From Point Loma Association Newsletter:
When the Peninsula community discovered the San Diego Unified Port District Draft Master Plan Update they found two things unifiedly upsetting:
1.) Some changes proposed for our area seem more destructive than constructive.
2.) Public discussions of the plan were scheduled in Rancho Bernardo and La Mesa but not in Point Loma.
Many of us were surprised to learn changes were afoot. The Plan was unveiled (somewhere to someone) on April 25, 2019.
Get anything in the mail? Anyone knock on your door? See a posting on Nextdoor? Instagram? Beacon? [OB Rag?] Craig’s List? Nope.
Years ago, when the process began, the Port announced its intentions. Here is a quote from a Voice of San Diego article in November 2013 titled, “Five Things To Know About The Port’s New Master Plan”:
However, none of the “five things to know” mentioned anything about Shelter Island or Point Loma.
In fact, over the years, the Port’s website and news coverage focused on San Diego’s Embarcadero and the Chula Vista waterfront.
It’s safe to say the Port of San Diego did not advertise their new, improved plan like Jerome’s does Jerry’s sectionals.
($1,585 $1,669 with set savings!)
Thanks to the organizing work of the PLA and other forums like the OB Rag, enough people contacted the Port Commissioners that they scheduled two meetings in the Peninsula area during July, and now have scheduled a third:
The PLA advises people to do their homework before the August 28 meeting and to keep these things in mind that evening:
- The draft plan is etched in sand, not stone.
- A thoughtful discussion could lead to modifications and compromise.
- The Port must work with the Cities and the Coastal Commission, and it needs the support of people like us.
- Face to face, perhaps we can get clarification of some vague language in the plan. Like “amenities.” (Who knows? Maybe we’ll get water taxi service to Point Loma someday!)
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This Port meeting date & time conflict with a Peninsula Planning Group (PPG) meeting set for 6 pm at the Pt. Loma Branch Library to discuss Housing Commission plans to build 78 units of affordable housing in “Famosa Canyon”. Many who would go to the Port meeting will also be the active citizens who will be planning to attend the PPG meeting.
The land at issue is in the angle between Nimitz Blvd. (north of) and Famosa Blvd. (south of), an area that once was dedicated parkland and is a tiny remnant of the 60-acre Collier Park that the City conned voters into removing dedication on so the City could sell some of it, supposedly to fund acquisition of land for Mission Bay Park. A large apartment building was constructed at Greene St. & Mendocino Blvd.
Across Nimitz Blvd., Collier Jr. High (now Correia), Peninsula YMCA, a church and additional apartments were built. Remnants of the original 60 acres in public use are the Cleator Sports Fields, a very small Collier Park (at Greene & Soto), a community garden and the Pt. Loma Native Plant Garden.
Famosa Canyon has sat unimproved for park or housing since the 1950s (may have been the source for soil to build up the elevated Famosa Blvd.). The local community has stymied past efforts to build housing there and it’s hope that it will once again be stopped.
I know we need much more affordable housing (that is housing which the average wage earner can afford to buy or rent, and is *not* Section 8 housing) but we also need active park/open space in our community. The canyon is a major drainage from Nimitz Blvd. (rivers of rain runoff drain into it from the road) and the northern end of Pt. Loma, creating a seasonal wetland. The undeveloped land here is an important stage in cleansing that runoff as it heads downhill, subsurface, to Famosa Slough and the San Diego River.