As envisioned by FS Investors
By Doug Porter
Surprise, surprise, surprise! Those friendly folks collecting signatures for the billion dollar SoccerCity development to replace Qualcomm Stadium are being–how shall we put it?–less than honest.
Today’s Union-Tribune includes a story involving an informal survey of 25 signature gathering locations around San Diego. Petition bearers are reportedly being paid $5 per signature and are making promises with little connection to what is actually contained in the document they are pushing.
The hope is that the San Diego City Council, with visions of $2.8 billion in economic benefits dancing in their heads, will vote to enact the ‘citizen’s ordinance’ without the need for an actual ballot measure.
The reality of what’s being proposed is, according to today’s UT reporting, a far cry from what’s being pitched to the general public from sidewalk tables.
It was almost exclusively being pitched as a soccer project at the tables observed; the petition campaign officially is called “Goal SD.” Nearly every signature-gathering site had a sign referencing Major League Soccer or a soccer stadium, including one with two soccer balls on the table as props. Signature gatherers at some two dozen tables rarely discussed the development or its intensity, which, FS Investors estimates, would add 71,000 daily trips to Mission Valley.
Only two of the 25 locations surveyed characterized it as a redevelopment project. Six signature-gatherers, in fact, said there would be no other development beside the new stadium. Five said Qualcomm Stadium would merely be renovated, not demolished, including one who pointed at the prospective site for a future NFL stadium in one of the initiative’s renderings and said that was where the Q would remain.
Twenty-three of the 25 said the project was for an SDSU football stadium.
Just to be clear, SDSU has not bought into the project. And, of course, those paying for the signatures say they have trained their petition-bearers to be truthful.
The SoccerCity Vision
I have to admit to initially having positive thoughts about the concept of a Major League Soccer stadium-anchored redevelopment of the site. While I’m not personally wild about soccer, I can see where it would fit into the idea of a transnational economic identity. (Sans the stupid wall of Trumpf.)
The pitch about San Diego State University having some part of the deal was attractive. Higher education complexes produce higher paying jobs and have a strong multiplier effect.
I understood the trade-off would involve profits via retail and housing developments at the site of the present-day concrete colossus.
Here is the deal, as described in the Union-Tribune:
La Jolla-based FS Investors is circulating a voter petition to lease the property for 99 years and buy 79.9 acres at fair market value. The proposal, prepared last year, unveiled in January and backed by more than 3,000 pages of legal language, specific plan details and environmental and traffic analysis, calls for a stadium of 18,000 to 32,000-seats, expandable to 40,000, to host a new MLS team and SDSU football; 4,800 housing units, including 800 aimed at students and 480 for low- and moderate-income households; 3.1 million square feet of commercial space, two hotels with a total of 450 rooms; and 55 acres of park land, including 34 acres for the long-planned San Diego River Park; and 16,400 parking spaces.
Qualcomm Stadium would be demolished and 16 acres set aside immediately west for an NFL franchise to buy within five years and build a new football stadium. SDSU is asked to contribute $100 million toward a $200 million, 22,000-seat joint-use stadium, which it would receive as a donation in five years.
FS did not pursue a more traditional planning process because it says it is under tight deadlines to submit a stadium plan to Major League Soccer, which aims to award two expansion franchises by the end of the year. FS has the exclusive bid to locate a stadium in San Diego. Eleven other cities are in the running for both the immediate expansion and two more in a second phase. MLS currently has 22 franchises and two approved but not yet active.
By limiting FS Investors’ land purchases to 79.9 acres, while permitting a 99-year lease of the remaining 86 acres, the plan avoids a city charter mandate requiring voters approval on sales of 80 or more acres of public land.
The ‘fair market value’ of the purchased land would be reduced by the costs of tearing down the present stadium and constructing the park.
These guys clearly did their homework.
‘Hold That Thought,’ Says SDSU
San Diego State University, however, has a plan of its own.
The SDSU seven-point plan covers 230 acres in and around the Qualcomm site and includes the football stadium and room for expanding the campus, which they estimate will be needed to accommodate growing enrollment by 15,000 students over the next three decades.
The university has a lease agreement with the City of San Diego extending through the 2018 football season, and they’ve recently asked for a two-year extension.
They seem to think Mayor Faulconer (an SDSU alum) will be able to broker a better deal than what FS Investors is offering, and, if not, are ready to proceed on their own. Given the Mayor’s track record of indecisiveness, I wish the university luck. They’ll need it.
