By John Ziebarth / Op-Ed SD Union-Tribune / November 18, 2025
The progress of Midway Rising, the massive Sports Arena redevelopment project with a potential price tag of $3.9 billion, has been a history of bait-and-switch tactics.
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On July 15, 2022, the San Diego City Council cleared the way for Proposition C to allow voters to remove the 30-foot height limit in the Midway/Pacific Highway Community Plan. Members approved the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report analyzing the effects of a 65-foot-high development. A judge had required the additional analysis to address deficiencies in the original environmental documents. At the hearing, a council member stated that the 65-foot height limit in the zoning code/community plan would be the cap if Proposition C passed.
Two months later, on Sept. 13, at Mayor Todd Gloria’s behest, the council selected Midway Rising with a proposed 86-foot height limit (not 65 feet) for the mixed-use portion of the Sports Arena project. Prior to the Proposition C vote, Midway Rising was asked at the Point Loma Association if it would go above 86 feet if offered several million dollars for an ocean-view unit on the 20th floor. A representative responded that its proposal was for 86 feet in height.
At least, that was the bait to help get Proposition C passed. In November 2022, Proposition C was approved to remove the height limit with no height cap. In April 2025, Midway Rising switched to asking for a 250-foot height for luxury units. Bait and switch.
Were voters for Proposition C misled with a theoretical 65-foot height cap? It passed by only 9,000 votes or 2%. Would some voters have changed their support if they knew it would allow a 250-foot-tall structure?
In September 2022, Gloria and City Council members said they selected Midway Rising because it proposed the most dwelling units and affordable units — 4,254 residences, with 2,000 “affordable” units and 250 “moderate-income” units as the bait. The proposal was 60% more dense than the current zoning/community plan allowed.
Yet, on Oct. 2, 2023, came the switch. Midway Rising said that it could not afford to build the 250 moderate-income housing units. Did the mayor and council know that Midway Rising was going to propose 250 high-end luxury units when they removed the moderate-income requirement? If Midway Rising can afford to build 250 luxury units, then it should be able to build the 250 moderate-income housing originally proposed. Bait and switch.
Instead of using a zoning that would allow the proposed dwelling units with a height limit of 100 feet, which accommodates Midway Rising’s original proposal, Midway Rising is now asking for mixed-use zoning to allow 240 feet in height and a specific plan to get an extra 10 feet for a total of 250 feet. Bait and switch.
In yet another switch, Midway Rising is requesting the removal of the “overlay zone” on the property, which would require public and environmental review for future changes to the project. Midway Rising could then use the Complete Community Housing Solution policy — adopted in December 2020 — to ignore the general plan, community plan, zoning, height limitations and density without public or environmental review because it is building housing considered affordable in a transit area. According to the city’s 2024 housing report, incentives (loopholes?) like this have allowed developers to build 280% to 1,000% greater density on sites than allowed by community plans without any environmental or public review. What future changes does Midway Rising have in mind? Bait and switch.
Midway Rising has indicated that it plans to move forward using state law loopholes as is being done with Kalonymus’ proposed 23-story development in north Pacific Beach to circumvent a recent court decision voiding Measure C.
Was selection of Midway Rising actually a tacit future approval by the mayor and City Council of a rezoning/community plan amendment without even knowing the new environmental impacts? Interestingly, the council approved the Complete Community Housing Solution eliminating public/environmental review about a month after the original, later-invalidated 2020 Measure E removed the height limit in the Midway/Pacific Highway Community Plan.
Thus, no environmental impacts, such as infrastructure, traffic, air quality, noise, height, etc., would affect the council’s approval of a housing/affordable project in a transit area. Prior to the Measure C vote in 2022, did San Diegans have any idea what its passage would lead to? Of course not.
Ziebarth is a retired architect who volunteered for 27 years as a member of the Citizen Advisory Committee for the Zoning Code Update and the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects San Diego. He lives in Point Loma.
Like playing the, find the item under the cup game. Who protects the common resident? Not the city, with the city attorney. They protect the city before the taxpayer, or the state for that matter, with it’s protections for who? I’ve read a bit about the S&L crisis being the beginning to the transition to the corporate and wall street evolution into the lack of available home ownership. The thought of Pulte in Washington and 50 year mortgages was like nails on the chalkboard screaming as to why the market is so distorted. If the issue is affordable housing, than why is the market rate solution providing the least amount possible? And why is the mayor/council for that? Money and corporations?
