By Paul Krueger
State Senator Toni Atkins has joined the unlikely chorus of elected officials opposing a planned 22-story “Pencil Tower” on Turquoise Street in Pacific Beach.
“It represents an extreme misuse of the State Density Bonus Law, consisting of 75 housing units, of which only 10 are income-restricted, alongside a staggering 139 visitor accommodation units,” Atkins told the director of the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) in a publicly-released letter.
“This project is inconsistent with the State’s housing goals, the intent of the State Density Bonus Law, and the character of the Pacific Beach community,” Atkins wrote in her October 9 letter to HCD. She closed that letter by politely asking HCD to keep her opposition in mind when it reviews the city’s request for “technical assistance” on the proposed 239-foot tall tower.
Mayor Todd Gloria and Council President Pro Tem Joe La Cava previously expressed their “deep concern” with the project, and its “extreme application of (the) State Density Bonus Law, which is intended to provide incentives to build affordable housing.”
In their October 3 letter to Marcella Bothwell, chair of the PB Planning Group, Gloria and La Cava noted that the proposed Pencil Tower “does not align with State or City policies intended to build more affordable homes. In fact, as proposed, this project would mostly function as a hotel and will not address the affordable housing crisis in San Diego’s coastal communities.”
To his credit (and credibility), LaCava previously opposed funding for a multi-story housing project on Garnet Avenue. That development — blessed and promoted by the state HCD — disregards the 30-foot height limit on new construction west of Interstate 5 in our beach areas. While all units in that apartment building will be truly affordable, LaCava and Council member Raul Campillo stood firm in their position that any exemptions to the three-story height limit must be approved by voters, as was done with the Midway Rising project.
But Gloria and Atkins’ opposition to the Turquoise Street project is quite out of character with their “build anything, anywhere, with no concern for existing residents” approach to housing. Gloria faces a credible challenge in his bid for a second term as mayor. He certainly doesn’t want challenger Larry Turner to capitalize on the outrage of beach area residents and benefit from their votes.
And the letter Gloria co-signed with LaCava makes no promises about any continued, muscular effort to stop the Turquoise Street development. He and La Cava said only that they “plan to work with our state representatives to address this loophole in (the) State Density Bonus Law and plan to sponsor amendments for consideration in the next State legislative cycle.”
That lame response to an immediate problem begs the question of how many more 200-foot towers with minimal parking on narrow streets with a miniscule number of affordable apartments will be built before the Mayor and Atkins close the “loopholes” they spent years creating. (It’s also important to note that the Turquoise Street project, as proposed, would have just five units for “very-low” income renters. The other five units are not “affordable” in any true sense of the word. They will be set aside for “moderate” income renters, who make $86,000 a year, or more, and will pay rents of $2800-plus for a one-bedroom.)
For his part, Larry Turner argues that the developer is not at fault for exploiting the “loopholes” that Atkins and her colleagues created, that Gloria and the city council supported and take credit for, and that they now so self-righteously want to “close.”
“Developers are simply making the best use of laws that Mayor Gloria has supported to build new market-rate housing,” Turner said. He claims his opponent is “flip-flopping due to political expediency (and is) opposing the project only because he sees consequences that he never considered before.” Turner says an independent Mayor not beholden to development interests would have “asked real estate experts (and) the community what the impacts (of these developments) might be, and the community is rightfully upset.”
PB community activist Scott Chipman echoed that sentiment In his comments to the protesters at outside PB library. Blaming “evil” developers is a futile and misguided strategy, Chipman said. Frustration and anger are instead best directed at our state and local representatives, who ignored the consequences of the policies they promoted, and “opened the door and emboldened developers to propose this insanity.”
Atkins is part of the problem in the first place! She is all for density cramming neighborhoods as outlined https://sd39.senate.ca.gov/news/20200520-senate-leaders-detail-housing-production-legislation-intended-increase-supply-aid. Atkins wants to be Governor her current Senate term ends on December 2, 2024. Retire!
Yeah, Atkins has some atoning to do. But this stance is good.
With Gloria and Atkins coming down against this project, it almost makes me think there is a distraction going on — let’s focus on this horrible project and allow that Rose Creek project to move forward.
As I noted the other day, the people who create law need to sit down in a room with others and dream up all the ways the proposed law might be absued, then re-write the law to close the loopholes. The rush by Toni Atkins, Todd Gloria and otters in the State legislature to “solve the so-called housing crisis” skipped that crucial step of analysis and now we have well over 150 high density/high rise projects with little or no parking and most of the rental units are not reachable by Middle Class or Working Class people. Why is that? Well, there is no law restricting what the owners can charge for rent, other than the few unts temporarily set aside to rent at $1400 a month for three years, then they can evict the renters and charge as much as they want. The Pencil is just the beginning of the true crisis, which means the City of San Diego will be all apartments with no public infrastructure to support them and in a few decades, the streets, lighting, sewer, and other public facilities will crumble. In less than half a century, San Diego will resemble Tijuana, Baja California.
Matt Awbrey is quoted in the U-T as representing the developer. Is this the same person who used to be Kevin Faulconer’s City Council Rep?
Definitely.
Very interesting. I suppose Kevin Faulconer has nothing to say on this particular subject. I think Matt Awbrey also held other city positions as well, but I don’t remember which ones.
Awbrey was with Faulconer’s office since 2006 when Faulconer was on the City Council.
A correction to this story.
I’m so used to writing stories about high-density infill housing that has no parking because it’s located within one mile of an existing or planned transit transit stop that I wrongly assumed developers of the proposed PB tower would take advantage of this ridiculous city-sponsored giveaway. But my colleague Danna Givot points out that the initial plan for this proposed high rise includes somewhere between 292 and 311 parking spaces (planning group quoted 292, newspaper said 311).
Thanks for that info, Danna.
But Danna also noted that the permit application for this project has been updated several times since it was first submitted, always to increase density. So don’t be surprised if thedevelopers reduce parking to increase profit, if this project is ever approved.