For more than a decade, The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has called for a comprehensive push to make it much easier to build new housing in California. The extreme cost of shelter is why the Golden State has become the epicenter of American poverty. That won’t change until there are wholesale changes in state laws that make it easy to impede new projects or make them more costly.
Thankfully, the last two governors have shared this point of view. This year, Gavin Newsom got two laws enacted with far more promise than previous ballyhooed reforms to clear the way for considerable new construction: Senate Bill 79, which preempts local governments’ ability to block multifamily, multistory housing projects near transit stops, and Assembly Bill 130, which changes the California Environmental Quality Act to limit the ease with which spurious claims can be used to block housing projects.
But in San Diego, our big-picture support for streamlining review processes and making it easier to build is complicated by the city’s dismaying history on land-use decisions, especially the ongoing Ash Street debacle. Three recent commentaries on our pages provide fresh reminders that City Hall can’t be trusted to do the right thing.
On Nov. 12, local activist Danna Givot made a strong case that the city’s plans for explosive growth — 262% more residents and 316% more housing units — in the College Area in coming years were unaccompanied by meaningful proposals to improve infrastructure to deal with this transformational increase in density. It’s not NIMBYism to point this out.
On Nov. 16, another local activist, Paul Krueger, detailed the resistance he faced in getting information from City Hall about the legal fight over the fate of San Diego’s 30-foot height limit in the Midway/Pacific Highway district. The worst example was City Attorney Heather Ferbert’s response to basic questions about the process the City Council would use to evaluate Mayor Todd Gloria’s request to appeal a state court ruling that overturned a lower court decision in the city’s favor. Her staff told Krueger that the City Attorney’s Office was “prohibited by the City Charter from giving legal advice to anyone but our client, the City of San Diego.” It’s not NIMBYism to find this evasion dishonest and contemptible.
And on Nov. 18, retired local architect John Ziebarth chronicled how much plans for the massive Midway Rising project proposed for the Sports Arena site had changed from what San Diegans were told in 2022 when they approved removing the Midway height limit.
The editorial board is inclined to believe that reflexive support for height limits is a symptom of NIMBYism. But it’s not NIMBYism to say that going from the 86-foot height limit cited in winning passage of Measure C to developers’ present push for construction up to 250 feet in height is another City Hall “bait and switch.” It’s a legitimate argument.
The mayor and City Council no doubt believe that they are fighting the good fight with their aggressive approach to housing, and they’re right to see NIMBYism as their biggest obstacle. But if they think this justifies slipshod planning, bullying skeptics and misleading voters, they are wrong.