By Donna Frye
It’s no wonder the public doesn’t have a lot of trust when it comes to big development projects in the City of San Diego. Too often, what we are told is not accurate.
On Monday November 9, the San Diego City Council is scheduled to hear the Midway Rising development project.
From the beginning, the project has been promoted as a massive affordable housing project.
The proposed project is on 48.5 acres of public land and includes an entertainment center, 2,000 affordable housing units, 2,250 market rate housing units, between 123,500 and 130,000 square feet of retail space, 8.2 acres of parks, and 6.42 acres of public spaces.
One of the many documents the council will be voting on is the Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA).
The DDA is over 600 pages long and is a complex and complicated document to read, let alone understand. It includes such things as the leases for the property and determines the order in which the development will occur.
The DDA was first made public one week before the City Council Land Use and Housing Committee meeting on October 16. The public has had very limited time to review all the documents and provide comments.
According to the DDA, the entertainment center will have a maximum height of 165 feet and the housing development will have a maximum height of 250 feet, even though the development site is located in an area that has a voter approved 30-foot height limit. The developer has stated that they do not have to comply with the height limit because of the state density bonus law.
The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) seems to agree that a height exemption is allowed because housing is considered “a matter of statewide concern”.
In addition, state legislation (SB 344) was enacted in September that eliminated the public’s right to fully participate in the judicial system and shielded the City of San Diego from legal challenges related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) documents for the project. If you recall, the City of San Diego failed to prepare an adequate Environmental Impact Report for the Midway Rising project (which included the height limit) and was sued in court and lost twice because of those failures.
One of the stated reasons for SB 344 was that Midway Rising was “the single largest affordable housing development in California history” so the legislation was jammed through the state legislature using the “gut and amend” tactic.
SB 344 also included an “urgency statute necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety within the meaning of Article IV of the California Constitution and shall go into immediate effect.” After all that, and the benefits the developer stands to receive, the public has a right to know how committed Midway Rising is to building 2,000 affordable units.
Given the urgency and the immediate need to preserve the “public peace, health or safety” it’s reasonable to think that the affordable housing will be built before anything else since time is of the essence, right?
But that’s not how it works. According to the DDA, some of the infrastructure improvements are scheduled to begin in 2028/ 2029 and will continue through 2041. The entertainment center and retail development is scheduled to begin in 2032 followed by the market rate housing in 2033. The affordable housing is set to begin construction a little after the market rate housing.
The DDA discusses in more detail the different phases of the affordable housing development.
Section 15.3.6 states that the developer could delay the construction of some of the planned affordable housing units if they are unable to secure gap financing for their affordable units. Best as I could tell, it does not apply to Phase 1 but who knows?
Section 15.3.6 also describes the mayor’s authority to revise the performance schedule for the Development Phasing Plan for the entire project. It includes time extensions for the affordable housing that the mayor can approve without any public hearings or city council approval.
It also allows the mayor to issue waivers and amendments to the DDA without city council approval. There are some circumstances that would require the city council to be involved but they appear to be limited.
Without city council involvement, it will be very difficult for the public to participate in a meaningful way to ensure that the affordable units are built.
Section 15.4 is titled “Affordable Housing Receiver Site Limitation”. It is worth more review and understanding because it allows the city to approve using Midway Rising as a receiver site under certain circumstances. That means there could be fewer units than the promised 2,000 new affordable housing units.
A November 3, 2026, City Attorney memo discusses this in more detail on page 9: “If the City approves use of the Property as a receiver site under DDA Section 15.4, Midway Rising could produce less than the 2,000 net new affordable housing units represented in Midway Rising’s response to the NOA.”
It is not clear if the mayor would be the final decider or if the city council and public would have a role.
Section 34 of the DDA discusses the leases. The city and developer have 180 days after the DDA is final to negotiate the affordable housing lease. It appears that a city council vote is required during a noticed public hearing to approve it. I assume that means that what is currently in the DDA will change.
In addition to the DDA, I also read a Technical Advice Letter from HCD to the city. According to the letter, the city wanted to know what remedies were available in the event that an affordable housing provider secures a successful competitive SLA bid “but subsequently offers to build less affordable housing than initially offered.”
In this case it appears that during the DDA negotiations in 2025, Midway Rising “ expressed interest in amending the number of affordable housing units to be included in the project” and only were willing to commit to a minimum of 1,063 units in the DDA.
The information seemed worth noting.
See Item 6, Attachment L:
I could not find information about whether any of the housing units could be used for short term vacation rentals.
At this point, there are more questions than answers. The city has been in negotiations with Midway Rising for many years but it was just recently that the public saw the DDA and many of the other documents. This puts the public at a great disadvantage.
