By Jay Powell
“..something there is that doesn’t love a wall, …Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense ”
– Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”
The Pinnacle from Inspiration Point in Balboa Park
(Central Library to right, the Bay Bridge and Coronado Islands in distance)
Over the holidays, as I happened to be exploring the East Mesa of Balboa Park, I was surprised by a new feature on the horizon a few points west of due south. It seemed that a very tall structure had just popped out of the ground in the vicinity of the East Village neighborhood of downtown. I came to learn shortly thereafter that this could easily be only the beginning of a wall of tall buildings rising up from East Village in front of the southern vista of the Coronado Bay Bridge and the Coronado Islands as viewed from vantage points such as “Inspiration Point “ in Balboa Park.
While the latter point is a somewhat neglected part of the park, the view still managed to inspire me to find out how this structure was able to pop up in that picture.
At a “Community Benefits Consensus Project” workshop a few weeks later in January Civic San Diego presented storyboards of projects that they thought best exemplified how a development can provide “community benefits.” The board that caught my attention featured “The Pinnacle,” a 480 foot tall luxury condominium project at the corner of 15th and Island Avenue. So now the beast had a name and a story.
When I first beheld the Pinnacle I wondered what the residents of Greater Golden Hill and other affected communities must think of this new feature which greets them anytime they look out a window or down a street with a southern view. As I have discovered it is hard not to see this one feature from many other vantage points in and near Balboa Park.
How did that pinnacle get to be there in front of those of us visiting the park, and is it really a “community benefit” or is one community’s purported benefit a blight on what is referred to in planning parlance as the public “vista” ?
The Pinnacle is already one of the tallest buildings in the former CCDC redevelopment area and the crane is still pulling up steel on what will be a 45 story building. It is quite impressive to stand at its base and look up to the top. Vertigo is a distinct risk in that position.
First of the Pinnacle luxury condo towers from Island Ave looking southwest. Central Library in background. Less-than-luxury encampments in foreground.
It is even more impressive and obtrusive when you learn that it is just the first of two towers that will be built next to each other on this block. The Pinnacle is actually the Pinnacles.
From Civic San Diego website drawing of the Pinnacle(s) project looking to northeast.
Park in the foreground.
I was directed to the Downtown Community Plan by Nico Calavita, SDSU Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning to learn more of what has been promised for this area. The Plan was adopted in 2006 and it and the accompanying Centre City Planned District Ordinance (PDO) have been amended several times. I delved into the Plan and the Ordinance to see if we could expect more of these towers popping up out of East Village.
I am not sure I can definitively answer that query. But I will share what I learned: it seems the plan does not match the reality.
Calavita notes in a summary of his current civic land use research that CCDC had adopted certain standards referred to as FARs in their original 1992 plan. The FAR refers to a formula calculation based on an assigned “Floor Area Ratio”. The actual calculations can become complex, but the principle is quite simple: certain areas of a neighborhood are given a base amount of development potential (how much floor area can be built) relative to the size of the parcel.
Excerpt, 2006 Downtown Community Plan.
Looking South, Balboa Park to lower left, East village reaching to Petco Park on left.
In drafting the revised 2006 plan there was considerable pressure to increase the FAR limit significantly. Calavita notes that ultimately with intervention by public benefit organizations including Citizens Coordinate for Century Three (C-3), CCDC agreed to maintain the existing 1992 FAR numbers as a “Base Maximum Density.” Developers could receive increases in FARs if they provided benefits that could include affordable housing, urban open space or parks, increased number of bedrooms, ecological roofs and employment uses.
This concept evolved into adoption of an FAR Bonus Payment Program in 2007 that allowed developers to essentially purchase increases in FAR in certain designated areas of downtown. It also provided that developers could “transfer” density out of an area that might be designated for a park or historical preservation. That mechanism is referred to a “Transfer of Development Rights (TDR)”.
Within a year of adoption of the revised plan, the real estate bubble burst and the ubiquitous cranes pulling steel up to the sky were not seen downtown for several years. Then, just as the economy and the building industry were beginning their recovery in 2011, the State decided to end redevelopment. The City Council authorized a new non profit entity, Civic San Diego to continue to carry out downtown redevelopment obligations. They also gave Civic the unique land use permitting authority formerly vested in CCDC.
