Saving the Coast for Everyone to Enjoy Was Worthwhile in 1972 and It Still Is Today.

This is yet one more post as part of the Rag’s response to a U-T commentary by Harry Bubbins about lifting the coastal 30 foot height limit.

By Geoff Page

Part of the “Argument For” Prop D as presented by the City Clerk in 1972.

“We hold the right of the public to use and reach their beach property to be greater than the right of a select few to build structures of unlimited height.”

How could anyone say it any better?

The opinion piece in the UT’s October 23 issue took the position that San Diego should do away with the coastal 30-foot height limit. The writer made several assertions, using deliberately inflammatory language, that were unsupported or wrong.

The curious question for the UT editorial board is, what qualified this writer, who has been in San Diego barely four years after a long career in New York, for this opinion piece?

The question is necessary because all the UT provided for the writer’s qualifications was “a former president of the La Jolla Community Planning Association” How do you assess the value of the writer’s opinion with only this qualification?

As it turns out, the UT did not identify the writer as an ally of Todd Gloria who appointed the writer to the city’s Mobility Board. Nor was the writer identified as a member of Bike San Diego. This provides an understanding of the writer’s bias. The city and Bike San Diego are in bed with the development industry.

The writer tried hard to make the case that the height limit’s eastern boundary, the Interstate 5 freeway, was capricious and arbitrary drawn with little thought. That was not true.

Here is what Alex Leondis, the leader of the successful drive to pass Prop D in 1972, said in an October 16, 2020 Union-Tribune about the freeway boundary:

“The Interstate 5 boundary was an arbitrary decision because if you wanted to write the whole new proposed boundary in a proposition, most voters would not take the time to understand it and would not sign it. It had to be simple so that the voters could understand it and sign the petition.”

The opinion piece claimed that the height limit was about “preserving views for a clique.”

The absurdity of calling all of the population within the coastal height limit boundary a “clique” is apparent to any thinking person.  If having a love of the ocean constitutes a clique, then it has to be the most diverse clique ever assembled.

However, the word “clique” is really a euphemism for all those rich people who live at the beach trying to protect their fortunes. That argument does not comport with additional 1972 “Argument For” language about Prop D.

“Beaches in high-rise communities become inaccessible to the public due to lack of parking, fencing-off of private property and overcrowding (Miami Beach, Waikiki). High-rise buildings obstruct needed ocean breezes, sky and sunshine.”

The people who got Prop D passed were not wealthy people. They did not do what they did to protect a bunch of rich people. They did not accomplish this with rich donors behind them. These were regular, very committed people who sacrificed a great deal of their private lives to accomplish the goal.

The opinion piece also stated, and “This isn’t about skyscrapers on the beach.” Of course it is. Just look at what was built before Prop D passed. It was about skyscrapers in 1972 and still is today.

The oft-repeated examples of what can happen are all over Florida and the East coast. The impact is hard to imagine until a person drives those coastlines looking for the ocean from behind walls of tall buildings. That is an indisputable, real concern.

The opinion piece stated “Even directly along the coast, older buildings already exceed 30 feet without compromising neighborhood appeal.”  That was a completely unsupported claim. It was simply one person’s opinion based on nothing.

The main position of the opinion piece is an old tired claim that the people who live in the height limit zone, and who defend it are selfish people.

This is exactly backward. The people who defend the height limit were, and are, thinking of everyone else by preserving the coastline for all to enjoy, rich or poor. Altruistic would be a much more accurate adjective.

The truth is that property owners within the height limit zone would see significant property value increases if voters repealed the height limit. If it was only about money, everyone would vote to repeal it. It is about something much more valuable.

But, it is about money, just not for homeowners. Developers would swamp the coast if the height limit were removed and not to provide all the housing the opinion piece claimed but to just make a lot of money.

San Diego has protected the coast for all to enjoy since 1972. The city is 372 square miles of which the height limit zone is a small part. There is plenty of room for housing in a city that size while preserving the coast for all those who live in those 372 square miles but have few places to play where they live.

Saving the coast of everyone to enjoy was worthwhile in 1972 and it still is today.