***
I should also mention Papa Doug Manchester’s desire to redevelop the Qualcomm site, which is, of course, more fabulous than either of these paltry plans. He want remodel the current stadium ($600 million), plus a sports arena, plus a kagillion square feet for market rate office, retail, and housing (no poor people need apply, unless they’re looking for janitorial work), along with a park, free unicorn rides, and acres of additional residential and academic space.
I’ll fart in his general direction.
The Naysayers
Given that the SoccerCity vision for the Mission Valley location is more than just intentions and words, it’s the leading candidate in the quest for a do-over. And given San Diego’s history of being an easy mark for developers, it’s not surprising to hear somebody’s already calling ‘foul.’
Planning Commissioner Theresa Quiroz read the lengthy legalese–which somehow isn’t an issue now that Cory Briggs didn’t sponsor this plan–and expressed her concerns via an op-ed in the Voice of San Diego.
Although she misses the point that any citizen’s initiative must be vague in describing its would-be beneficiaries to qualify as such, she correctly points to the time restrictions pertaining to promises being made.
Regarding the river park mentioned in the title of the initiative, the proposal says the developer is required to pay $40 million for the construction of the park. If their lease is not signed, sealed and delivered by Dec. 31 of this year, just nine months from now, and one month from the election where this will be decided by the voters, then that amount goes down to $20 million. We must assume that the cost to build the river park will be around $40 million, so how will the park be built if they only have to pay $20 million? The initiative doesn’t answer that.
But even more important is the fact that if the lease isn’t signed, sealed and delivered by December of this year, there will be no requirement as to when the park will be constructed. The obligation of the entity will no longer be subject to any deadlines for the park’s construction. This would be a 99-year lease. It seems to say the developer could put off building the park until the 98th year of the lease. That would be the year 2116.
There is another big caveat when it comes to the river park. The initiative says that whoever signs the lease agreement, will construct the park using either the $40 million or the $20 million as was described earlier, but only if all permits from the state and federal governments are finalized within 18 months of the signing of the lease. If they don’t receive the permits by then, they don’t have to build the park. They just have to deposit the money into a city fund. The city can then choose to use that money for the river park or not.
I should also point out at least one of the big players in Mission Valley, namely Tom Sudberry, a developer and activist in San Diego Republican politics, has already told VOSD’s Scott Lewis he’s not happy with the way SoccerCity is proposing to skip over “a normal entitlement and mitigation process.”
No Football. No Soccer. No Nothing…until…
Finally, there’s the REALLY BIG PROBLEM facing San Diego. THIS should be at the front of the line for action.
We have hundreds–probably more–of humans who lack a most basic need: shelter.
Bring me a mega million dollar project with concrete promises to alleviate any significant portion of this suffering and I’ll support it. (And, no, vague promises of moderate and low-income housing don’t count.)
In the meantime, local activists are petitioning the Mayor to allow use of the parking lot at Qualcomm Stadium and/or the Chargers Park training facility for Homeless SafePark, SafeCamp and Sleeping Cabin Villages.
Let’s insist the City Council, the Mayor, and the Board of Supervisors recognize that the plight of our fellow humans is more important than any redevelopment issue. Councilman Chris Ward has an actual plan to DO SOMETHING other than hold hearings every few years.
Think I’m kidding about the “every few years” part? Consider this terrific story opening from Seth Combs at City Beat:
“This is the first time we’ve addressed this issue since I’ve been on the City Council and that’s been three and a half years. So it is urgent that we do this now.”
With those remarks, San Diego City Council President Myrtle Cole opened what would be a nearly five-hour council meeting on Monday to discuss “Item 600,” or “Programs, Policies and Efforts to Address Homelessness.”
Let that number sink in for a moment: Three and a half years. Even with every major news outlet in the city beating the drum on what has become a truly dire situation and CityBeat’s own long history of covering homelessness, this is the first time in years that the City Council has thought to directly address the issue.
Looking for some action? Check out the Weekly Progressive Calendar, published every Friday in this space, featuring Demonstrations, Rallies, Teach-ins, Meet Ups and other opportunities to get your activism on.
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Doug Porter
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So they want to buy 79.9 acres at “fair market value” and lease the remaining 86 acres for a total of 165.9 acres? Yet San Diego State wants to obtain 230 acres. How big is the actual Qualcomm site anyway? And how do you buy part of a site, lease part of a site and, I guess, just let the rest of the site lie there. This doesn’t make any sense.
