By John McNab / OpEd San Diego Union-Tribune / Sept. 26, 2022
On Nov. 8, San Diego voters will be asked to lift the 30-foot building height limit in the Midway District and clear the way for a massive redevelopment of the city’s 48-acre sports arena property. A similar ballot measure was approved in 2020 only to be thrown out after a legal challenge that argued the city had failed to adequately assess the measure’s environmental impacts. Here are two views on the new effort.
Under Measure C, San Diego City Hall, in a district with no parks or sports fields, would give more than 900 acres of our prime public coastal land and rights worth billions to developers. Sadly, it now appears that San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria rushed the Midway Rising sports arena redevelopment project through the City Council, while excluding city staff from the standard review process. Why? The answer is simple: just another “pay-to-play scandal” where the winning developer gave more than $100,000 to Gloria’s mayoral campaign.
Of course, the controversy goes beyond the sports arena project. The Measure C vote would eliminate the 30-foot height limit on more than 1,300 acres from Interstate 8 to the airport. This area includes the sports arena site; the broader Midway District; the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, or NAVWAR, site on Pacific Highway; and Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego on Midway Avenue. To make matters worse, over half this prime acreage is public land.
We are told the major benefit of this deal is that a sports arena we own will be torn down for a new private arena where ticket costs will balloon. The only other “benefit” would be 2,000 “affordable housing” units for those making government salaries. Lower-income workers are excluded. Studies have also shown that this type of development, as has happened in San Francisco and Los Angeles, does nothing but create congestion, crime and more homeless people on the streets and in your neighborhood.
For the balance of this article, please go here.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The end of the article from the Union Tribune is not visible to me, a non-subscriber. It does want me to subscribe, but I don’t think that is what the author meant. For all readers, this is the model for future development in your community, so make your own decision on what this is really about.
The drive along Sports Arean Boulevard is already a crowded one. Just can’t imagine what it might be like if the height limit goes. Call me retrograde, but I’m planning to vote “no”.