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Why Spanos is Only Trying for a >50% Vote to Get a Downtown Stadium

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An important bit of misinformation has been circulating about Measure C – the Spanos ballot referendum to raise the hotel tax (transient occupancy tax – “TOT”) in the City of San Diego from 12.5% to 16.5% to build a $2 billion-plus downtown combined stadium and convention annex.

Most news stories and conventional wisdom have it that 2/3 of the city’s voters must vote in favor of it in order for it to pass. While some of these articles acknowledge that there is a potential second path to passing Measure C via litigation, it is mentioned only as something that is remote, uncertain, and difficult. As a result, some opponents of the measure have had a somewhat lackadaisical attitude.   [Read more…]

Will San Diego Reduce Pedestrian Injuries, Deaths by Cars?

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Vision Zero Symposium to reduce pedestrian fatalities Thursday September 29

By Kathleen Ferrier / Circulate San Diego

The City Auditor released a report outlining 18 recommendations the City can take to improve pedestrian safety and help save lives.

The report comes on the heels of four pedestrian injuries and deaths in the last five weeks due to hit and runs and exposes a deadly trend. Between 2001 and 2015, 270 people were killed by cars while walking and more than 8,000 were injured. Numbers were especially high in 2013-2015 with almost 2,000 involved in crashes and 66 left dead.   [Read more…]

Measure D – Nice Try, But No Cigar for The Citizens’ Plan

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A good metaphor for Measure D would be the guy who tries to break up a fight and ends up getting pummelled by both combatants.

Also known as the Citizens’ Plan, Cory Briggs Evil Plot, and Chargers Stadium Lite, the proposal is all-but-dead in the water.

The money spigot ran dry in May. The thoughtful discussion Measure D should have stimulated never happened, lost in the dread of yet another rich guy scheme, and the unintended consequences of its (mostly) good intentions.   [Read more…]

Peninsula Planners Juggle Minutes, Agendas and 30-Foot Height Limit

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By Geoff Page / OB Rag

The Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) held its regular monthly meeting Thursday, September 15, 2016, at the Point Loma/Hervey Branch Library. There was a crowded agenda and one of the topics having to do with the 30-foot Coastal Height Limit generated a great deal of interest.

With 14 of the fifteen board members present, the meeting began and ended at the normal times, and initially meeting seemed to be well attended – but as the night proceeded, it appeared that most in the audience were there to represent the projects being voted on.   [Read more…]

Keeping San Diego Seafood Local

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Sustainable Seafood / Slow Food Urban San Diego

The Port of San Diego envisions redeveloping the “Central Embarcadero” an area that includes Tuna Harbor, where the majority of San Diego’s active commercial fishermen dock their boats. “Tuna Harbor is central to San Diego’s cultural history as a fishing community,” says Pete Halmay, San Diego sea urchin fisherman. “It was the hub of San Diego fishing for a 100 years and is central to our local industry today.”

Today, San Diegans have little access to locally-caught seafood, even though we are a waterfront city. The U.S. imports over 90% of its seafood and San Diego fishermen are hard pressed to sell their catch locally. The redevelopment represents an opportunity to invest in our local fisheries and reconnect with our local seafood system. It’s up to the San Diego to commit to this.   [Read more…]

Community Protests Ignited By Building in Point Loma

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Point Loma Leaders Meet with Mayor’s Staff

By Don Sevrens / OB Rag

The City has come up with a proposed solution to strengthen and protect the 30-foot height limit on the Point Loma side of the peninsula, community representatives said Thursday, September 1st, after the second Mayor’s meeting on the issue.

Waves of community protest were ignited by the construction of four-story buildings at Emerson and Evergreen, capped by a town hall meeting attended by 250 persons.

Following the town hall, several community advocates attended the first Mayor’s meeting on the issue at City Hall at the invitation of Mayor Faulconer.   [Read more…]

San Diego Sandbags Efforts to Shelter Homeless People

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City snubs California law for emergency shelters

By Jeeni Criscenzo

If the City of San Diego really wanted to solve the ever increasing problem of homelessness, they might be willing to try something more innovative than eliminating 98% of the areas previously designated as suitable for emergency shelter without a Conditional Use Permit.