The “fair market value” would be reduced by the cost of tearing down the stadium and constructing a park? C’mon. Let them bid on the whole thing; then we’ll know how much would be coming into city coffers. There’s too much slight of hand here.
How I do despise the stench of “developer lust” in the morning…and, most any other time! (Grrr…)
(PS: I’m not signing anything out there that has anything to do with it, either. Nor should you…only enables them, and they’ll just keep trying to pull dumb gaudy-bauble stunts like this…)
Thank You for posting our Petition on the implementation of the City’s Emergency Shelter Plan for Qualcomm Stadium, and/or using the similarly taxpayer-built and -maintained Chargers Park training facility.
AND also for giving us such a great Primer on the SoccerCity proposal!
Ditto, the Homeless coalition, of those not getting HUGE government funding and high salaries, is looking to make real changes & soon! It is all possible within the end of the year also, but would mean much less homelessness, a move to #EndHomelessnessSD via much more #AffordableHousingSD . We are working together! Ask Martha Sullivan, how you can help too! We have already demonstrated the ability to change lives via Voices of OUR City Choir (Steph Johnson & Nina L., John of Living Water Church, and many others), the Amikas.org via the Emergency & Affordable Housing Expo. held last 2 weeks near St.Lukes Church on 30th St. in North Park. These shelter units can be put up in about 25 minutes each, 2-4 persons shelter, and less than $2000k per unit, have as much for 2 person units. There are thousands of private vacant lots, most been empty for years! And the City has hundreds of vacant lots in stock right now, there to many empty for decades! With a foreseen budget deficit in the City Budget, will know by how much by end of April, we don’t have fund$ for new stuff, but we can make old stuff better by inviting good changes! See the Homeless coalitions ideas! They have been on the news lately, and spent hours at the Special City Council meeting on Homelessness. Yes, WE can San Diego, if we will it!
The site sits at the junction of two freeways and is served by mass transit, what developers call a “golden triangle.” Turning it over to a developer at a bargain-basement price is not the way for the city to get the highest and best use (and the most property tax revenue for the county). If our developer-friendly mayor had not eviscerated his planning agencies, he might be able to use them to prepare a plan that would benefit everybody. Sad!
Thanks for describing the troubling tactics being used by signature gatherers. These citizen-qualified ballot measures have become common in local politics, and it’s time for the San Diego City Council and/or Ethics Commission to strengthen local petition rules accordingly.
They need to establish legal consequences that apply when someone blatantly lies or makes misrepresentations of facts while being paid to collect signatures.
These measures of seek to avoid CEQA and other environmental regulations, avoid community hearings, and ignore many basic planning safeguards. Add misrepresenting basic facts during the qualification process, and it further undermines voters’ confidence.
In other states, such misrepresentations of facts would be illegal.
In Colorado, the person telling someone that could face penalties and jail time. Colorado state regulations are very clear, and every person collecting signatures needs to know them. The Secretary of State office provides training, so ignorance is no excuse.
The rules in Colorado include: “Violations of the following activities may be punished by a fine or imprisonment:
Fraudulent representation
It is illegal to intentionally circulate, sign or cause to be signed, any petition that so much as implies endorsement or approval of any person, organization, league, or political party without written consent and approval.
[See section 1-40-130(1)(a), C.R.S]”
And:
“Causing confusion or failure to submit a petition in proper form.
It is against the law to:
willfully act to confuse or tend to confuse the issues submitted or proposed to be submitted at any election, or
refuse to submit any petition in the form presented for submission at any election.
[See section 1-40-130(1)(g), C.R.S]”
To ensure a more honest process- it’s time for San Diego to follow the lead of other communities when it comes to ballot measures, and create consequences for intentionally misrepresenting issues.
