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With a Democratic SuperMajority on the San Diego City Council, It’s Time to Go Bold on the Environment

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I remember a time not so long ago when the very idea of Georgette Gomez sitting on the City Council (let alone being President and setting the agenda), would have been considered wishful thinking in local political circles.

Gomez ran for the District 9 Council seat as the outsider, the person with progressive principles and a background in environmental activism. She persisted, made it through the primary and, despite the not-so-covert maneuvering of the usual propertied suspects, won in the November 2016 general election.

The vote to confirm Gomez as City Council President was unanimous, with both Republicans singing her praises. Go figure–having principles and being honest can foster real progress.   [Read more…]

San Diego in National Spotlight: Failure to Prohibit Section 8 Discrimination Hurts Homeless Veterans

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By Parisa Ijadi-Maghsoodi / UrbDeZine

Achieving Housing Choice and Mobility in the Voucher Program: Recommendations for the Administration is in the latest edition of the American Bar Association Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law (Vol. 27-1).

The article recognizes the Housing Choice Voucher Program as vital to helping homeless individuals and low-income families’ overcome barriers to housing stability and a powerful tool to deconcentrate poverty and decrease racial segregation in our nation’s communities.  While acknowledging the program’s potential to improve individual lives, families, and communities, the article discusses the program’s failure to meet its housing and community goals:

Tenants with a voucher disproportionately live in low-rent, racially segregated neighborhoods. In fact, almost a quarter million children in the voucher program live in neighborhoods of extreme poverty. Many voucher families are unable to obtain rental housing outside of areas of poverty and, in some cases, fail to lease up at all.   [Read more…]

Short Term Vacation Rentals: Discussion Continues on San Diego Mayor’s Flawed Plan

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In Sunday, July 8th’s San Diego Union-Tribune Op-Ed page, discussion on short-term vacation rentals fairly monopolized the opinion section as representatives of the hotel industry, Councilwoman Barbara Bry and the head of the Mission Beach Town Council all hashed it out.

The op-ed pieces were responding to Mayor Faulconer’s recent “compromise” proposal to resolve one of the most contentious issues currently roiling San Diego – what to do about the short term rentals.

In their piece entitled, “Neighborhoods, Jobs Must Be Protected“, Katherine Lugar and Lynn Mohrfeld – both CEOs of hotel industry associations – at first came out swinging against STVRs and appeared to be right-on:   [Read more…]

The History of San Diego’s 30 Foot Height Limit

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Recently – within the context of discussions over the City of San Diego’s plans to bring massive redevelopment to the Midway District on this site – there has been some serious disparagement of the 30 foot height limit, and it’s being blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the lack of affordability at the coast.

So, apparently it’s time, once again, to present some local history – the origins of the 30 foot height limit – and some of the good folks who made it happen. It all began back in the late 60s when beach residents began to rebel against a wave of unbridled development occurring at the coast.   [Read more…]

Placemaking, Community Building and Permits: Taking Back the Alleys in San Diego Neighborhoods

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City planning tends to be a long range, expensive approach to transforming cities, with a greater focus on the creation of planning documents versus the implementation of projects. While there is no argument that regional and transportation planning has led to a new wave of urban living throughout the country, on a localized level, placemaking offers neighborhood leaders a greater opportunity to engage the public, envision tangible projects and work together to enhance their surroundings.

When The Media Arts Center of San Diego expanded their operations on El Cajon Boulevard in 2012, they launched an initiative called Take Back the Alley to transform their back parking lot into a gathering place. This catalytic placemaking initiative continued forward on an annual basis with greater support from the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association as well as local and corporate volunteers to expand into the alley to support business activity and residential issues.

[Updated 5/25/18 to include photo gallery]   [Read more…]

Letter to Mayor Faulconer on the Temporary Shelters in Barrio Logan, East Village

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By Barrio Logan Planning Group

Re: Temporary (Bridge) Homeless Shelters

Honorable Mayor Faulconer:

Learning of the intent of the City of San Diego to return the homeless shelter to 16th Street and Newton Avenue and Commercial and 14th Streets has raised grave concerns among those of us who live and work in Barrio Logan and East Village. While we understand the need to act to serve the needs of the growing homeless population in San Diego, community residents have a vivid memory of the impacts the last “temporary shelter” brought to Barrio Logan. …

It is understood that the bridge shelters are meant to be temporary while the City implements a permanent solution to housing the homeless in San Diego. Our natural concern is that having temporary shelters relieves the “pressure” on the City to find the permanent solution that is needed. We remain hopeful that this is not the case and a more permanent solution is on the horizon.   [Read more…]

How San Diego’s Transit Went from First to Worst

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By Murtaza Baxamusa / UrbDeZine

The current leadership at San Diego’s regional transportation agency hates tax, except that they love to spend it.

