Category: Economy

From Neighbors for a Better San Diego

Third Time’s the Charm?

After being delayed two times, the final approval of the ADU regulations is on the City Council’s consent agenda for Tuesday, July 22, at 10 a.m.

We’re confident the item will be approved, so we won’t be making any lengthy public comments.

Although there’s still room for improvement, these regulations will put meaningful constraints on the Bonus ADU program.

We ask that you take the time to submit a simple statement of support to the City Council.

by: Brooke Miller, Barbara Machado of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP / National Law Review / July 1, 2025

On June 16, 2025, the San Diego City Council voted 5-4 to cap the number of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) that can be built on single-family lots. The decision reverses the City’s 2020 implementation of a program allowing developers to build a nearly unlimited number of ADUs—a robust incentive previously heralded as a solution to the City’s burgeoning housing affordability crisis. This program rollback reflects local jurisdiction’s struggles in addressing the lack of affordable housing supply and meeting Housing Element requirements while facing stark community opposition to high-density development.

Background
On October 30, 2020, the San Diego City Council unanimously approved amendments to the San Diego Municipal Code regarding ADU and Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit (JADU) development.[1] Several key provisions were included in the amendments, including allowing the construction of one bonus ADU for every deed-restricted affordable ADU, with no limit on the number of bonus ADUs in a transit priority area (within a half-mile radius of a transit station);[2] no minimum ADU/JADU lot size;[3] no ADU/JADU density limitations;[4] and no parking requirements for ADUs in a transit priority area.[5]

It took crews about 20 minutes to extinguish a fire that erupted Wednesday, July 16, below the decks of a commercial fishing boat moored at a Point Loma marina, authorities reported.

The non-injuiy blaze erupted shortly after 11 a.m. at a dock in the 2800 block of Garrison Street, near North Harbor Drive and Rosecrans Street, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

The occupants of the 60-foot vessel were able to self-evacuate shortly after the fire broke out

“Which of the 393 Middle Managers Was Responsible for Oversight of DIF Accounting?”

By Lisa Mortensen

Greetings to our elected officials at city hall:

The article below regarding the $178 million in unspent development impact fees is eye-popping on the total dysfunction and lack of accountability by our elected officials at city hall.

We have a $6.5 billion infrastructure deficit and a $300 million budget shortfall and nearly $200 million sitting around in unused DIFs?  How can you even consider a salary increase in September ( totaling a salary increase of 61% since 2020) when you have failed in your job duties of protecting the health, safety and welfare of our city and its citizens?

by: Kasia Gregorczyk / Fox5 San Diego / Jul 15, 2025 

— The city of San Diego may be on the hook to refund nearly $200 million in development impact fees due to not following state guidelines on how to spend and track that money properly, according to a recently published San Diego grand jury report.

“It’s a year of our lives that we pour into these reports and we hope they make a difference,” said jury foreperson James Tuck.

The grand jury is calling into question the city’s collection of development impact fees meant to go toward things like new parks, fire stations, libraries, and roads to offset the impact of new development.

Tuck explains why so much money is at stake.

“Because the city has not reported out and met its reporting requirement since 2021, it could be at risk of having to return this $178 million that’s been languishing in DIF accounts for more than five years back to current property owners.”

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / July 15, 2025

San Diego finalized a controversial plan Monday to replace hundreds of thousands of trash and recycling bins — many of them new or only a few years old — and send the $65 million bill to customers.

City officials say the move is part of upgrading service just as San Diego begins levying its first-ever trash pickup fee.

They contend the new cans will boost dependability, reliability and accountability because they are equipped with special tracking chips and will look different than the old cans so that crews can recognize them.

Todd Gloria, mayor of San Diego, appears to have won the recent round on the city budget with both the City Council and the Municipal Employees Association — who represents most of the city’s workforce. Gloria refused to fire any of the hundreds of so-called “middle managers” in order to fill in the $350 million deficit — something the Council and MEA — and public — wanted.

Voice of San Diego reported:

Mayor Todd Gloria and his office are making clear none of their employees are on the chopping block.

Mayoral spokesperson Rachel Laing stated:

“As noted by the City Attorney’s Office, the Mayor alone is responsible for making decisions for his office, which includes the City’s executive team and other mayoral departments.”

Laing “added that the mayor will continue to make staffing decisions based on what the mayor thinks is needed to run a responsive and effective city government,” says the Voice.

The plight of middle managers became an issue in discussions during “controversial budget negotiations this spring” — which “pitted Mayor Todd Gloria against city labor leaders — and eventually most of the City Council,” reports David Garrick of the San Diego U-T.

And we have to add that members of the public at large — city residents — also chimed in about doing away with the many managerial positions the city has,

In a city where so many big plans have gone so badly for 30 years, San Diego residents shouldn’t just be wary when another bold proposal comes along — they should be terrified.

