There will probably come a time in the city of San Diego’s future (if it survives 2024 and sea-level rise) when historians, architects and residents of good-will will try to understand what happened to the city’s soul.
They’ll ponder why the city destroyed its historic buildings and neighborhoods and will look at this moment, in the middle of the century’s second decade, as a game-changer, for it will be known that in the name of “reforms” the city government decided to gut historic protection rules so developers could have even a wider landscape and latitude from which to make their obscene profits.
Here’s David Garrick at the U-T in the latest:
By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 14, 2024
The first comprehensive review in many years comes as some neighborhoods look at such protections as a new line of defense against high-rise housing
San Diego’s rules protecting historic homes and buildings, often criticized for preventing ambitious housing projects, might soon become less strict and more developer-friendly. City officials are launching the first comprehensive update of the rules in more than a decade, contending the rules scare off developers who see them as obstacles that delay projects and make them more expensive.
But critics say city officials might have another motive: stopping community groups in neighborhoods frustrated by dense new housing projects from using historic protections as a possible new line of defense. Advocates for historic preservation say they’re concerned the city’s new initiative could gut local protections. And they say criticism of San Diego’s rules is based primarily on misperceptions that they are stricter and more bureaucratic than those of other cities.
Preservation advocates also say some neighborhood groups that think the rules can be used as a weapon against development are exaggerating and distorting how powerful the rules are.
The initiative, which city officials will launch this winter with neighborhood meetings to gather public feedback, comes at a pivotal time.
Development in San Diego has shifted away from tract homes on open land toward high-rises and mid-rises in older neighborhoods — areas that have many more potentially historic buildings that can potentially thwart projects. And because so much of San Diego was built in the 1970s and 1980s, many more homes and buildings are reaching the 45-year-old threshold that makes them subject to the city’s rules for historic evaluations.
In addition, city efforts to streamline housing approvals in recent years have allowed developers to break ground with no public hearings and minimal red tape, which makes historical evaluations a more conspicuous hurdle than they were when many other reviews and approvals were necessary.
This is a U-T subscriber only article. Give it a try here.
Hmmmm and I thought I read historical homes jack property values up in neighborhoods so it was a good thing, so to speak. Not that I like my property values jacked by some arbitrary definition of a neighbor’s home affecting my property value outside of the norm. But I guess not anymore, as this article portends it’s a hindrance to letting developers continue to run amok with no developer fees in mayor Utopian dream.
mayor Todd’s Utopian dream. But what is this mess created by all the cross current decisions of where this city is supposed to go? It’s schizophrenic at best.
PotholeTodd’s dream, one might suspect, is K Street.
The careful, studied, intelligent, and judicious, and preservation of a city’s built past is backbone of a great city. What the Gloria administration is proposing by gutting a historic regulations is akin to burning books, a 3 dimensional erasure of where we came from. Clearly space has to be made for growth, progress, and new ideas. And there is plenty of room in our city and in creative minds to build new buildings and save key structures from the past. Given the profound importance of the early 2oth century architecture that came from San Diego its a loss for our city and humanity in general we didn’t do a better job of identifying and preserving some of those buildings, of which a few were masterpieces. We should be discussing ways to do better for the future inhabitants of SD, not how to make the rampant monetization of our city even easier.
District 9 & 3 candidate forums.
https://www.neighborsforabettersandiego.org/
One would be tempted to assume the reason for the city’s amenable attitude toward development might be financial (after all, our city has been in a budget crisis for years). So if we are to endure the pillaging of our neighborhoods for high rise luxury condominiums (that will likely become STVRs or second homes for wealthy non-San Diegans), I hope the city can at least use the increased revenue to address our many problems in a meaningful way. Don’t laugh. Sigh.