This double-standard has become increasingly apparent in the recent months, as they are back-filling the shortfall in the local sales tax revenues and increase in project costs with $5 billion from a statewide gas tax that many on the agency’s board vehemently oppose.

With the failure of the local sales tax measure last year, and the gridlock in Washington D.C., the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG – in charge of planning and building transit in the county) is now far more dependent on the passage of transportation taxes by the California legislature.

Yet, SANDAG is institutionally resistant to achieving state transportation goals particularly with regard to climate change.   [Read more…]

A New Grand Pedestrian Promenade Through Downtown San Diego?

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Report of the planning workshop for the proposed 14th Street Promenade

By Michael-Leonard Creditor / UrbDeZine

The idea for grand pedestrian routes through downtown San Diego is not new. In 1908, John Nolen famously had vision of a Promenade from Balboa Park to San Diego Bay along what is now Cedar Street. Just imagine how that would be today if it had been implemented 100 years ago, with the beautiful County Administration Building at the bottom of the gentle hill from Park to Bay. Sometimes I think ‘so many opportunities lost’ should be San Diego’s motto.

But, in the fertile minds of planners, this idea hasn’t died. Now, they are being called Green Streets, and six are planned for downtown.   [Read more…]

AIA: Support the Morena Corridor Specific Plan

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By AIA San Diego / San Diego UrbDeZine

The San Diego Region will struggle in every neighborhood to accommodate the population growth forecasted by SANDAG – as many as a million new residents by 2050. San Diego already has a widely-recognized housing shortage that results in major annual price increases and undermines the city’s climate action plan as commuters go farther afield in search of affordability. The problem will only get worse unless we take bold steps to sensibly accommodate this inevitable growth.

An important tool in addressing this growth and implementing the climate action plan is a denser type of development that mixes residential and other uses along transit corridors and at transit stops. The city has already produced a great tool for implementing this type of transit oriented design, or TOD – the Morena Corridor Specific Plan.   [Read more…]

Villa Famosa Project Promises to Be a Challenge for Famosa Slough

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A new construction project coming to the shores of Famosa Slough promises to be a challenge to one of the last natural vestiges of Mission Bay.

The “Villa Famosa” project is slated for a remodel of one already existing 2-story apartment building at the site on Camulos Drive, the 90 degree “turning” of the other already-existing 2-story, and the construction of a brand new third 2-story building that will hold 6 units.   [Read more…]

How San Diego’s Downtown Housing Supply Boom is Making Rent Less Affordable

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By Murtaza Baxamusa / UrbDeZine

Having invested a billion and a half dollars of public funds in downtown redevelopment, it is worth asking if it helped or hindered in solving the affordable housing crisis that San Diego faces. From the catalytic start of downtown’s boom with the construction of the ballpark to the unceremonious demise of tax increment financing under Governor Brown, there has been a lot of change.

Census data shows that from 2000 to 2015, downtown’s housing stock doubled. About half of downtown’s current stock of 25 thousand housing units has been built during this time frame. About 5 thousand renter-occupied housing units were added to the stock. Of the total housing stock almost 18 percent (over 4 thousand units) are vacant, compared to 9 percent vacancy back in 2000. This indicates a greater share of investor-owned units or second homes that are not occupied.   [Read more…]

Making It Easier to Build Won’t Generate Affordable Housing

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By Murtaza Baxamusa / Rooflines, the Shelterforce blog

It is often convenient to blame city planners for the affordable housing crisis. After all, those affected have no other public forum to vent their concerns, least of all toward those who are profiting off of the crisis on a project-by-project basis. Sadly, this blame is often misguided, because planners do not produce housing.

A case study of the profit-maximizing, decision-making that is driving the affordability crisis is downtown San Diego. Construction cranes are up all over, and a $6.4 billion development juggernaut is rolling through. Nearly 10,000 new units have been permitted by the downtown planning board over the last four years, and the fast and generous permit approval process is cited as a model by developers for other regions.   [Read more…]

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