At a bare minimum, the public has a right to know about all the possible affordable housing loopholes written into the DDA and any other documents before this project is approved.
Thank you, Donna Frye. The affordable housing units have always been a bait and switch.
Thank you Donna Frye
The underlying basic false starting premise is: WE WANT TO BE A MEGA CITY competing with Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Phoenix, and New York OR there are sustainability limits for this coastal desert City?!? Is MEGE BIGGER BETTER?
Thank you Donna Frye for this in depth and thoughtful review of this impactful and important document. Now if our city leaders would only take this much time and effort to really take into consideration the community concerns and impact.
Any claim by the City that this project would <> is a fraud on its face.
The DDA (Development Agreement) is “”Attachment J – Midway Rising Disposition and Development Agreement FINAL.pdf” at the linked page. Thank you.
I don’t understand why the land is sold rather than long-term leased like Pueblo Lot 212.
The term “stadium” is nowhere therein.
I do see that no affordable unit shall be for time-share use.
I wonder how long the “affordable” housing is so restricted and whether the project proponent owns or leases the property. Using a digital search of a few terms and a limited visual search I find nothing to assuage my fears that the land is permanently lost to the City and that the affordable units will be permanently lost to low/moderate-income renters are some time, e.g., 30 years and esp. once the units are demolished.
Remember that land use development is the badge of corruption in this City.
The developers will do everything they can to squirm out of building the required affordable housing at this site because it doesn’t pencil out for them. The loudest public relations campaign to justify this project and the reason laws are being bent or subverted is the affordable housing carrot it supposedly will provide. “Affordable housing” is the clarion call all over California used to seduce politicians and the public–but in fact is a fig leaf for developer’s true profit agenda and the donor-serving ambitions of duplicitous politicians.
I have said all along that this project didn’t make a lot of sense as originally proposed. I thought that the market rate middle income housing was not likely to survive as there really is no subsidy available. I was also skeptical of the proposed hotel, and miraculously, a very large sewer tunnel was found under the hotel site. I’m not sure how that was not “discovered” earlier. I was also pretty skeptical that there would be 2,000 net new affordable units. Now I’m wondering if there will be any net new units. Sigh… Business as usual in our fair city.
I also wondered at the time if the hotel was only proposed to get organised hospitality workers on board. Seems pretty likely in retrospect, or maybe I’m just cynical.
Hello, this Mayor & City Council and previous San Diego City council is lying. It is PROVEN in previous court cases on this project and others like 202 Ash St. Which the mayor and a few of these councilors were involved in! Also note the recent & expected High & King Tide numbers…Flooding, FLOODING into water & Sewer systems! That means damage to current and other systems. Scripps Oceanography Institute studies have concluded this for years, nearly decades now, along with other observers like NOA. Now where do we most need the housing? Affordable and Senior housing! And not just hundreds & thousands of micro boxes that don’t adequately provide for the services & humanity THESE Seniors deserve for dedication to our families and community for many decades!! Don’t teach the youth of today bad habits by disparaging those Auntie/Uncle Veterans, those long time caregivers, and social glue that made San Diego America’s Finest City! Remember this includes tens of thousands on Mount Soledad &
in our Military Cemeteries like Fort Rosecrans. WE The Citizens need to #StandUp and #SpeakOut again like they did in 1974…
Like Mayor Frye tried to Stand Out & Speak Up during her terms on City Council, and as a long time Coastal Advocate. Stop letting the BIG Corporations and Rich bully San Diego constituents around…it is a LOSE LOSE situation with the grandkids paying the highest price(es). 300 sq foot & less places to flood the market at $1000’s & 1000’s of dollars rent is what has gotten us here.
Lastly, NO one truly talks about Dollars per square foot, they shell game with units, but not living space…private & shelter space. Shrinking units make developers richer, remember ALREADY RIC$H!, while WE THE PEOPLE, taxpayer/constituents pay the price! NOW and IN THE FUTURE. And they are banking on it…that is why the developer who STOLE the Chargers is coming back to the Well, to steal even more and our Children’s/Societies future. STOP IT NOW, demand better. Lastly finally get rid of Gloria and his Administrations abuse & abusive behaviors.
Sincerely, Daniel Beeman, 2000 District 3 San Diego City Council Candidate, previous SD Arts Commissioner, 2 decade Affordable Housing advocate, and friend of Ms. Donna Frye. #YESweCanSD #IfWEwillSD
Ohhhhh… The gold ol’days with Donna Frye (still! thank you) & Diann Shipione. There is always a chance that, after seeing the infrastructure issues, flooding, lack of convenient parking and gridlock, the whole complex becomes very affordable!