Civic San Diego restrictions OKd by Legislature
City Council would
get final say on big projects
Blue
Sky, a 480-apartment project at Eighth Avenue and B Street, is one of the
latest high-rise residential towers to start construction downtown. Approvals
of future such projects could undergo greater scrutiny under new legislation
passed in Sacramento. Roger Showley
Downtown skyscrapers, sidewalk cafes and everything in
between have enjoyed a speedy review process for 40 years through a special
city agency, but all that could change under a bill given final approval by the
Legislature last week.
The bill, AB504 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, would
allow major projects to be appealed to the City Council and, if one reading is
correct, it could add extra hours to council meetings and require the hiring of
more than 30 planners to review projects. The bill will go into effect Jan. 1
if Gov. Jerry Brown signs it in the next few weeks.
Gonzalez
said the bill would improve "public accountability" for planning
decisions in the city's central business district, while critics said it could
delay developments and make downtown less competitive.
"As it stands now, if residents do not
agree with what Civic San Diego has planned for their community, they can only go to the
board of directors of this nonprofit organization -- which is not accountable
to the City council that was elected to be stewards of the city's
development," Gonzalez said.
CivicSD,
a successor to the Centre City Development Corp. formed in 1975, oversees
planning and permitting in the 1,600-acre area generally south and west of
Interstate 5 as it sweeps past Little Italy, through Balboa Park and toward
Barrio Logan. It also has some authority in overseeing former redevelopment
areas throughout the city. Created as a nonprofit, public benefit corporation,
it is owned by the city and its nine members are appointed by the mayor and
confirmed by the council for three-year, nonpaid terms of office. Counting 40
employees, its current budget totals $7.5 million.
The
new law would require city approval of all discretionary projects and allow
appeals of zoning changes, development permits, variances and other planning
functions that deal with residential projects of 50 or more units, hotels of 50
or more rooms and commercial developments of 25,000 square feet or more. It's
unclear how CivicSD's review of building designs and approval of conditional
use permits for sidewalk cafes, signs and other development details would be
affected.
Mayor
Kevin Faulconer's spokesman Charles Chamberlayne said the mayor is not yet
ready to lay out how the city would implement the bill.
"Until
(the governor) signs the bill, the city is still expressing its hope that the
governor recognizes the needs of the community and value that Civic San Diego
brings to San Diego," he said. "The city's position is that this is a
bill that adversely affects some of our underserved communities that need
Civic's help with affordable housing, smart growth and that sort of
thing."
CivicSD
Chairman Jeff Gattas said his agency was set up to review downtown projects
"efficiently with city oversight" and consequently has accounted for
a third of the city's entire new housing units over the past 10 years,
including many affordable units.
"This
bill seeks to purposefully remove efficiency from the process, making
development downtown the least efficient place to build in the city instead of
the most efficient," Gattas said. "Now, the City Council could
potentially spend hours debating minor design issues on small projects versus
key policy discussions. That’s just one of the many unintended consequences we
could foresee occurring as a result of this ill-conceived bill."
With
downtown high-rise apartment and condo towers adding hundreds of new dwelling
units annually, the new review process will be "clogging up the only
relief valve we have for San Diego's severe housing crisis," said Kris
Michell, president and CEO of the Downtown San Diego Partnership business
group.
Gonzalez,
whose 80th Assembly District borders downtown, said elected officials must have
a say in the "character and economic future" of various communities.
"AB504
resolves lingering uncertainties around the local development process and
restores public accountability for the decisions that shape their lives,"
she said. The Assembly voted 53 in favor and 27 opposed.
Sen.
Marty Block, D-San Diego, who handled the bill in the state Senate, said the
goal was "transparency and representation in government." The Senate
vote was 26 in favor, 14 opposed.
CivicSD
board member Murtaza Baxamusa, who sued the city and his agency earlier this
year over some of the issues raised in the Gonzalez bill and had a hand in the
crafting the new legislation, said the goal isn't to impair development but put
pressure on developers to do a better job.
"I
do hope it will create more opportunity and a more robust discussion on which
projects, especially the larger ones, that get approved," said Baxamusa,
planning and development director for the San Diego County Building and
Construction Trades Council Family Housing Corp.
He
said downtowns across the U.S., including in San Diego, are attracting much new
development and Gonzalez law won't derail that interest.
"If
a project goes to the City Council, it is more likely to address broader
community-wide concerns, such as inclusionary housing onsite," he said.
"It becomes a bigger discussion than just the bottom line in terms of
meeting the land-use code. That's the intent here. Community input will make
projects better in terms of receptivity to community amenities."
Baxamusa
has regularly criticized developers for paying fees rather than including
affordable units in the residential towers. The hotel workers union, Unite Here
30, has pleaded the case of low-age workers as it has raised raise
environmental impact questions on various CivicSD projects. Gonzalez was
previously the CEO and secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial
Counties Labor Council.
Gary
Smith, president of the San Diego Downtown Residents Group, said he thinks the
new law could lead to downtown developers accepting project labor agreements as
the price to be paid for speeding city approval. Otherwise, he said, the
council could face many hours of tedious debate over building color, garage
door placement and other details that CivicSD now attends to.
"How
many future projects (that have been proposed) that don't go forward because of
this, I haven't a clue," he said.
Smith
said if CivicSD staff findings have to be reviewed by city planning staff in
the same manner other city neighborhood projects are processed, he guessed the
Planning Department would need to add 30 to 35 more planners and charge
additional fees to cover those additional administrative costs. Downtown's
planned district ordinances will have to be modified and a new agreement signed
between the city and CivicSD, he added.
Anne
Macmillan-Eichman, president of the Little Italy Residents Association
expressed a more dire view of the future: "If signed into law, this will
be the death knell for downtown development as we know it."
Since
it was reconstituted in 2012, CivicSD also has taken over the former duties of
the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. and focused on redevelopment
opportunities in City Heights and Encanto by applying for federal tax credits.
CivicSD earns an administrative fee for arranging the credits as a way to make
up for the loss of redevelopment property taxes when the state dissolved redevelopment
agencies that same year.
DISCLAIMER: This blog/article
has been curated from an alternate source and is designed for informational
purposes to highlight the commercial real estate market. It solely represents
the opinion of the specific blogger/author and does not necessarily represent
the opinion of Pacific Coast Commercial.
All content provided
on this blog is for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes
no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on
this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner of will not be liable for any
errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this
information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages
from the display or use of this information.
Keywords: San Diego Commercial Real
Estate For Sale, Commercial Property In San Diego, Commercial Real Estate In
San Diego, San Diego Investment Real Estate, Commercial Property Management In
San Diego, San Diego Commercial Property Management, Commercial Property
Management San Diego, Managed Commercial Property San Diego, Commercial
Property For Sale San Diego, San Diego Commercial Real Estate Leasing
Comments
Post a Comment