By Donna Frye
On November 11, 2025, I sent a question to the city regarding the Clairemont Community Plan Update. I used the email address the city provided to obtain more information about the plan.
It was a simple question about the northern industrial area east of I-5 and I received a prompt and courteous response the next day.
As I reviewed the update in more detail, I sent another email about the Height Limit Overlay Zone on November 13.
My email said:
“I am a bit confused about the Height Limit Overlay Zone and hope you can help me better understand that too, especially in the Villages, Corridors and Nodes. What is the height limit for each of the 9 Village Areas shown? And how high could the buildings be in each of the 9 Village Areas if the state and city density program is used? Could they be higher than 240 feet and if so where would that be? I appreciate your helping me better understand this.’”
I did not receive a response so I sent a follow-up email on November 17. I even simplified my request for information.
My email said:
“I just read the November 17, 2025 Report on the Clairemont Community Plan Update. It is very helpful. I am still trying to understand what the allowable maximum height would be in the 65- foot height limit overlay zone if all density bonus/SB 79 allowances were included.”
I got no response, let alone any acknowledgment of my email having been received.
On November 20, I sent it again as a 2nd request for the same information.
Instead of getting a response from the city planner, however, I received an email from the Public Information Officer for the City Planning Department. It read:
“I understand you have been in contact with staff regarding some questions around the Clairemont Community Plan Update. I was wondering if these are questions that will be part of a published news story?”
The email confirmed that my requests for information were being received, so that was good to know. But I couldn’t help from laughing out loud as to why it even mattered if my questions were going to be “part of published news story.”
Was there some criteria about how to respond or not respond if the public information was going to be made public?
These are basic questions with numeric answers. They aren’t trick questions and it isn’t attorney-client privileged information so what’s the problem? The public has a right to know what the Clairemont maximum allowable height limits will be if all the density bonus laws are applied. The same goes for every community. It is part of a proper analysis.
I responded to Public Information Officer’s email within a few hours of having received it with the following:
“Yes, I have been trying to get a response to the following: What would the allowable maximum height be in the 65- foot height limit overlay zone if all density bonus/SB 79 allowances were included? In other words, how high could the tallest building be in Clairemont if the plan were adopted? To answer your question, I do not know yet if this will be part of a published news story, but I suppose it could be if I do not get a response soon. Thanks for any help.”
I have not received a response.
For the record, I had not planned to write about the Clairemont Community Plan Update. I just wanted an answer.
I don’t think my questions are difficult and it seems that the answers should be readily available. I looked at the documents and could not find the information myself (which is why I asked the questions in the first place) so I used the city email address that was provided for the public to ask questions.
I would have appreciated an answer or some response directing me to the documents with that information. I don’t mind reading stuff if someone would help me find where it is located.
But that didn’t happen so now I will consider my questions as a Public Record Act request and wait my 30 days.
And since I wasn’t able to walk this morning because of the rain, I figured I may as well find something productive to do and write about how hard it is for the public to participate and get answers to simple questions.
It shouldn’t have to be this way, but it is what it is.
This is crazy! If a former city councilmember can’t get answers from the city staff, how the heck can the rest of us get them?
While the Public Information Officer didn’t answer the question asked, he did make one fact obvious: The city is not digging the bad publicity that they’re getting in local media on their bad plans. The coverage is not just getting their attention, its getting under their skins.
Thanks for noting that, Donna. & carry on OB Rag and other media outlets that are doing their best to surface what the city would rather keep under wraps.
(It seems reasonable to guess that those height limits in Clairemont, once revealed, are not going to be popular.)
Oops, my bad, I wrongly referred to the Public Info Officer as he.
I don’t feel that anyone at City Hall is there to represent the citizenry, especially long-term residents, who are probably on their “entitled” list. It’s an extreme vision, a Build Baby Build mindset with all the subtlety and environmental & infrastructure concerns of Drill Baby Drill. Our only hope is at the ballot box.
Thank you Donna for your follow through on getting answers from City staff.
The Clairemont Community Plan Update (CPU) and the Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) will go to the full City Council in December 2025, and is very large (over 31,000+ Pages). Linked below iI combined all into a searchable document from the 11/21/2025 Land Use and Housing (LU&H) Committee and highlighted the word “height” throughout.
https://tinyurl.com/20251121a
Even though I took out the majority of PEIR Appendix A, Attachment-5 Hazardous Materials Technical Study (HMTS), the document is still 2,703-pages long (320 MB in size), with a lot of duplications. Some pages were duplicated at least 5 times. Some pages have no duplications.