Midway rising has been a travesty from the start. This land is owned by you and me. It could be used for public housing, for parks or any of the other things that we need so desperately in San Diego. The genesis of this project lies in campaign donations to our corrupt and incredibly hypocritical mayor. It is not about housing. It is about profits for developers and nothing more.
If we really want to get into the game of “baits and switches”, consider the fact that San Diegans believed our votes would matter when we twice voted to remove the height limit over Midway, and clearly a small group of activists and a few sympathetic judges decided otherwise.
Now that is a real bait and switch!
Ah, but Jack – what about the voters of 1972 who overwhelmingly voted for Prop D establishing the 30 foot height limit having their vote now not count? Plus, now the more the public knows about the conditions and consequences of building 10 story high buildings in a flood zone and all the other concurrent negatives – may sway them to change their vote. Don’t forget the last vote was very, very close.
The 1972 vote result was challenged in court for years as well, but it stood up because it was properly done. The recent votes were hasty and clearly not well done because the votes have not stood up to court challenges.
The height limit was on the 1972 ballot because of the grassroots efforts of private citizens gathering signatures to get it there. The recent votes were a travesty. The measure were put on the ballot by nine people on a city council full of people looking to forward their political careers. Voting for a huge project backed by big money people was a no-brainer for the council.
The vote should have only been added in the same manner as it was originally. During the signature gathering process, awareness of an issue spreads and people learn more about it. The way this measure went on the ballot by-passed all of that and all that followed was misinformation from our public officials. Time to vote again because now the real story is out.
Geoff that is because Prop D was a citizen’s initiative for which CEQA doesn’t apply so the same legal mechanism could not be used against it. Measures E and C were indeed placed on ballot by a public agency which does indeed require CEQA compliance, which unfortunately frequently blocks environmentally-friendly policies these days.
Even if placed on the ballot by the City, does the will of the voters, twice expressed, not matter to you? If it was so important in 1972, then why wasn’t it in 2020 and 2022? Are all of us who were not around to vote in 1972 but did vote for Measures E and C somehow less important? Does our will not matter?
I don’t exactly know the boundaries for the Midway rising project, but it is not that far from San Diego International Airport. Has anyone measured aircraft noise within the planned project area? Of course, it can’t be worse than Loma Portal or Liberty Station, and so far no one has died from the aircraft noise that we know of. Perhaps someone should make a few measurements.
I still have grave concerns that Midway Rising will be build on a Salt Water Marsh with no basements, and probably on a thick mat foundation which is fine for low-rise buildings, not necessarily for high rises.
The solution is underground Bathtub Foundations. Similar to the Navy Broadway Complex (NBC) – Manchester Pacific Gateway, the planned Seaport Village redevelopment, the County Administration Center (CAC), the Port Headquarters, and New York’s World Trade Center. These high-rises are all built on reclaimed tidelands with poor soils that provide no stability for foundations. Similar to Midway Rising. The original Port Master Plan required two levels underground parking or basements to take out the liquefiable soil layers. Then the Port deleted the requirement for 2 levels underground each building at the behest of developers.
The City’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Sea Level Rise guidelines for the whole of the Midway/Pacific Highway Community Plan recommends using porous pavements as a solution to sea level rise. This is the City’s only pathetic solution. The King Tides already rise and flood the old Midway Post Office, and areas behind the Sports Arena. The City’s solution of porous pavement would work as good an existing asphalt and be uplifted and broken up during King Tides. So sad the City’s engineers refuse to provide normal everyday solutions to sea level rise for the whole City and Midway Rising. I think Midway Rising is expected to build the ground floor 5 feet above, which is something.
The liquefiable soils zone is usually in the first 15-30 feet. The easy solution for high-rises on liquefiable soils is to build at least 2 stories underground that can be used for parking.
Even if Midway Rising chooses to build 2 story basements under each building, liquefaction can happen in the open spaces between buildings and may destabilize the adjacent foundations. The only safe solution for high rise buildings on reclaimed tidelands is a bathtub foundation for the whole of the Midway Rising footprint.
Hopefully in the next EIR, the City will make this normal recommendation that will greatly increase construction costs for high-rises on reclaimed tidelands. Therefore, the project may not pencil out financially.
In addition, Midway Rising will only build the required affordable housing if 100% of the costs are paid for by City taxpayers or State affordable housing grants. In their agreement with the City, if the developer cannot get the free public money, the affordable housing will not be built. Then the developer can bait and switch again and turn them into luxury condos.
Excellent analysis by the author, and a “must-read” for our Mayor and City Council.
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