Yes, your right, SoccerCity will fill a void, just like shit fills the pit in the outhouse, or port-o-potty. And this too stinks to high heaven. We give the land, the nature, the transit connections, the on-ramps, and the fresh air and flood zone area to a major development group to not do what they say! Hey we’ve been through this before, look at PETCO with the looser Padres, but winning Billionaire owners! Many which have bailed on us since the first ballot proposition was put in, the first shovel of soil turned over…remember the polluted soil? What ever happened to it? Where was the remediation locations? Where is that contaminated soil now? Never did tell us…it just disappeared, like the art district and artist colonies we once had! And have you been to the Main Library lately? Filled morning to night with homeless & struggling poor just trying to stay warm/cool, sheltered for a few hours a day, while having a restroom to eliminate at. So if they have food where do they get it from??? Hey, if they purchase it, then they should be able to eliminate it there too, even if a day or two after! Why do we the taxpayer have to keep paying while profiteers are not held responsible?? What about all the luxury units being built downtown? Who lives there? Where do they pee & pooh when they eat out? Why does it look like a sparse Christmas tree downtown. A few lights blinging, while many many units lie dark? Hmm, could it be foreign intere$t in our development, while more and more become homeless, and/or pay 50+% of their income on rent/hou$ing!!?!! What ever happened to Affordable Hou$ing promised by Ms. Atkins & Co. (included Brian Mainschien in State house too. Scott Peters, now on the national stage too promised to help…where are they now?!? Going to the bank with your tax dollar$ in their paycheck$, even though they make more than most of YOU, there constituents! San Diegans deserve better! And homeless Vet.s deserve at least a place to flop…medical treatment for PTSD should be available locally to their location too! HEY, THEY DID MUCH MORE THAN ATKINS, PETERS, MAINSCHIEN, and so many others, THEY STRAPPED ON BOOTS FOR YOU AND OUR COUNTRY! Now, let’s not speak of Ronny Robert (poor Ronnie boy), and his compatriot Billy Horn who didn’t go to San Onofre Nuclear Plant closing meetings (as OUR only San Diego rep.) because both were too busy counting funds depositing in the bank…Hey long way from public housing Mr. Roberts! And let’s not even talk about Ms. Atkins wife! She has been on the public dole system for decades as a “housing consultant” that get a majority of the corporation income from government funds! Like Alpha Project poor Bobby Mc. who gets $160k a year for nearly a decade now! And his two buddies in crime that rake in over $120k ea. year for same time period! All on a $6 million budget, with $5 Million from Gov’t funding! Nice for his beautiful 200+ unit transitional housing building, paid for via your tax dollar$. He has one of the largest conference rooms I’ve ever seen, almost a big as SANDAG’s who just pulled the wool over eyes too! And his conference table IS the BIGGEST I’ve ever witnessed, all THANK YOU SAN DIEGO TAXPAYERS! Go do the research Mr. Porter! Also look up the million$ of influence Jacobs and Co. puts in all over the place! NUMBER ONE FUNDER of KPBS! Yeah, while you have to hear weeks of fundraising, they just take his call, and get his sons parking business in the door for downtown & Balboa Park! Jacobs funding, along with his NAME, is everywhere! He is BUYING influence, as he gets to take a deduction for all he does! But the poor only get the standard deduction on their measly income taxes. Hmm, give to who you want to, get them to promote you, your name on all you touch, and the media all rave you!!! Shameful San Diego, shameful…P.S. How close is he to newest Land grab in Mission Valley??? Someone with some balls should connect the dots!
Should we put the… decision before the voters? That last phrase reminds me of the many deceptive land use decisions urged on us by paid petition gatherers working for sophisticated private development concerns, like the grand design for Carlsbad’s strawberry fields, for just one example. I got a phone call Thursday, a day after I was muddled in the head from a severe encounter with a malicious gastro-intestinal bug. He asked me, first, if I’m Robert, a name I use only when I sign my checks or comply with an official demand. It came in on a clamshell phone I use almost exclusively as a walkie talkie between my wife and me or for Kaiser Permanente, so far as I know. The caller said he was calling on behalf of Public Lands (plus something, something) and he wanted to know if I support the use of public lands for a soccer stadium in Mission Valley’s soon-to-be abandoned Quallcomm stadium. I asked him if the project contained any affordable housing and he pleaded ignorance of the subject. Being still under the influence of meds and exhaustion, it didn’t occur to me to ask how he got my phone number. Later, it occurred to me that auto-dialing apps might now offer the ID names of the bill payers, and that I was talking to a worker slave of one of them. I googled Qualcomm and Public Lands and ran across a Times of San Diego story, right next to one by Carl De Maio describing, possibly fakely, that the city of San Diego is giving the land away for $10,000. The headline of the story in the Times of San Diego, undated, describes reads “Business, Civic Coalition: Voters Should Decide Fate of Qualcomm Stadium.” Who’s the Public Lands Public Vote Coalition? Its “leader” is Joe La Cava. The very last sentence in the Times of San Diego’s fairly lengthy story, reads, “The coalition said it’s being funded by Mission Valley property owners H.G. Fenton Company and Sudberry Properties.” Uh-oh, developers are fighting over public lands. I wonder who’ll win this one?