By Fran Zimmerman
Greenlighting Prop C in November will blow open hyper-development and densification of the Sports Arena/ Midway/ Pacific Highway areas to unimaginably negative consequences.
Councilman Cate offers the cynical party line: he rolls out chimerical “affordable housing” (in this most expensive city) and fronts the usual Chamber of Commerce and Labor cheerleaders. (Feels like the developer/politician nexus that brought us disastrous 101 Ash Street.)
Prop C promoters also count on voter shortsightedness and impatience: people dislike the area’s seedy status and will settle for anything bright and shiny.
“Midway Rising” already has been awarded to one of Mayor Gloria’s biggest political campaign contributors. Prop C means high-rises galore across the area and undoing a 50-year-old height-limit law that protects coastal access.
Prop C will cause tremendous traffic at the central crossroad intersection of I-8 and I-5. It’s mostly public land up for grabs, but there will be little public parkland
and no imaginative conservation design.
Vote No on C.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Stating the obvious, this has really become a divisive s**t storm among progressives. Younger want it eliminated and older do not. The Twitter world is a true break out he popcorn universes. I think in many cases, younger generations want it eliminated as a way to “stick it to the Boomers” tho I think they really belive higher and denser housing will make keeping a roof over one’s head more affordable. They still never have an answer for why are there so many multi family units that are sitting more than half empty because they can’t attract new tenants that can afford or are willing the pay that high a price.
And people need to understand, the city only has 48 acres of the 1,324 acres in the Midway-Pacific Highway planning group area. Affordable housing had to be a part of the city’s development, state law made sure of that. But, no such law covers the remaining 1,276 acres. This is not just about the small city property it is about a very large piece of land.
According to data from the Insured Retirement Institute in 2019 about 45% of baby boomers surveyed had no savings. Chew on that millennial. So much for higher density housing. It’s not affordable for most.
I think in their minds, an explosion of higher density housing to the point where supply outweighs demand will eventually result in lower housing costs. They still never explain why there are so many multi family units sitting over half empty due to a lack of people who can afford them or even if they can would want to pay so much so little space (and dishonestly claiming they know of no such units). They always spout “economics 101” even though they know housing doesn’t’ complete work that way. Oh well, Boomer vs. Millennials makes for good internet banter.
“… The real estate industry, politicians, and YIMBYs… use their trickle-down policy as a political weapon: any renter protections, they say, that prevent developers from building more market-rate apartments must be stopped in its tracks…”
https://www.housinghumanright.org/trickle-down-housing-is-a-failure-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
I think it is time we stopped lying to ourselves by saying that unfettered development will lead to more affordable housing. San Diego is part of the American Riviera. Dwelling units built along its coast, or within easy access of it, will never be affordable. The tiny percentage of so-called “affordable” units designated for these massive developments are not affordable for people who have little money and are constantly threatened with the loss of a roof over their heads. Instead, these multi-family housing complexes will meet their “affordable” by saving some units for folks who are higher up the income scale but still fall within high-moderate or moderate incomes when measured against the 80K-or-so Area Median Income. We shouldn’t make land use decisions with lies. We have the capacity to reason out better decisions, but we can’t do it with lies.