Finally, in recognition of the loss of the substantial tax increment dollars provided by redevelopment to fund public improvements, they authorized an increase in the FAR Bonus Program and expansion of the areas of downtown eligible for the program. This results in a very attractive incentive to developers who now have the ability to go even higher and build many more units. Calavita estimates that in some cases as much as 50% more than the previous bonus program is provided.
Numerous charts and tables in the plan and PDO ordinance indicate that the several block area hosting the Pinnacle(s) project was designated as a “Neighborhood Mixed-Use Center” to be developed at “Fine Grain (FG)” that “refers to a diversity of architectural styles and forms within a block and encouragement of small lot development.”
The Maximum FAR that can be achieved for the site, regardless of employing all the bonus programs, is listed in the plan and PDO as a relatively moderate “6”. The artists conceptions — provided with the caveat “solely (and purely) for illustrative purposes”—show a building that might be at most 7 or 8 stories next to a one block park.
Zoom view of illustration showing “Superblock” (2 normal blocks) hosting Pinnacle project and park.
From Downtown Community Plan, Figure 3-8, “Increased Intensities”
But the Pinnacle project under construction will yield 965 condo units and 17,000 square feet (SF) of commercial/retail space located in two 480 foot tall towers.
The real surprise in this mystery comes from an October 5, 2005 CCDC report to the City Council sitting as the Redevelopment Agency. This is background and recommendation to enter into what is called an “Owner Participation Agreement (OPA)” with developer, “Pinnacle International”, a family firm led by Michael De Cotiis, headquartered in Vancouver, Canada (the family is featured in a December 2005 Vancouver Province news article posted to “primetimecrime.com/Recent/Organized %Crime”)
Then we learn that the “site is constrained by a fault line of the Rose Fault, and a storm drain no-build easement, which bisect the park.” So they get another 180,000 SF of development by including the “no-build” land in the calculation. Somebody must have been smiling in Vancouver.
Lo and behold, the Redevelopment Agency enters into this OPA that goes from the magnitude and scale illustrated and described in the plan that is adopted a year later to two towers of 31 and 39 stories, reaching 370 and 430 feet. With total developed square footage of 717,868 SF for 616 condos and 19,395 SF of commercial retail. The park is 30,000 or 60,000 SF depending on whether the City wants to buy some more land after “conveying” 30,000 SF to the developers.
So those of you still with me, pull out your calculators. Divide the total developed square footage by 6 and you will come up in the neighborhood of 120,000 square feet. But the development only sits on 90,000 SF you say?
Later the next year in a report on how they are doing implementing this special deal, the report notes that a “ 56,024 SF (1.286 acres) Park Easement was recorded on the “super block” at the time the Agency conveyed its 30,000 FP parcel to the Developer to provide the Developer an assembled site of 120,000 SF.” Ah, now the math works.
Then we learn that the “site is constrained by a fault line of the Rose Fault, and a storm drain no-build easement, which bisect the park.” So they get another 180,000 SF of development by including the “no-build” land in the calculation. Somebody must have been smiling in Vancouver. Nico Calavita informs me that, ironically, Vancouver has some of the most rigorous requirements for developers to pay for more FARs.
Civic San Diego lists the following benefits for the Pinnacle project (which was approved prior to them taking over the project):
* Implements Downtown Community Plan vision for the neighborhood
* Removes a nuisance, blighted property
* Creates a 57,000 SF public park to be maintained in perpetuity by the developer
* Provides joint use public restrooms serving the park and retail
* Creates construction and permanent jobs
These are arguably benefits to the Downtown community. Developers also agreed to set aside 72 of the condo units to be “affordable”. The plan considers for sale properties restricted to households making between 81 to 120% of the area median income (“moderate income”) to be “affordable” units. They are not required to spread these units vertically (ie, you are not going to get a penthouse view, or maybe any view for that matter….).
Some of the other benefits seem to conflict with intentions expressed in the Community plan for what is called the “Southeastern subdistrict” of East Village: “a significant opportunity for low and mid intensity residential development centered on a a central park/plaza.”
Perhaps of an even greater concern with the proliferation of more high rises towers in East Village is the environmental review statement that the “prevalence of geological faults in East Village will force a separation between buildings and thus result in smaller building sites on many blocks.” “Geology and Soils” analysis notes that “amendments to the plan would allow construction of development projects in a area with potential for substantial health and safety risks associated with seismic hazard.”