Not sure what other changes from the LU&H committee hearing will be made before this goes to the full City Council within the next month. Council Member Moreno requested written analysis of issues and suggestions from the Building Industry Association (BIA) and the Clairemont Town Council be made before the full City Council hearing.
11/21/2025 LU&H Agenda
https://sandiego.hylandcloud.com/211agendaonlinecomm/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=6758&doctype=1&site=comm
Video of LU&G
https://sandiego.granicus.com/player/clip/9343
2 Hours 52 Minutes to 3 Hours 56 Minutes.
CEQA PEIR documents.
https://www.sandiego.gov/ceqa/final
In the documentation, both Atlantis Group and some pro-developer Planning Commissioners wanted the the elimination of the Clairemont Height Limit Overlay Zone map entirely. Planning Commission Boomhower made the motion “that the height limit be raised in the Bay View Village and Tecolote Gateway Village areas to 65 feet.”
Therefore, the Height Limit Overlay must be a good thing to have. Hopefully there are no legal loopholes to unlimited density, no height limits, and no maximum FAR.
See Page 182 for “Residential Mixed Use Zones” which states “RMX-2: The maximum density is determined by development standards including a 3.0 FAR, 240-foot structure height, and size of the dwelling units.” Does this mean the height limit is 240 feet before density bonus additions?
See Page 285 for“Transit-Oriented Development Enhancement Program” (TOD).
“The TOD Enhancement Program allows for the density range for this area to be increased up to 109 dwelling units per acre through a discretionary review process. The Program also allows for structure heights up to 100 feet and a maximum floor area ratio of 5.0 through a public review and decision processes outlined in the Implementation Chapter.”
See Page 351-352 for Figure 8-2 Transient Oriented Development Enhancement Program with 100 foot maximum structure height for Tecolote Village.
See Page 1072-1076 for an email from Ryan R. which states:
“When overlaying the “Draft Clairemont Community Plan Land-use Zoning Table” MAX HEIGHTS onto the “Draft Clairemont Community Plan Rezone Map”, you can clearly see that there are significant areas that could see development up to 100ft. The entire Morena Blvd frontage thru Bay Park is in this new Zoning with a MAX Height of 100 ft.”
See Page 1077 where Atlantis Group which wants to change the base zone and states:
“… we strongly encourage the City to assign this site the Community Village (0-109 du/ac) land use designation and the CC-3-9 zone. Also, importantly, we encourage the City to assign a height limit for this site that is dictated by zoning itself, not the outdated Clairemont Mesa Height Limitation Overlay Zone.”
See Pages 1713-1714 for Building Industry Association (BIA) letter which states: ”Increasing the height limit throughout the plan to remove potential discrepancies between height limits and density, and to leverage the aforementioned assets of this community to realize additional housing stock… On major corridors, we would request that the team consider a base zone of RM-3-7 that provides a slightly increased capacity for housing production while still respecting those transitions to more single-family neighborhoods.”
See Page 1719 from the Clairemont Community Planning Group which starts:
“However, it is less likely that our Planning Group would agree that the increase in density at the Rose Canyon Gateway Village located at the Balboa Trolley Station Site and the City Operations Yard from 109 DU/AC to 145 DU/AC is justified. That zone change to RMX-2 would allow an FAR 3.0 and a high-rise maximum structure height of 240 feet.”
See Pages 1974-1975 for Affordable Housing Density Bonus discussion on increased height limits over the base zones.
In 2007, the too high Sunroad building near Montgomery Field had to demolish the top 2 floors. According to DSD staff, a change in a column of one Table in the Kearny Mesa Community Plan Update, New Center Master Plan, and EIR created a legal loophole that allowed the Sunroad developer to build to unlimited heights with no maximum Floor-Area-Ratio (FAR). Even though height limits were 3 stories or 45 feet in the Master Plan and Municipal Code (MC).
http://tinyurl.com/20070531b
Thank you for this!
Former CCPG and CTC “Public Safety Chair,” Dan “The naked man,” is a candidate for SDCC D2 but why is he always naked? Is he a comedian? A circus barker? Geez! Give me a break! I bet he is a crook like all the others. This cat has a really weird campaign website. It’s http://www.dannytri.org What a disgusting man!!
I tried getting definitive answers regarding resource allocations for fire and police at the CCPG meetings from the city planner, Sean McGee, and he said a lot of words, but none that added up to anything of substance. They don’t seem to have the capability to answer much of anything that is “off script”. Thanks, Donna, for trying.