By Danna Givot / June 4, 2024
Both the University Community Plan Update and the Hillcrest Focused Plan Amendment were approved based on Blueprint San Diego being green-lighted at the same meeting. It is appalling that Blueprint SD was approved at all given that the EIR was only in draft form and the Planning Department has yet to respond to 1207 pages of comments, questions and criticisms from all facets of the public.
To add insult to injury, Blueprint SD is based on outdated SANDAG Series 14 population projections for San Diego, which are significantly higher than current Series 15 projections. Current Series 15 projections anticipate the City of San Diego will have 230,000 less people to house in 2050 versus Series 14 and growth will be at a rate of 4.8% versus 20% from 2022 to 2024. Once again, San Diego is using outdated, inflated population projections to justify upzoning large swaths of the city when it is unjustified. The Commissioners claim this level of development is required to make up for years of under-building, but current vacancy rates in new apartment complexes do not support this rationalization.
Another problem with Blueprint SD is that its maps are based on transit being built between now and 2050 that is currently unfunded and may never be funded. Similarly, all of the City’s zoning linked to Sustainable Development Areas is based on existing and planned “major transit stops,” whether or not there are any funds to make those transit stops a reality.
This means that builders will have the green light to build high density developments in areas where “major transit stops” may not exist within a mile of the projects before, during or after they are completed. This would contribute to more auto traffic and greenhouse gas emissions because the developments may never be served by transit. And all of this assumes that residents will be willing to walk or “roll” up to a mile to get to the transit, if or when it becomes available and if it takes them where they need to go in an efficient and cost effective manner.
Bottom line, Blueprint SD is based on outdated, inflated population projections and questionable, unfunded transit assumptions. The Draft EIR has over a thousand pages of unanswered concerns. It is on this basis that the Planning Commission felt comfortable approving the University and Hillcrest Community Plan Updates. The University Plan approval is particularly troubling because that EIR neglected to include the community’s preferred plan for comparison, despite the Planning Department committing to do so. For all of these reasons, the Planning Commission’s vote on all three of these items was premature at best and ill-informed overall.
Blueprint SD should be updated with current population projections and funded transit and then should it be subject to an EIR. Only when that EIR is FINALIZED, should the University and Hillcrest Community Plan updates be evaluated.
Vote the incumbents out. The fastest solution I can plan on.
No CEQA was done and no EIR was produced, when this mayor removed 492 parking spaces off 30th. St., to put in bike lanes that most people are saying made it more dangerous for cyclists, and pedestrians than before, and the City projected hundreds more people using the bike lanes than the few who do. Utah St. two blocks west is wider, no businesses, less traveled than 30th. and Utah transitions into Pershing, 30th. doesn’t. One bad decision after another, no common sense, has ruined some neighborhoods in SD.
When were Transit Priority Areas first added to the code? And what future planning year was the map based on?
It would be interesting to compare that first TPA map to which of those major transit stops have actually been constructed since.
They should call them Transit Praying Areas, it would be more truthful.
The other issue with Blueprint San Diego is that the historically constant number of persons per housing unit is way out of wack. The expectation is at least a 10% drop in people per dwelling unit by 2050. This could be part of the plan to density San Diego and replace families with singles.
Family-friendly is not in San Diego’s future with the current regime pushing density in the urban core. Ditch the car and ride transit – in other news ride the Blue Line and be exposed to TB.
SD’s future is not looking good with current and future plans to pour concrete everywhere and take out trees and yards.