As noted previously, the Rose Fault bisects the area set aside for the appropriately named “Rose Park”. It appears from the site illustration that Spurlock and Poirier Landscape Architects have even included the fault line in their design.
View from what would be about the level of the marine layer above the twin pinnacle towers site.
Source Civic San Diego.
How did we get from the low intensity village plan to high rise towers?
Clearly there was some “creativity” involved when undevelopable land was included in the FAR calculation to get from relatively low intensity uses and maybe one mid rise building in a neighborhood center to a high rise.
What is not clear in the project information I have uncovered to date is how they went from even that significant increase to a project that is now 50% larger than even that jump — to two of the highest towers in the city. Who has participated in the determination of these significant changes as adequate greater public benefits versus costs in creating and implementing these incentives?
To what extent was the general public interest taken into account and valued to preserve other public interest commons such as the vistas from vantage points other than the penthouse condos at the Pinnacle(s)?
What is not clear in the project information I have uncovered to date is how they went from even that significant increase to a project that is now 50% larger than even that jump — to two of the highest towers in the city. Who has participated in the determination of these significant changes as adequate greater public benefits versus costs in creating and implementing these incentives?
How was this decision to expand the FARs made? How and to what degree are these projects subjected to environmental review to evaluate the cumulative impact to the character and environment of the community of East Village and of dramatically expanding the potential to essentially wall off views of the bridge, the bay, the ocean, the Coronados from other communities and communities of interest?
The potential cumulative impact of continuing to increase the height of other buildings in East Village will include a significant shading of the entire village – blotting out the sun and creating a shivering in the shadows effect from these behemoths. It appears that the public park (actually privately owned and maintained, but open to the public – kind of a San Diego version of Zuccotti Park) provided to the west of the Pinnacles will have to wait until afternoon to get any direct sunlight even though it is within an area designated as a “Park Sun Access Overlay”. This is disturbing for a plan that brags about how a key tenet of the plan is to ensure that sunlight reaches the most frequented public spaces—parks and neighborhood centers” and that “building intensities, heights and volumes…. have been guided by light.”
The Downtown Community Plan and accompanying environmental documents only consider the potential “Aesthetic/Visual Quality” impacts on vista or views from a public viewing area including state designated scenic highway 163 where it enters downtown and view corridors from within the community (of downtown). The greater vistas from Balboa Park and other vantage points outside of downtown are not evaluated at all. In fact, the plan waxes eloquent on how it will “establish a more defined yet variegated skyline, giving focus points to the eye when gazing at the new wall (emphasis added) of sparkling architecture rising up behind (emphasis added) the Bay”.
The result of this limited analysis could be that the greater public commons in terms of vistas and sunshine on the street will be sacrificed for more luxury condo towers to fund more infrastructure or public spaces in downtown. What is perceived as needed or what is desired for relatively affluent and privileged downtown residents and businesses to live in the manner to which they have become accustomed and to help Civic San Diego to sustain their funding base could then become the narrow priority that is addressed without a real exposition of the costs to the rest of San Diego.
There is no evidence that the community of Greater Golden Hill and the myriad Balboa Park advocates, users and visitors were apprised of this potentially significant impact to their environment.
Should the City Council expand the Land Use Authority for Civic San Diego?
This particular development and the approach taken for downtown has implications for the Civic San Diego consensus project currently underway and to aspirations that Civic San Diego has to expand their reach and land use authority into other communities such as City Heights and the greater Encanto area of Southeastern San Diego.
Why Civic wants to expand to these areas may be more of a political necessity than desire to provide assistance to under-served communities. Marti Emerald and Myrtle Cole who respectfully represent these two communities serve on the City Council Public Safety and Neighborhoods Committee. Led by Councilmember Emerald, the Committee asked Civic SD to return to a meeting presently scheduled for March 18 with a plan to ensure that further expansion of Civic activities would be accompanied by a community benefits policy.
Civic San Diego is putting together a $100 Million investment fund after already obtaining $58 Million award of federal “New Market Tax Credits. They want to have land use authority for permitting and investment in these communities before deploying those funds.
The reception to date from residents of these prospective ancillary communities has not been all that warm or inviting. Wary might be the nicest way to describe the reception at the workshops I have attended. There was a lot of talk from Civic San Diego staff and consultants about building trust, but the speed at which the outreach is being conducted and the vehicles employed to provide input have created even less trust.