I first became of aware of a map in the City of San Diego General Plan, Housing Element called Figure 1 Areas Suitable for Emergency Shelters – November 2006. Amikas, a non-profit I founded with four other homeless advocates in 2009 to work with homeless women and children with a focus on veteran women, was considering the Midway Post Office as a potential site for veteran housing. The map was required by California Senate Bill 2 (SB2) also known as the Cedillo Bill.

This Statute became effective January 2008. Chapter 633 clarifies and strengthens housing element law to ensure zoning encourages and facilitates emergency shelters and limits the denial of emergency shelters and transitional and supportive housing.   [Read more…]

Downtown San Diego’s East Village South Without a Stadium: An Alternative Vision

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By Bill Adams / UrbDeZine

With the adoption of the Downtown Community Plan in 2006 it was determined that each designated downtown neighborhood would create a finer-grain plan, in the form of a Focus Plan, to make certain future development would honor the Community Plan and enhance the unique personality of each district. For several reasons, including the economic downturn and the elimination of CCDC, the Focus Plans for the four East Village quadrants were not completed.

In fall of 2015 a group of East Village residents, business, academic and community leaders and land owners discussed the need for a Focus Plan for the southeast quadrant as new development started rapidly taking shape throughout East Village.   [Read more…]

Raising the Bar for Healthy Communities in National City

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Carolina Martinez / Environmental Health Coalition

Located in San Diego County’s second oldest city, Old Town National City remains a primarily low-income Latino neighborhood with evolving surroundings. Over the past 50 years, the community has changed from a mainly residential neighborhood to a mixture of auto-related businesses located around schools and homes. Auto-body shops in residential neighborhoods burden the health of the community by emitting toxic pollution into the air we breathe.

In 2005, our community decided to combat conflicting land use and bring health back to the community with a vision for a vibrant and toxic-free neighborhood. Our plans included affordable housing within walking distance of a transit center, construction that wouldn’t damage Paradise Creek and a healthy community park to replace polluted grounds.   [Read more…]

The San Diego Convadium – Part 3

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If the taxpayers of San Diego swallow this hogwash and vote for the Chargers’ plan on the November ballot, they are voting for a pig in a poke. They are authorizing the City to go into debt for $1.15 billion without knowing the final terms and the small print in the contract with Wall Street for the bonds. They aren’t privy to the negotiations between Wall Street and the City. Despite the fact that the proposal states that there will be a firewall between the City’s General Fund and the Fund that pays the interest and principal on the bonds, Wall Street might have a different idea and then the City would have to go along with it or be sued by the Chargers if the voters approve of this proposal.

Finally, what about the homeless? In light of the City’s trying to remove them from the proposed area of the Chargers stadium in order that the All-Star game at Petco Park not have them littering up the streets, what would happen to them if a new Stadium was built right in the area where they all congregate? What mitigation is in this proposal for them? They are totally ignored although their impact on another stadium downtown would be crucial. What’s in this proposal for them? Nothing. They never even crossed the Chargers’ minds.   [Read more…]

Grading on a Curve: Carlsbad’s Intersection Circumspection

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Carlsbad’s elected officials took the city’s vision of “a small town feel and beach community character” and twisted it into a developer-friendly General Plan. Fortunately, their questionable integrity and patronizing “we know best” attitude are not reflected in the leadership and staff of Carlsbad’s talented, courteous and responsive city employees.

The 2009 public opinion survey that led to the development of the city’s Community Vision produced statistically sound results. But Mayor Hall and his council colleagues used them to justify land use changes allowing shopping centers and multi-use commercial/residential housing near the beach and lagoon.   [Read more…]

Why Governor Brown’s Housing Plan Is Bad for Planning

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By Murtaza H. Baxamusa, Ph.D., AICP / San Diego UrbDeZine

Governor Jerry Brown’s “Streamlining Affordable Housing Approvals” proposal will have far-reaching consequences on urban planning in cities and counties across California. However, there has been little discussion about the real-world consequences of this policy on the planning profession with regard to public participation.

Simply put, the Governor wants to get rid of local discretion in the approval of multi-family residential projects. To invoke this “by-right” privilege, developers have to limit market-rate (not “affordable”) units to between 80-95 percent of their projects, build on parcels that have urban uses around them on sites zoned for residential uses, and avoid dangerous and sensitive sites where they should not be building in the first place.   [Read more…]

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