Save Our Access Urges San Diegans to Fight for Sustainable Development with Parks along San Diego River
By Paul Krueger
Expanding on their precedent-setting legal victory that at least temporarily halts high-density, high-rise development on more than 1,000 acres in the Sports Area/ Midway/MCRD/ NAVWAR area, members of Save Our Access are urging San Diegans to fight for smart, sustainable development with jogging and bike paths, pedestrian bridges spanning the San Diego River, and open space.
“The elected officials say this land (near) the coast is where we can get the most campaign contributions, so ‘let’s give it all away’,” said John McNab of Save Our Access at a press conference at the Penchanga Sports Arena, Monday, Oct. 20.
“What they didn’t tell (the public) is they’re going to cram 100,000 to 200,000 people in this area. And they don’t care if you have spend an extra hour — or two hours, which it will be — in your car, commuting (on Interstate 8 and 5).”
“They think, ‘development first, public last,'” McNab told reporters.
A unanimous state appeals court ruled last Friday, Oct. 17 that the city had not prepared adequate environmental studies before asking voters to increase the existing 30-foot height limit throughout the Midway District.
McNab predicts the city will now perform an acceptable environmental analysis, and once again ask voters to allow 10-story or higher residential development along the Midway corridor. “And this time, hopefully there (will be) enough education that people see that bait-and-switch that the city’s doing. And our responsibility is to make this a better place for all of us to live.”
It’s unclear what impact the court’s strongly-worded rejection of the city’s effort to avoid an adequate study of the environmental impacts will have on the proposed “Midway Rising” project. That massive development would place more that 4,000 residential units, shops, restaurants, and at new 16,000 seat arena on land now occupied by the existing arena and neighboring real estate.
The developers claim the court ruling will not slow their project, because new state laws provide building height and density waivers for projects that include low- and moderate income housing.
But McNab strongly disagrees with that that assessment. “That will be litigated,” McNabb said. And he’s confident his group’s attorneys will continue their winning streak.
“This is protecting the I-5 and I-8 junction from gridlocking the entire north-south freeway network, protecting the public’s rights to access the coast, and preventing a massive taxpayer burden. Had the city followed the law, we would not be here today.”
Congratulations to Save Our Access. If Todd Gloria appeals this decision, he will need to explain the material changes that have been made to the original contract and why he did not cancel the contract and rebid it. Oh, but let’s not forget, the developer of Midway Rising gave Todd Gloria $100,000 to his mayoral campaign. Then coincidentally won the contest bid. Pay to play is alive and well at city hall.
We have an election in 2026 to replace the city council incumbents with community advocates. Then we can beat back the failed policies of Todd Gloria.
Todd is locking out the citizen stakeholders, taking our property rights, and giving them carte blanche to developers. Todd doesn’t own property but considers himself a king and we are his serfs. NO KINGS SAN DIEGO! Todd Gloria has got to go. The worst mayor EVER!
100% correct. Agree with your comments. Hopefully informed San Diegan finally wake up
There seems to be a pattern in what comes out of the Mayor, Council Office, and Developmental Services Department. They routinely seem to either not get CEQA’s, or the application is not exactly the reality. When the app asks if there will be any Environmental changes to the neighborhood, and the DSD says no, but not tests were done. And when it asks a question relative to if there will be any changes to the existing street, they say no, yet they completely reconfigured the street. They’ve done this routinely, so I’m glad they got pulled up to a stop.
Great (temporary) win for good guys. Let’s hope if this does go back on the ballot that it will fail miserably.
However, I did have a good chuckle at the River Trail Park diagram that shows MCRD as closed and reused as a community asset. I seriously doubt the Marines will ever give up MCRD.
Let’s hope that voters will finally figure out this scheme to repeal the city’s coastal height limit and vote against any third initiative. It puts the camel’s nose under the tent and would lead to other efforts to weaken or kill protections of the city’s remaining coastal communities. Imagine Mission beach and OB filled with 30 story high hotels and condo towers. Fight to keep the voters coastal building height limit.
Shortly after I wrote this article, Mayor Gloria announced he intends to persuade the city council to pay for a long-shot appeal to the State Supreme Court. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty confident that the State’s highest court won’t consider — much less overturn a strongly-worded and unanimously ruling by the three appellate court justices.
The Mayor says an appeal is necessary to avoid a “failure” in his efforts to “redevelop” the Midway Corridor with rows of high-rise building, while avoiding any discussion about (or mitigation of) the significant environmental impact of those massive projects, which include the Midway Rising development. I wrote this in response to the Mayor’s Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=mayor%20todd%20gloria
in which he declares that “Failure is not an option”
“Following the guidance of a unanimous appellate court decision would not be a “failure.” Performing a legitimate environment assessment of the Midway area would not be a “failure.” Giving your constituents the information they need to make an informed decision on your effort to massively upzone that area would not be a “failure.” Those responses would instead be examples of what we call “good government.”
Yes, see this : https://obrag.org/2025/10/gloria-failure-not-an-option-vows-to-appeal-adverse-court-ruling-and-to-press-on-with-midway-rising/
On the subject of who is the boss, time to remind the guy making $ 244,727.00 a year that WE THE PEOPLE ARE THE BOSS!. Per sdut, only 21,051 verified signatures needed to put the new trash and parking fees on the 2026 ballot .
How about it, are you fed up yet?
All these rushed tax/fee increases, seem to me, to be acts of desperation for the gross mismanagement of City funds. The whole truth will come out after the next Mayoral election, on where the money went, that put SD bottom line, so far in the “red”. Maybe somebody needs to do some investigations in SD, like they did in LA with a developer, politicians, and realtor???
I will be a bit of an outlier here. But first, the 30 height limit MUST remain. We voted for that for good reason. Otherwise, like the Turquoise Tower or the Garnet and Rose Creek project, the camel’s nose will stay under the tent. I think I read, early in the Midway Rising discussion, that the project, with the height limit, would still be financially viable, just not as viable as this cluster of skyscrapers. But, done right I think this area would be good for redevelopment and middle class housing. Done carefully and objectively with a proper infrastructure plan, I think a good mix of 1 and 2 bedroom spaces along with row and townhouses are far preferable to the studio and 1 bedroom bonus ADUs sprouting in our neighborhoods.