A very interesting web device called MindMixer is being used to allow anyone to comment on any of some 25 different categories of benefits. The emphasis is on anyone can comment on anything and the volume of input is what is valued versus the source of the input.
Considerable doubt was expressed at workshops I attended that community-specific input would result from this process. Some community leaders outside of downtown have noted that the internet vehicle may be convenient for Civic San Diego, but it is not for residents in lower income communities that have limited or no access to the web.
The reception to date from residents of these prospective ancillary communities has not been all that warm or inviting. Wary might be the nicest way to describe the reception at the workshops I have attended.
Joshua Emerson Smith did a fine article in CityBeat sharing perspectives of key community leaders, advocates and even a couple of Civic San Diego’s Board members who shared their own reservations about the current process. The title of his article is pertinent to the issue of how are impacts and benefits are assessed.
He previously covered the September 2014 City Council hearing where the community benefits issue including some Councilmembers’ desire for investment in affordable housing was discussed in some depth during the confirmation of the Mayor’s appointment of former developer Reese Jarrett as Civic President and CEO. No commitment was made regarding affordable housing.
Councilmember Cole hosted the Mayor and a double-decker bus full of developers and building industry representatives on a tour of vacant parcels in Encanto and its surrounds. Developers emphasized the need to up-zone areas in the community plan update to accommodate their need to realize a sufficient return on their investment. The article did not discuss the community economic development potential in these areas.
Ironically, the first of the two Pinnacle towers is quite visible even at considerable distance from Emerald Hills, right next door to Encanto and up the hill from the Imperial Ave commercial district and trolley line. I suspect that hilltop stop was not on the tour.
The first Pinnacle Tower appears as tallest building on the right as seen from street leading to Emerald Hills Neighborhood Park. Bay Bridge and Point Loma in background to left.
At stake in City Heights are existing obligations for redevelopment recognized by the State and some critical real estate adjacent to the SR-15 freeway and the CenterLine Rapid transit stations. When questioned about these latter resources, Reese Jarrett said they were waiting to see what the State would authorize and Jarrett considers them excellent assets to “leverage.”
To leverage for whose benefit is still the real question. The area has rezoned portions of both El Cajon Blvd and University Avenue to allow for more intense transit oriented development. The new Boulevard Rapid Bus route runs along El Cajon Blvd and intersects with the CenterLine Rapid Transit station over I-15 which is to begin construction along with the University Avenue station some time this year.
Yet, it has been reported that at least two requests for funding assistance of commercial development and affordable housing in the former City Heights redevelopment area have already been turned down, ostensibly because the projects are not large enough.
The San Diego Free Press has previously covered the inception of Civic San Diego as the spawn of CCDC and the current process underway to define a community benefits framework and how a past redevelopment project in City Heights has performed after transfer of ownership.
In the latter case developer William Jones sold the City Heights Retail Village for significant profit and within months the new owners of the center and of the Albertson’s chain of stores closed the anchor market and replaced it with what many consider a far less desirable anchor market.
How redevelopment or revitalization or reinvestment is conducted and to whom it is accountable are critical to ensure a sustainable economic benefit is achieved in the communities of City Heights and the greater Encanto area.
The downtown approach of building it bigger and higher for big, big returns on investments for a few developers may not realize the benefits of a community development approach to achieve economic uplift for these very unique diverse communities.
Jay Powell retired from 20 years work with the City Heights Community Development Corporation. He serves as “environmental advocate” on the City of San Diego’s Sustainable Energy Advisory Board.
Jay Powell
Latest posts by Jay Powell (see all)
- San Diego Commons at the Crossroads: The Sell-Off of ‘Excess’ Properties - May 18, 2017
- Hide and Seek on the Commons: Selling More San Diego - February 10, 2016
- Preserving the San Diego Commons: Public Land, Policy and Process - January 21, 2016
Phew! Thanks for this. Midway through I was made to wonder if a lot of people will be able to buy a unit in these NYC-style hi-rises? Where will they be coming from? Would there be some percentage of buyers who could (or would) trade their North Park bungalows or their 2,000 sq. feet in Tierrasanta for a small piece of the Pinnacle’s 11th floor that cost twice as much?
As you’ve pointed out, Jay Powell, the benefits of these twin towers will not be available to San Diegans, for sure, nor to anyone stupid enough to spend millions of dollars to live in an air-conditioned mid-air cage. The benefits go to the dealer-developers and their city hall allies.