That’s especially true when it comes to cleaning up after Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s 2016 agreement to enter into a 20-year, $127 million lease-to-own deal for the former Sempra Energy headquarters at 101 Ash Street. Contrary to the enduring narrative that the city had no way of knowing the severity of problems at the 19-story office building, a Sempra consultant publicly testified in 2014 that the decrepit building was in need of at least $34 million in repairs and potentially much more because of extensive asbestos contamination.

Now Mayor Todd Gloria — who backed the Ash Street deal as a council member — has won initial City Council support for a $250 million proposal from the development team of MRK-Create to convert the vacant tower into 247 residential units reserved for “low-income” families.

The July 2 committee vote alarmed activist Paul Krueger, who [in Rag article] questioned the lack of detail in the development agreement, the feasibility of securing $32.2 million in tax credits associated with historic properties for a property that is hardly historic, the $24.5 million fee to be paid to the developers, and the reliability of estimates on how much it would cost for asbestos removal and renovation. Former City Attorney Mike Aguirre also expressed dismay at the lack of thorough vetting of the proposal before it won initial approval.

By Geoff Page

It seems that City Hall – Todd Gloria – has found a new golden egg called “surplus lands.” This term first surfaced during the Midway redevelopment debacle. The city declared the 40 plus acres as surplus land so it could make a deal with a developer.

The term “surplus” land does not make sense, intuitively, when commercial and entertainment businesses cover the land, all making lease payments to the city. Surplus brings to mind unimproved scrub land not anything like the Midway property.

City Hall now wants to designate as “surplus lands” 23 acres at Marina Village, 1936 Quivera Way, 4.5 acres at Dana Landing, 1617 Quivera Way, and 0.8 acres at 2590 Ingraham Street, where Sportsmen’s Seafood is now.

The June 23, 2025 city staff report states:

The City intends to issue a NOA [Notice of Availability] for the lease of the Properties. In the NOA, the City will indicate that the following steps would be required to allow for the development of affordable housing on the Properties

Housing in Mission Bay Park? Affordable housing? Does this mean a hi-rise of multimillion-dollar condos with a few small, affordable apartments in the basement?

By Lisa Mortensen

After reading the article about a ‘rehashed’ real estate deal on 101 Ash Street, I had concerns. Having been a San Diego Realtor for close to 50 years, from a real estate professional’s point of view, here are my list of red flags.

A 4% interest rate on a 55-year loan term without receiving payments on the loan for 15 years?   While current residential home interest rates for a 30-year mortgage with 20% down are hovering around high 6% low 7% range, this 4% rate appears extremely low based on ‘risk assessment’ of a 55-year loan.

The developer will once again ‘pocket’ $24.5 million in developer fees.  This is a similar situation to the $24 million credit arrangement on developer fees that Todd Gloria gave Bosa Development for a ½ acre open space parcel.  A spit of land that, let’s be clear, should have been donated.  So, if the city approves this deal, then basically close to $50 million dollars of developer fees are being waived which will greatly benefit these developers.  $50 million that could be used toward much needed infrastructure maintenance and upgrades for our city.

By Lucas Robinson / San Diego Union-Tribune / June 29, 2025

As a policy researcher, Noah Yee Yick knows more about keeping tabs on the San Diego County budget than the typical resident.

But the sprawling document, hundreds of pages long, can vex even a professional researcher like Yee Yick.

After the county released the budget in May, Yee Yick combed the pages trying to confirm that it still would fund a legal aid program for detained immigrants. But the document can be sparse on those kinds of specific details about county spending, and Yee Yick had to contact Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s office to confirm the program still existed.

“That’s been one of our big frustrations,” said Yee Yick, who works for the Center on Policy Initiatives, a think tank that has long pushed for the county budget to become more transparent and better shaped by community input. “Plain and simple, it’s not accessible. It’s not transparent. It’s really difficult to know what the county’s spending money on.”

In recent years, the county has transformed and expanded how it engages the community, moves appreciated by many of the groups most tuned in to policy.

But those same groups remain frustrated by a budget document bursting with figures about complex intergovernmental revenues but short on exactly how money is spent on the ground.

By Joni Halpern

We must have been only five and six years old, my sister Rosie and I, when we were enlisted into providing care for our mom, who was only 35 years old and suffering from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

That was back in 1954, when there was no such thing as Medicaid, In-Home Supportive Services, or affordable health care. There were no food stamps, no child care, nothing to help a father working six days a week to make a living that would give his kids a chance and pay for the care his wife needed.

We were a family of six siblings ranging in age from babyhood to 10 years old.  Our baby sister had already been sent to live with relatives, because my mom could not hold her after she was born.

My dad was a carpenter who worked at the California School for the Deaf, just across the street from where we rented a small house.  He had a group health insurance plan, but it required co-payments; some treatments and medications were not covered at all.  He took us to the doctor as little as possible, relying on old Italian home remedies my immigrant grandmother had taught him.  If we got well, the remedies were said to have worked.  If not, things got worse, and finally, Dad would be forced to take us to the doctor.  But most of the time, we waited it out, missing school, with no one to watch over us except the lady next door, who would peek in the living room window and ask my older sister (who missed school to care for us) if we were okay.