San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
MEASURE E AND THE BATTLE OF BUILDING HEIGHTS
Ballot proposal seeks to alter city’s coastal zoning law in Midway
Sandwiched between the San Diego River and the airport, the city’s Midway District is perhaps best known for its aging sports arena and strip clubs — or as a place you pass through on your way somewhere else.
The freeway-adjacent, mostly industrial part of town is what supporters of a November initiative, Measure E, view as a classic fixer-upper, meaning with ample investment it could be transformed into a community where people want to live and recreate. Yet the area’s proximity to the water is a quality that makes it attractive to would-be investors while simultaneously inhibiting their interest. That’s because the
Midway District, either accidentally or intentionally depending on who you ask, finds itself in San Diego’s coastal zone, subject to a 30-foot building height limit.
In short, the Midway District’s location is literally standing in the way of new development. Enter Measure E, the community planning group-led effort to exempt the district from the restriction.
If approved by a majority of voters, the measure would alter the definition of the coastal zone in the city’s municipal code, as defined by Proposition D in 1972, to exclude what’s known as the Midway-pacific Highway Community Plan area. The earlier citizen’s initiative, which passed on Nov. 7, 1972, with 63 percent of votes in the affirmative, was a referendum on buildings over 30 feet in the protected territory, extending from the water to Interstate 5 in city limits.
Currently, there are carve-outs
for downtown, National City and parts of Mission Bay. And supporters of Measure of E say the Midway region, which arguably lacks many of the quintessential characteristics that define San Diego’s seaside treasures, deserves a pass too.
“Midway Pacific-highway is not a coastal community. It was arbitrarily included in the boundary because it was very simple ... to say everything west of the 5 is coastal,” said Cathy Kenton, who chairs the neighborhood planning group and owns property in the region. “We have no beach access. We have no coastal views. We are not a coastal community. Just because it was included doesn’t make it so.”
But that’s today. The end of the height restriction would introduce taller buildings, high-rises even — although skyscrapers seem unlikely with city zoning restrictions otherwise limiting building height to between 40 feet and 100 feet. Still, if you build up, then you build in coveted, typically costly coastal views. That would set a precedent with potentially devastating implications, says local environmental activist John Mcnab, who is helping to fund the opposition campaign and runs the recently formed Save Our Access nonprofit.
“This is the moment where we decide to keep the classic San Diego coast or turn it into Hong Kong,” Mcnab said. “It’s a huge decision that was made to look very small on purpose.”
Midway to nowhere
Encompassing roughly 1,324 acres north of downtown and home to about 4,600 people, the Midway District is where public and private interests commingle in a marriage of mediocrity.
Today, it’s an asphaltcentric area where a mix of commercial uses — suburban-style shopping centers and warehouses — have cropped up around military bases, which shaped previous development and date to the early 1920s. About half of the land, or 669 acres, is owned by government entities, with the Marine Corps Recruit Depot; Naval Base Point Loma, Old Town Complex and the city of San Diego’s holdings taking top billing. Otherwise, there are approximately 1,982 housing units and 1,100 hotel rooms, according to the community plan that was approved in 2018.
That plan, which allows for a potential population boom of 23,660 people, is central to the case for Measure E. It envisions a town where a series of villages with a mix of uses engineer active, walkable — and in a perfect world, beautiful — neighborhoods. It’s a vision that cannot be fully realized as long as the height restriction is in place, as argued by Kenton, council members Jennifer Campbell and Chris Cate, and outgoing San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
“Our efforts (to lift the height restriction) started almost immediately after the plan update was approved,” Kenton said, describing a multiyear link between the philosophies embedded in the new plan and the ballot proposal. “When we went to planning commissioners with the plan update, it was planning commissioners who, on their own, were questioning why Midway was forced to live within the 30-foot height limit.”
Indeed, at their April 26, 2018, hearing, planning commissioners approved the new land-use guidebook but also instructed the City Council to study amending the coastal zone.
Commissioner Douglas Austin used the forum to rail against the height limit, repeatedly blaming it for making the Midway District a point of shame for the city.
“When I came back to San Diego, this stood out to me as an area that really had potential. And it was embarrassing to say this was part of San Diego. It was all about the car. The signage was out of control. It was so non-pedestrian-friendly. Here’s our opportunity,” Austin told city planners at the meeting.
“This is an area where I believe you’re working with your hands tied behind your back. You want to do good things but you cannot because of Proposition D. It would be political suicide for the council member from this district to suggest that this go away, but it’s not political suicide for me. This is my job as an architect, as a planner, as a planning commissioner. This is an area that absolutely should not have Prop. D governing it.”