Some people like living in dense cities, because they would rather have things to do nearby than more interior space. If you don’t want to live in a tower, then stay in the suburbs and don’t buy one. But the city has to allow development of the kinds of properties people want to live in.
Also, a lot of people who buy in these buildings are from San Diego. Many of my neighbors are people who got bored out in the remote parts of SD and moved downtown. And younger generations aren’t interested in a huge house/yard in the middle of nowhere; they want to live in dense cities.
For decades developers and/or conservatives have saluted density, and then worked to defeat affordable housing and mass transit. That’s a deadly combination. We’re being subjected at this moment to nothing more than a propaganda barrage promoting the interests of scandalously rich owners of professional sports franchises and investment bankers from out of town who don’t give a damn about orderly growth.
Propagandists back in the 70’s gave San Diego its now dead appellation, “America’s Finest City,” and now they’ve degraded the planning mantra of “A City of Villages” into a “village” east of downtown that is mainly a set of hi-rise condos affixed with “now leasing” signs.
I’ll listen to stooges who write comments about the attraction of the downtown when the diners and art galleries and music joints and coffee houses are given subsidies for ground-level commercial development within walking distance. And when the developers and Mitt Romney move downtown from their comfy La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe digs.
Thanks Mr. Powell for a great piece of reporting.
I too, was surprised seeing The Pinnacle last week when I was downtown. I’d been there jus a month earlier and I don’t recall seeing anything being built. Then, suddenly – BAM! – a tall structure in the middle of nothing else tall.
All by itself as it is, it’s deffinitely the most noticable feature in the area. A sore thumb forecasting more to come, I fear.
I too just saw this tower for the first time a week ago and was curious about it. I would also like to compliment Mr. Powell for this excellent piece of reporting, for me, the timing was perfect. What I think this piece highlights, among many other things is that killing the CCDC was great but killing all its spawn is a difficult task that must be accomplished. This is just a mechanism for development to get control of money and authority and avoid public scrutiny and it must be stopped. Something else is going on here I htink. Why would anyone who could afford these units want to live in that part of town? Mr. Powell has done an admirable job of digging up what is planned but I’m guessing there is more to that story.
The fear knows no bounds.
Sure would be good timing and a good faith example were Civic SD to move forward with a model community project along the I-15 ASAP.
The responses to this article and, indeed, the article itself, are so misinformed and full of gaps in information it is almost funny. I plead that anyone reading Mr. Powell’s words take time to look for themselves into how this project came to be, how it does or does not conform with the Downtown Community Plan, and to learn first-hand how Civic San Diego operates in the community’s best interest and how it proposes to do so in City Heights and Encanto as well.
These words are clearly written with the sole intent of further generating misguided fear and anger aimed at killing Civic’s ability to further economic development and prosperity in our City. And yes, however you define it, economic development benefits everyone, not just those with money. Do some research.
All five of the other folks who made comments used their actual names, myself included. Your comment reads like it came directly from Civic San Diego, and, since it came with a pseudonym, I’m going to assume I’m correct.
The bus tour that the Mayor took to Encanto visited 17 sites. All but one (16) were owned by Civic San Diego or Jacobs Family Trust. (See City Councilman Cole’s web page). Guess who intends to get that federal money! The same consultant that did the Southeast and Encanto Community Plan Update is the same consultant that did the downtown Plan and is an ongoing consultant for Civic San Diego. That same consultant gave an FAR of 1 (one) for land located along the trolley and within 1/4 mile from the 25th. St. Orange line trolley. Civic San Diego wants no competition for development with their land in Encanto. Once they have digested Encanto, Civic San Diego will turn its attention on the recently low intensity zoned southeast trolley line and as their former President Jeff Graham said’ “We buy it cheap, upgrade the zoning density and sell to investors” (See Voice of San Diego)
Civic San Diego does not own any land. Civic San Diego is just the administration consultant who oversees land owned by the Successor Agency (SA) to the former Redevelopment Agency, and the Low Moderate Income Housing Asset Fund (LMIHAF).
Civic San Diego is CCDC. Do not trust the thieves. Any non-profit receiving Federal New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) has to have 50% of their projects in low income Census Tracks.
