The Undemocratic Mid-City Communities Plan Update — and What You Can Do Before March 19

By David Moty from Neighbors for a Better San Diego

I’ve never seen this before: A community plan update that wipes out most of a community’s single-family zoning. That’s what’s happening to Normal Heights, Kensington, and Talmadge under the City of San Diego’s undemocratic Mid-City Communities Plan Update.

And if this plan is adopted, state law makes these changes permanent. Even a future City Council couldn’t undo it.

Even if you do not live in Mid-City, please continue reading to understand how the City is bypassing the democratic process to implement the Mayor’s upzoning plans for San Diego. Your community may be next.

The City is close to developing an official draft plan, and everything indicates that they intend to upzone nearly all of Normal Heights and Kensington-Talmadge for multi-family housing, [ to see graphs and maps go here }as shown on the following Concept Plan #2:

The near-total upzoning of single-family neighborhoods in this concept would be in addition to the 8-story buildings recently allowed on Adams Avenue, and potential 18-story buildings on El Cajon Boulevard.

WHAT PLAN 2 WOULD LOOK LIKE

The big change is in building size. On a typical 5000 square foot lot, the current limit is 3000 square feet of floor area, whether it’s from one house or one house and multiple ADUs.

Under Plan 2, that could more than triple to 6250 – 6500 square feet, plus an additional 3000 sf for a carport.

Based on San Diego’s land development code, this is what I believe the City’s preferred zoning will allow in these single-family neighborhoods:

Artist interpretation of allowable building volume under Land Use Concept Plan #2

DISMANTLING THE CITY’S CLASS WARFARE NARRATIVE

In its presentation, staff made a big issue of how the average income in Kensington-Talmadge is (just) 1% more than the City average, and how that makes those neighborhoods so wealthy.

No, what that means is that they’re AVERAGE.

If a complete income leveling of the city is the goal, Kensington and Talmadge are already there, at least in terms of income. They’re not there on park space and infrastructure.

The City measures parks and their amenities in “park points.” Of the 41 community plan areas in the city with a population over 5000, which is the City’s threshold for park space, Kensington-Talmadge likely ranks 40 out of 41. Our park deficit is -92%. Only the Midway area is worse o?.

Normal Heights has 4x more park points per person. City Heights has 6x more, and Eastern Area, from Rolando south to Oak Park, has 11x more.

In the past 30 years, the City has also shorted Kensington-Talmadge on infrastructure spending in comparison to the rest of Mid-City. We have 10% of the population, while only 6% of the money was spent here.

I will freely admit that some areas have significant issues that need to be addressed, but so do all neighborhoods.

CARRYING OUR WEIGHT

By one measure of deeded affordable housing, which compares the number of officially deeded affordable housing units to the community’s total housing units, Kensington-Talmadge is 32% above the city average with its share of affordable housing.

In fact, to avoid concentrating poverty, the City’s Inclusionary Housing regulations, which mandate 10% affordable units in every market-rate project, no longer apply in Kensington-Talmadge. Within Mid-City, only City Heights and Kensington-Talmadge have reached that level. We have carried our weight.

On another measure, Kensington-Talmadge ranked 8 out of 41 communities in the ratio of deeded affordable units per 1000 people, higher than City Heights or any of the other Mid-City areas in this plan. This ratio accounts for our smaller homes and households in a way the previous one does not. Most of the homes in older neighborhoods are quite small compared to single-family homes built later.

THERE IS ANOTHER, BETTER OPTION

The City has another option that would serve ALL Mid-City communities equally — Concept Plan #5:

Concept Plan #5 is the only option that directs high-density to Mid-City’s corridors — immediately adjacent to transit — and affects all plan areas equally.

And to their credit, three of four elected community planning groups in Mid-City voted to support Concept Plan #5: Eastern Area, City Heights, and Kensington-Talmadge planning groups.

The Community Plan Update is on track to be approved this year, and we’re being railroaded all the way. We must take action NOW to stop this trainwreck.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY…

PLEASE TAKE A QUICK MINUTE TO SEND AN EMAIL BEFORE THE MARCH 19 PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING:

Click the emails below to send a message to all contacts at once. (If the link doesn’t open automatically, copy and paste all addresses into your email.)

PlanMidCity@SanDiego.gov, Planningcommission@sandiego.gov, MayorToddGloria@sandiego.gov, JoeLaCava@sandiego.gov, KentLee@sandiego.gov, jennifercampbell@sandiego.gov, StephenWhitburn@sandiego.gov, HenryFoster@sandiego.gov, vivianmoreno@sandiego.gov, RaulCampillo@sandiego.gov, MarnivonWilpert@sandiego.gov, SeanEloRivera@sandiego.gov

Type into your subject line: SUPPORT PLAN 5 FOR MID-CITY CPU

Enter your message: Write your own message, or copy and paste the three sentences below into the body of your email:

Plan #5 is the most transit-friendly plan. It creates a critical mass of nearby riders for transit usage.

Plan #5 locates new residents closer to parks and local businesses.

Plan #5 continues to allow single-family neighborhoods to add density through ADUs and soon-to-be adopted state-mandated lot-splitting regulations.

Thank you for your concern and action. Additional information and calls to action will be shared in the coming days and weeks. ??

David Moty is the current Chair of the Kensington-Talmadge Planning Group and a Working Group member on the Mid-City Communities Plan Update. His views are his own.