City Council Votes for Some Restrictions on SB-79 — Next Move: SANDAG

By Geoff Hueter of Neighbors for a Better San Diego

First, it is important to highlight that on Thursday night, May 7th, the San Diego City Council voted to follow the City Planning Department’s restriction of SB 79 to 1 mile walking distance and the phased approach to implementing SB 79 in the following areas:

• high fire hazard zones,
• low resource areas,
• historic resources, and
• areas subject to sea level rise.

This is the most important outcome of the ordinance that was adopted last night and what we supported.

Regarding the debate over the number of qualifying bus stops, I think that the final Council decision wasn’t so much to include more bus stops in SB 79. Rather they eliminated the ordinance’s reference to the City’s initial expectation of what the maps will be.

The ordinance now makes it clear that SANDAG’s determination of transit stops will govern SB 79 implementation, which is expressly stated in the state law and was affirmed by the initial ordinance presented at the meeting. This was always the case, so eliminating the City’s initial maps means that all SB 79 projects will need to wait until SANDAG completes that work.

In some sense the victory here for YIMBY Dems is that it removes a potential bias in the discussions at SANDAG, and Councilmember Stephen Whitburn emphasized that his office was going to draft a letter to SANDAG proposing inclusion of the 50+ stops in SANDAG’s map, but the Council’s resolution didn’t endorse that action, so it would just be an opinion of Whitburn that he could have expressed without any changes to the City’s SB 79 ordinance.

In short, the changes to the ordinance made in last night’s meeting alter the starting position for engagement with SANDAG, but the substance of the ordinance was essentially the same. From this perspective, we will need to be vigilant and active as this moves to SANDAG.