The district, he added, is surrounded by freeways and doesn’t have homes with views to protect.
“There’s not a community character that you’re trying to protect. You’re trying to enhance (it),” Austin said. “I can imagine all kinds of wonderful things happening there but not unless somebody is willing to make (the height-limit) change.”
The will of the people
The rhetoric suggests that the citizens who crafted the parameters for the original coastal zone either never meant to include the Midway District or overlooked the implications of doing so.
If, for instance, the freeway was merely a convenient demarcation line, as suggested by proponents of the new measure, it follows that the law would bump into unintended barriers in the 48 years since its passing and may need a second look. Alternatively, if original proposers, and voters by association, sought to draw a permanent line in the sand, then one could argue that the boundary needs to be respected.
It’s impossible to know what voters at the time intended, but the latter argument is at least partially supported by an important name from the past who is very much a part of the present-day battle. Alex Leondis, who helped author Proposition D, has signed his name to Measure E’s opposition campaign.
Newspaper clips from the early 1970s portray Leondis as a man who was generally opposed to tall high-rises in residential communities, advocating instead for property owners to maintain their rights to sunshine and breezes. In 1971, his position evolved into the coastal-only proposition that landed on the ballot. It was put before voters as a citizen’s initiative after San Diego’s City Council rejected the 30-foot height limit proposal.
Leondis, when reached via email, said that the Midway District’s inclusion in the coastal zone was not accidental — even if the boundary was drawn at the freeway for the sake of simplicity.
“The Interstate 5 boundary was an arbitrary decision because if you wanted to write the whole new proposed boundary in a proposition, most voters would not take the time to understand it and would not sign it. It had to be simple so that the voters could understand it and sign the petition,” he said.
And Mcnab, the antimeasure E activist, insists Midway is, despite claims to the contrary, the epitome of a coastal town.
“First of all, there is beach access in the district ... at (Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego). MCRD has a boat harbor,” Mcnab said. “No. 2 ... if you threw a stone 10 times, you’d be in Mission Bay Park. And, third of all, this land is closer to the coast than a lot of areas in La Jolla.
“The thing about this land, and what makes it so invaluable, is that the weather is phenomenal here. It is year-round as good of weather as anywhere in the world for outdoor sports and recreation. That is its intrinsic value.”
Land matters
Measure E, proponents argue, paves the way for Midway residents and business owners to enjoy economic prosperity and civic pride. For starters, it lifts a restraint that would allow for the existing sports arena, which opened in 1966 before Prop. D was passed, to be replaced instead of just refurbished. But more broadly, it gives property owners an incentive to invest and improve on-the-ground conditions.
However, who ultimately benefits from redevelopment (taxpayers or real estate investment firms) and the lasting implications of looser restrictions (beautification or over densification) are up for debate.
That’s because much of the developable land in the Midway District is controlled by government entities. And the potential privatization of federal and city land is a tangible prospect. Already, two major land deals, one seemingly more certain than the other, are promising (or threatening) to bust the 30-foot height limit.
City officials in August wrapped up a competitive bidding process for the 48 acres it owns around Pe
changa Arena San Diego, selecting a development team led by Brookfield Properties. Terms must still be negotiated and will require City Council approval. The initial proposal calls for an all-new sports arena, 5 acres of public parks, 2,100 housing units and 590,000 square feet of retail space, although development intensities could change. Brookfield has a vested interest in lifting the height restriction, contributing around twothirds of funds raised by the Yes on E campaign.
Separately, the Navy is in active negotiations with the San Diego Association of Governments to sell or lease its 70-acre Naval Base Point
Loma, Old Town Complex — what’s commonly referred to as NAVWAR — to the regional transportation agency. Terms of a deal, should it come to fruition, will establish height limitations, or a lack thereof, with federal land exempt from city requirements. No specific plan has been proposed, but the general idea is to create an airport-serving transportation hub with housing, retail and private-sector office space alongside a stateof-the-art cybersecurity campus for the Navy.
Less likely, though not completely out of the question, is a potential change in use to a substantial chunk of the district. Recent comments from Commandant Gen. David Berger, the chief executive of the Marines Corp, suggest the agency is open to vacating its 388acre, airport-adjacent MCRD facility in the Midway District. It’s an “option” the branch could explore as it weighs combining its two recruit depots — San Diego and Parris Island, South Carolina — at a single facility in a new location, the official said at a late September defense conference.