Instead of killing off CCDC when Redevelopment ended, the City instead renamed the Non-Profit Civic San Diego. Same people. Same contracts.
http://voiceofsandiego.org/topics/land-use/civic-san-diego-right-faster-issuing-permits/
From 2004 to 2011, Civic San Diego, the former CCDC, had access to unlimited Administration funds and underwrote all permit costs for Developers downtown. From 2012 to the present for the Successor Agency administration and management, Civic San Diego borrowed more than $25 million from the General Fund Reserves. Civic San Diego is a Blended Component Unit of the City and part of Neighborhood Services, backed by the City’s General Fund.
For Successor Agency work for 2012-2013, Civic San Diego borrowed $20.4 million for extra Administration costs for itself, City Attorney, Comptroller, Financial Management, etc. Then the Comptroller wrote off and erased $20.4 million as part of the $211 million of Successor Agency Debt erased in the FY-2013 CAFR. See Page 11 Item 200 FY-2014 First Quarter Budget Monitoring Report December 9, 2013.
http://tinyurl.com/20131209
If this building is new to you then you must not spend much time in the city or commuting paying much attention to local news. Construction has been going on since last summer, at least. I find that a vast most people enjoy looking at city skylines from vantage points (LA, SF, Seattle) and this addition will only improve our already great looking skyline, I wish it was taller. Silly FAA. I digress. It’s okay to not like a building, I see no problem with an opinion but I do see a problem with questioning the intention of businesses which are in the business of making money. That’s their purpose. Anti-development, anti-grown views don’t hold much water when tested against a free market. People want to live downtown, developers will build and sell housing where folks want to live.
I tried so hard to get this story out, visiting City Beat and the Reader! Now a few people in San Diego are waking up! I am so thankful to Jay Powell for writing this.
I hope everyone gets stirred up with this one. I expect you will join with me ericvideo@gmail.com in this battle to save San Diego as we loved it . America’s finest city is being methodically ruined by the real estate developers and big money. When money is allowed to corrupt every thing on Earth, till we can’t breath any longer, we must act.
Things are happening, things that we can influence!
This building is “San Diego’s Monument to Decadence”. We should rally at this location. Look at the pictures of this monstrosity. This is a misplaced object! It belongs in New York City not in San Diego. When we start to uncover the names of the people who planned this horrible structure. We must out-them as decadent Vaisyas who love money more then anything else.
I think here in San Diego we have to take that Monument to Decadence down. We don’t need a cement 50 story phallic symbol sticking up for all of San Diego to behold!
A monument to greed and corruption. What kind of people would want to live in it?
Look below at the homeless people, the scene is sickening!
Here is the link to the youtube video of myself and friend Donald addressing the city council about the “Monument of Decadence”
This has to be one of the most ill-informed rants to the council in a long while. Did your friend not know they’re already building a park on the same site paid for by the developer? Did you know he got the developer in question wrong (its Pinnacle, not Zephyrs – the latter of which is also planning twin 40 story towers elsewhere in the East Village, so be ready to complain about that in the near future). You do realize that in order to appease your personal aesthetic tastes to not “look like New York,” you’re asking future San Diegans to have less housing, less park space, and more environmental degradation from sprawl and auto-centric development in the hinterlands? That doesn’t sound fair, and it doesn’t sound right. My advice: move to almost any other neighborhood in San Diego where anything over 3 stories is banned. There are plenty of NIMBY pockets in this city, you can find one that suits you best.
Attn: Matthew Levin
Hey, what turnip truck did you fall off, rube?
See how it feels when somebody starts out by insulting you?
You wanna disagree? Fine.
Start by not being so nasty.
That’s why your comments weren’t approved. Oh and, by the way, look up the definition of censorship after you read our terms of service.
I stare at this behemoth of a building everyday from my Barrio Logan perch and anytime I’m pretty much anywhere in central SD. It is totally out of place. Whoever ok’d it should be tarred and feathered and run out of town. Hopefully the homeless residents that survive on the streets around this monstrosity rebel and use it as their personal outhouse. Conflict between those barely living beneath it’s shadows and the future affluent tenants is coming to that area. I’m pretty sure the SDPD is going to end up siding with the new folk and end up cracking a few heads of longtime street people. And pushing them east and south into Logan and Sherman.
Nowhere in the story does author Jay Powell say he’s against increased density.
What he is saying that it appears the system is being gamed. And people in those communities have long and bitter memories about all the promises made and not kept during past spurts of development. The way the SANDAG led deal for I-15 and the lack of willingness for anybody to take responsibility for the enforcement of DDAs or restrictive covenants in previous development regimes screwed City Heights stand out as a shining examples of why vigilance is important.
