By Brent Beltran
On Friday, July 15 from 11:30am to 1pm the San Diego Chargers will be bringing their pro-East Village stadium campaign to Barrio Logan for the Family Health Center’s Spirit of the Barrio luncheon. B.A.STA!, Barrios Against STAdiums!, will be outside the event holding a silent protest with signs and banners opposing the Chargers efforts to build a stadium one block from Barrio Logan. A press conference will also take place.
Barrio Logan is undergoing a transition due to land speculators buying properties and raising rents/leases off the backs of the hard working residents and artists who have created a vibrant Barrio Arts District. Longtime small businesses and residents are being pushed out. A stadium and entertainment district one block from our doorstep will only accelerate the gentrification of this working class community. More homeless people and the various issues that follow will be forced into our already struggling barrios. The notorious Barrio Logan parking problem will only get worse with fans and convention goers parking in our community. More cars equal more exhaust in one of California’s most polluted zip codes. Barrio Logan already has to deal with a myriad of issues that no other community would tolerate. We do not want more!
This silent, peaceful protest (they all won’t be silent, this one is out of respect for the history and work of Family Health Center) will be the beginning of a grassroots, barrio-based campaign against any plan that creates the possibility of a stadium in the East Village, be it from the Chargers or other Citizens.
B.A.STA!: Barrios Against STAdiums! is a grassroots community group comprised of Barrio Logan and other barrio residents and allies formed to oppose the siting of a stadium in San Diego’s East Village.
Brent E. Beltrán
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One thing that needs to be absolutely clear about B.A.STA!: we are not, nor will ever be, part of the coalition opposing the East Village stadium that has the Republican Party of SD County and their operatives pulling strings. The Republican Party has been completely antagonistic to the well being of barrio residents. We don’t make friends with people that fuck with us. We’d rather go it alone. Which is what we are doing.
I’m wondering why the Family Health Center is allowing the Chargers to use their event for the announcement? Are they not part of your coalition?
BTW, I love the acronym :-)
No they’re not part of our group. FHC invites a variety of people/groups to speak at their quarterly fundraiser luncheons. I’m assuming the Chargers are looking for good publicity, especially in the barrios, and sought them out but I don’t want to guess why they said yes.
BTW Family Health Center was founded as the Chicano Free Clinic in 1970 through direct militant action.
just being devils advocate – could the stadium bring opportunity to small business owners in the area?
Related: is there a way to institute rent control through more local avenues? Could planning groups start a campaign for their particular area?
What about a density bonus-like program for local businesses – density bonuses allotted to mixed-used developments that lease to local businesses (3-mile radius or something?)…
And what about the establishment of a community based, private REIT to purchase props in the area… a co-op of sorts (honestly, i’m not super familiar with REITs but it seems like a concept that could be tweaked to work for community groups…)
sorry that’s a lot, Brent – but i guess my overall point is that maybe instead of fighting development, we could be find creative ways to capitalize on it in an inclusive way… thoughts?
If small businesses can find a way to cater to the convadium entertainment district then maybe. But most here cater to this community. And most don’t own the buildings they’re in and probably won’t be able to keep up with rising leases.
Rent control would be a protracted struggle that will take years, tons of money, and a lot of political willpower on behalf of Dems. If successful I doubt it would help current residents because they will already have been pushed out.
I know nothing about REITs.
I’m not fighting development. I live in a new barrio development. I’m fighting a stadium that will change the entire character of this culturally rich community.
hmmm gotcha. thanks for the reply.
i’m just trying to understand the issues – so really, i appreciate your response.
You know that stadium project will employ about 1000 worker for five years and then the asset developed will hold about 200 events a year. I know Republican developers and hoteliers don’t want it, but I am shocked that a community that stands to benefit so directly from it is opposing this project.
Stop the destruction of Balboa Park and San Diego High School not the development of a community asset that will support many people and businesses for years.
We do not stand to gain anything from the stadium. The renting residents and small businesses of surrounding barrios will be pushed out. The only ones to benefit are the property pirates who have been buying up land because of the arts district and the looming stadium. Barrio Logan is a community of renters and this stadium is detrimental to us
Organized labor is on the wrong side of history on this issue.
The myth that stadiums spur development and opportunity has been thoroughly discredited in numerous studies. A good clearing house for some of this info is the http://www.fieldofschemes.com website. Even the oft repeated line that Petco Park redeveloped East Village starts to look ludicrous on closer examination. The area already had a lot of redevelopment interest with condo conversions like Simon Levi and Candy Factory Lofts, J Streeet Arts Corridor – then add the biggest national building boom in the last 100 years (remember the one that caused the crash in 2008?) and a nationwide urban remigration trend, and Petco as a cause of development begins to look silly. Moreover, Petco is not without negative impact. It replaced the produce district, independently owned wholesale, light industrial, and specialty retail businesses , the Famers Bazaar, and artist space with sports bars, and dramatically increased the demand for parking (even though it included several parking garages, which the Chargers’ stadium won’t) resulting in the demolition of older affordable commercial space and apartments to make room for surface parking lots. This last impact should be of major concern to Barrio, Logan Heights, Sherman Heights, EV, and Golden Hill residents and businesses. The Convadium will include no parking and will attract up to 80,000 fans on a game day. Property owners will be tempted to demolish 1 – 2 story affordable commercial and residential space to create surface parking. This will deplete the amount of commercial and residential space, and as we all know, that will drive up the cost for what remains. Also, it will dramatically change the landscape of the Barrio. Take a Google Earth look at Lucus Oil Stadium and Convention Center in Indianapolis – which the Chargers’ cite as a good example of what they want to do – the area around it is pretty bleak – lots of asphalt parking / not much revitalization. Any evaluation of a development must be compared against likely alternatives. East Village is developing fast – there is already a residential project (Modera) going through the approval process for part of the Convadium property. It will have to be condemned for a Convadium. The rest of the land at issue is the City’s most valuable public property (part of it MTS bus facility and the other part Tailgate Park). A Convadium will produce the fewest and lowest paid jobs of all alternative developments for the property, and will displace both residential development and the homeless population while adding very little. Finally, mega publicly subsidized projects like convention facilities and stadiums don’t expedite development in a building boom. Instead they freeze development while land is being assembled via eminent domain, while the project is being challenged in the courts, while public funding is put together, and so on. The smaller projects that would have taken place – lot by lot – stop. Gentrification is a bad enough problem for the Barrio as land pirates flood in. But the Convadium is a triple threat: land pirates, demolition, a dramatic change in the type of land uses, and few and low wage job generation. A better vision for this area of the East Village involves more residential construction, including a substantial dose of affordable and transitional housing, open space (helping to prevent displacement of the homeless further outinto the surrounding neighborhoods), and academic and medical facilities serving the the urban neighborhoods (UCSD is expected to announce a move downtown at some point). This alternative vision is not just a pipe dream. It’s already happening. The stadium, on the other hand, is a bad dream. Bottom line, a Convadium will create massive displacement on many levels but will give very little in return to existing neighborhood residents and businesses. Then there’s the corporate welfare and diversion of public resources aspect of it – the largest in the City’s history.