation for a project that already survived a full Superior Court challenge. Appellate courts can overturn trial court CEQA findings, but they do so rarely when the lower court conducted a thorough review — meaning the appeal faces real headwinds even as it delays construction indefinitely. Traffic on the already-pressured I-8 and College Avenue corridor has been a central community concern throughout the process, given what 900 seats of weekend attendance would mean for local streets at the junction of Del Cerro, Allied Gardens, and the broader eastern neighborhoods.
In a separate and sobering development, the San Diego County Sheriff's Homicide Unit confirmed Saturday that an 85-year-old man arrested by SDPD on June 18 on suspicion of attempted murder and domestic violence had died at a local hospital. The Sheriff's Homicide Unit assumed jurisdiction — standard protocol when a death follows a law enforcement arrest — and the investigation is ongoing. The man's identity and the circumstances of the original alleged crime have not been publicly released.
Looking ahead, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors meets Thursday, June 25, for two consequential votes: final adoption of the $9.16 billion fiscal year 2026-27 budget, and the second reading of a charter reform package that passed on a 3-2 vote earlier this week. If the second reading passes, the reforms — covering independent ethics enforcement, budget transparency tools, and program accountability mechanisms — advance to the November 2026 ballot.