That sort of thing is a big part of San Diego’s history, especially when it comes to neighborhoods like City Heights, Barrio Logan and Encanto.
poking a stick in someone’s eye (you might hit a nerve)
on your way to the brain
uncomfortable facts
someone might disdain
I “call’em as I see ‘em”
though my lense is not without stain
is it someone’s job to point it out,
when something’s causing a pain?
This article as commentary on the Pinnacle project and the aspirations of Civic San Diego has received quite a bit of response, some of which has been downright hostile. Looks like it struck a nerve on both sides of the issue.
Some comments have confirmed a feeling of shock and awe at the size of the project and are generally and genuinely concerned about the process that might have led to the permitting of this project. Fact: it is not what the plan and the ordinances represent.
Some comments have challenged the facts in the article, but not offered other information. Some have scoffed at the concerns expressed regarding the process of permitting and attempted to characterize the article as an attack on Civic San Diego and the need to build more densely to accommodate growth.
For the record, I am an advocate for appropriate, transit oriented development. I spent nearly 20 years as a community development professional. We built, rehabilitated and operated hundreds of units of affordable housing. I am very proud that we were able to provider a new transit oriented affordable housing and mixed use development in City Heights that involved complex combinations of funding and a lot of creativity and innovative thinking.
I am very impressed by the Pinnacle development. I admire the design including the color combinations on each of the buildings. They will be beautiful skyscrapers. They are proudly displayed in forum.skyscraperpage.com (one of the more hostile, derisive comments about this article was posted to that page). The park will be first class and promises to provide a wonderful asset to the East Village neighborhood.
But the project also imposes significant impacts on those who do not live or play there. Those impacts were not adequately evaluated. Now they are literally staring us in the face.
The deal as I see it, by applying the FAR (multiplier of 6) to the undevelopable half of the superblock (approximately 60,000 square feet), was a gift of 180,000 to 360,000 square feet of developable area to the developer. That represents one third to a half of the towers’ height. I think that is an excessive incentive and a troubling precedent.
I have not been able to track down the back up information for the reports that I could find and quoted in the article. My voice mails to Civic San Diego for additional information prior to posting the article resulted in one voicemail from a Vice President after the article was posted. Again, my call back has not been answered. There is talk about transparency and responsiveness and then there is that direct experience that is not too encouraging.
The person in charge of the origin of this deal in 2005, CCDC CEO Nancy Graham left town in hurry a few years later with a cloud of conflict of interest hanging over her head. The agency which morphed into Civic San Diego, CCDC was given extraordinary powers to control an extensive area of this City. They have convinced who they needed to, including the City Council sitting as the Redevelopment Agency and the various downtown advisory groups, that this project was a marvelous coup. The UT San Diego Metro section headline on June 1, 2005 trumpeted: “Pact reached for guaranteed, no-cost park in East Village.”
But there were and there are costs to the public commons both in and outside of downtown of maximizing the development potential and the developer’s rate of return on this investment.
The question is will past practices be prologue to the future for this successor agency? What level of review will be conducted in the future and how will the affected communities be involved and supported in the oversight of projects such as this? The article reflects what I have seen, heard and felt in the outreach meetings conducted to date. If Civic San Diego operates like CCDC, they are not and will not be trusted.
The issue is how to conduct a community economic development program that is effective in not only attracting capital, pouring concrete that serves the needs of a community but also equips and engages that community to have the information they require to ask the right questions and then have project ownership with a responsive coordinating agency.
In the weeks and months ahead, the City Council will be considering what community benefits policy and process should be provided to balance the powers currently and proposed to be provided to Civic San Diego. I encourage those who read this to pass it on to their colleagues, friends and family and encourage you to participate in the City Council considerations.
Even the negative comments on Jay Powell’s piece — a few of them modelled on standard long-distance snark — reflect the unreal enormity of the Pinnacle project. Those comments are out of any meaningful proportion, like the Pinnacle project itself. No pinnacles in sight, unless you consider the slow rise upward to Sherman Heights and Logan a pinnacle. And which village in this “City of Villages” do the hi-rises belong to? Developer language is all propaganda, thick with smarm and pretense, and it has long been the the language of most of our politicians here in “America’s Finest City.”
I wouldn’t buy a used car from these people (likely to be an Escalade with a blown head gasket).