By Paul Krueger
The Voice of San Diego recently shared its paywall-protected wisdom that District 4 challenger Martha Abraham “…seems to have built something of a coalition between conservatives, anti-development folks and southeastern San Diego residents that believe the area has never gotten its fair and equitable share of resources.”
I vehemently disagree with VOSD’s assertion that any of Abraham’s credible supporters (myself and all my colleagues included) are “anti-development,” and shared my reasoning in an email to Voice editor Scott Lewis and assistant editor Will Huntsberry.
Will’s response, which I’ll share at the end of this column, was disappointing in its brevity and reasoning. But, hey, it’s totally his (and Lewis’s) prerogative to reject audience input and double-down on their chosen narrative. In fact, these civil editorial disagreements are what we should most cherish and defend in a (still hopefully) free and open society that respects the First Amendment (despite — and perhaps because of — Donald Trump’s latest attacks on the media).
Here’s the portion of my email that responded to VOSD’s comment about “anti-development folks” and their support for Abraham:
“Calling any of Abraham’s supporters ‘anti-development’ is intellectually lazy and just plain wrong. In my six years of studying and speaking out on this issue as an activist freed from my obligations as a neutral journalist and observer, I have not encountered even one credible activist who can accurately be described as ‘anti-development’.
Even the harshest critics of the state’s extremely aggressive approach to local land-use and housing development and its wholesale overriding of local control acknowledge — and even embrace — the need for more housing, and thus, more ‘development’.
The issues are always: How much development, where, what kind, at what density, with what involvement of existing residents, and to whose benefit.
For six years, Neighbors For A Better San Diego has, for example, lobbied for high-density development along El Cajon Blvd and other major corridors, while urging policy makers to reasonably minimize the negative impact of multi-unit, high-density apartments with no parking that extend deeper into our residential districts.
These debates have played out week-after-week at City Council and Planning Commission meetings, and have resulted in significant acknowledgements by an otherwise very ‘pro-development’ council majority that some high-density programs, including SB 10 and the ‘Bonus ADU’ program, should be restrained.
These are reasonable policy debates and decisions, and are not ‘anti-development.’
When groups like NFABSD and residents from Encanto to Linda Vista and the College Area to Pacific Beach demand reasonable revisions to the Mayor’s ‘Complete Communities
Housing Solutions’ program and the extensive — and very controversial — upzoning imposed in most Community Plan Updates, they are not being ‘anti-development.’
They are demanding more limited development, transparency about the limits of public transit and the realistic need for more parking, more advance notice to neighbors about these projects, fewer ‘ministerial approvals,’ a bigger role for Community Planning Groups, and a much stronger focus on — and commitment to — building truly affordable units and more for-sale housing.
None of this is ‘anti-development,’ and your continued use of that term denies the reality of this complex debate over our city’s future. It also denigrates the effort so many of us have made to change city policies to better reflect what we would call ‘smart-growth’ guidelines that better serve the wants and needs of a majority of San Diego residents.
I suppose it’s easy to label the two sides to this debate (though in reality, it’s not a neat, two-sided debate), as ‘pro-development’ and ‘anti-development.’ And perhaps the term ‘pro-development’ is accurate. But please stop referring to those of us who challenge the Mayor and Governor’s policies as ‘anti-development,’ because we’re not.”
Here’s VOSD assistant editor Will Huntsberry’s response to my email:
“Thank you for your input, Paul. Always appreciate the conversation. I highly doubt I will stop using the term anti-development any time soon as a description of some folks’ politics. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable and accurate description — and I believe I’ve laid out to you the reasons why. But I welcome the feedback.”
I’ll have another post soon about their characterization of Martha’s other supporters as “conservative”… whatever that label means in today’s political discourse.
