Only 2 Communities Out of 42 Have Rival Groups that Contest Their Re-Recognition of Being the Local Planning Committee

Map of San Diego’s community planning areas.

After a big, two-year much-hallooed process by the City of San Diego to “diversity” the 42 existing neighborhood planning groups, only two neighborhoods have had rival groups emerge to contest the re-recognition of the existing group. La Jolla and Uptown.

But not the other 40 neighborhoods — where panels made up of volunteers from the community toll away and make advisable recommendations on housing projects and infrastructure to the city.

The Rag is unaware of any rival group of residents, property owners and businesses that plan on contesting the current OB Planning Board. Or also for the Peninsula or the Midway. And, the Rag can announce that the OBPB made the deadline to submit their proposal to stay on.

So, by far the vast majority of existing groups are not being contested by anybody in their communities. What does this say?

Well, first of all, it ain’t over yet.

The City Council is scheduled in May to choose between any rival and existing groups, and to decide whether the other groups elsewhere around the city are eligible to keep representing their neighborhoods.

And the council’s Land Use and Housing Committee is scheduled to consider the neighborhood group applications before they go to the full council in May.

Presumably, any groups have until then to organize themselves to contest the re-recognition of the existing groups.

But, again, it also says that no groups have emerged to contest the vast majority of existing groups of volunteers from the community.

And it suggests that this entire two-year process that Mayor Gloria and the city council forced the existing community groups to go through — all in the name of diversification — was all for show, a sham — but even more.

The push to change the community planning groups came from Circulate San Diego, a known developer-friendly outfit that masquerades as being mass transit and environmentally conscious. They’re big fans of Todd Gloria and the developerist group of Democrats on the council, and vice-versa. They have an active membership they can turn out for elections.

Over the last couple of years, the Rag and others have tried to shine the spotlight on Circulate and this entire process of forcing the existing groups to re-apply to be the existing groups, which, quite frankly, is designed to undermine the value and power of the neighborhood groups — some of whom have existed for nearly 5 decades. In terms of the Ocean Beach Planning Board — it began in 1976.

Developers have criticized these planning groups for supposedly holding up development projects – which is not true. It’s the city and all the connections, cash and permits developers need in order to move a project forward.

Critics of the Gloria process to re-do the planning committees view it as a blow against grassroots democratic decision-making and local say over what happens in the community — all for a gift to developers. We’re not talking about affordable housing developers — we’re talking about developers who finance market-rate housing.

All the current groups did make the deadline set by the city to submit their proposals, which was first Dec. 31, then Jan. 31, so the other 40 have met that level of re-recognition. Plus each group had to submit a plan along with their proposal that outlines their efforts to diversify.

Don’t get us wrong. Diversify is good — adding board members who reflect the community is always good. Adding renters is good. But it is wrong to think that the vast majority of existing groups intentionally forced others off their boards or prevented them from participating.

There are a couple that don’t have meeting times that cater to working people (Mission Valley, Midway) and had low numbers of actual residents involved — but the city knew all of this and used these groups for the city’s and developers’ purposes.

But it’s not the planning groups that are holding up the process.

In his sweepingly brief update on the re-recognitions, U-T reporter David Garrick summarized what’s gone on up to now, but he, understandably, gave the establishment narrative on the entire process and stood the results on their head. Garrick’s narrative focused on the two neighborhood groups that have rivals — and not on the other 40 that do not.

Garrick did give the opposition some space:

“This process has continued the false narrative that we hold up projects across the city,” said Andrea Schlageter, leader of an umbrella panel of neighborhood groups called the Community Planners Committee.

Schlageter said the groups, formally called community planning groups, just want to provide valuable community input. She said city approvals typically delay projects much more than feedback from neighborhood groups.

Some critics of the city’s reforms have called them a power grab by city officials and developers who want to limit neighborhood input on controversial projects, especially high-rise projects the city hopes can help solve the local housing crisis.

They contend the city wants to replace neighborhood groups it sees as obstructionist with groups that are more supportive of dense developments.

Garrick also noted that the process of “change” was meant to “boost the professionalism … of the groups ….” The irony here is that one of the key motivations for the grassroots folks who began the first neighborhood planning groups was to take planning out of the hands of the professionals — and place it in the hands of locals, of real people.

Garrick’s report on Heidi Vonblum, the city’s planning director, is noteworthy. Vonblum “said city officials won’t be making any sort of recommendation to council members this spring about whether they should choose the existing or rival groups in La Jolla and Hillcrest.

“It’s swirling around that the city Planning Department is hand-selecting members of community planning groups — we do not have any involvement in the selection of any community planning group members,” she said.

Vonblum said planning officials will summarize the rival applications, including membership demographics and proposals to boost diversity, but not express any preferences.

“We will provide factual information about the applications and whether they are consistent with the council policy,” she said.

Vonblum said she will also try to eliminate a loophole in the new city policy that could allow a rival group to lead a neighborhood for months without its members standing for election.

“That’s sort of a gap that we encountered as we were tasked with implementing this council policy,” said Vonblum, adding that she will urge the council to fix it. “If they were to be recognized, they would be required to hold elections very shortly after their recognition.”

While Vonblum declined to say how long a rival would be allowed to lead without standing for election, Schlageter says it should be no longer than 60 days. She plans to ask the Community Planners Committee to approve that recommendation this month.

Also Garrick’s report on the showdown in Uptown is worthy of a read as it is symptomatic of a larger on-going battle throughout San Diego:

In Hillcrest, a group called Vibrant Uptown is trying to oust the existing group Uptown Planners. Both groups are seeking to represent Uptown, an area that includes Hillcrest, Bankers Hill, Park West, Mission Hills and University Heights.

The key difference is between their stances on housing development: Vibrant supports the high-rise and mid-rise projects city leaders want in the area, while the current group has typically opposed high-rises, citing concerns about neighborhood character and infrastructure to support such population growth.

Vibrant Uptown says its group has more renters than Uptown Planners and that they are planning an aggressive outreach effort to attract more members of color.

They believe their initial board list reflected Uptown more.

Uptown Planners says it will make efforts to boost diversity. “The Uptown Planners Community Planning Group is committed to engaging a broad and diverse cross-section of our community,” it says in its application.

The battle continues an ongoing power struggle between growth advocates and critics that began in 2019, when a group of pro-growth residents took over the current Uptown group by winning several seats on its board. But slow-growth supporters struck back in the 2021 election and solidified their power in 2023.

The Rag will continue our coverage of this issue on whether local planning groups will have any say or not in the future.