A dispute between San Diego County officials and a real estate investment corporation over a recycling plant took 12 years to resolve. The outcome has changed the game for developers wanting to build housing in rural San Diego.
Some background: In 2012, Hilltop Group Inc. set out to build a construction waste recycling plant north of Escondido. That was one year after the county finalized its general plan, which details what developers can build within the county’s unincorporated areas.
But residents in the area did not like the idea of a recycling plant, our MacKenzie Elmer reports. So county officials told Hilltop Group to go back to the drawing board and do some studies on how the plant would impact the environment.
Hilltop Group complied, finding that their project didn’t have any negative impacts on the environment. Then, the company sued arguing that, because their project fit the county’s general plan, they shouldn’t have had to do any extra studies.
Eventually, an appeals court agreed: Projects that adhere to the county’s general plan don’t need to do extra environmental studies.
Vehicle miles traveled: That brings us to the state’s vehicle miles traveled policy, or VMT, which requires developers and cities to consider commute times to jobs, schools and grocery stores when building a project. The more driving miles a development provoked, the higher the potential fee for the developer.
But in July, the county announced that projects within the guidelines of the county’s general plan would no longer be subject to VMT rules, potentially opening the door for more development in rural areas at a faster rate.
In short, the biggest impediment to housing in unincorporated areas, which developers and their advocates had complained about for years, is now gone.
Tijuana’s Quest for Water
More than a decade ago, Tijuana set out to recycle wastewater for irrigation, construction and industrial use with two sewage treatment plants. It was a move that would benefit everyone.
But without a network of pipes to deliver that clean water, most of it has gone unused. Voice contributor Sandra Dibble reports that millions of gallons of water are discharged into the Tijuana River every day where it mixes with all sorts of dirty water.
“It’s one of the most depressing things to see all the work it’s taking to treat that water,” an official with the Environmental Protection Agency told Dibble.
For the latest Border Report, Dibble reports that there’s an effort to save that water and convert it to drinking water. It’s a proposal that the United States is especially excited about because it would reduce the flow of the sewage-contaminated water that crosses from Tijuana to San Diego.
Not there yet: The proposal would cost millions of dollars, require studies and regulation changes.
Fletcher Scandal: A Fuller Picture
New court filings in the sexual assault case against former county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher reveal details that may cast doubt on his accuser’s claims, according to a report by KPBS.
The new documents contain screenshots of text messages sent between Fletcher’s accuser, former MTS employee Grecia Figueroa, and her friend. Fletcher’s lawyers say the new information undermines Figueroa’s case.
Background: In March 2023, Figueroa filed a lawsuit against Fletcher accusing him of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Days later, he abandoned his campaign for state Senate, checked into a treatment program for trauma and alcohol abuse and resigned from his supervisor role.
Though Fletcher admits to having an inappropriate relationship with an employee, he denies the allegations of sexual assault and harassment, maintaining that Figueroa consented to their interactions. Fletcher filed a defamation lawsuit against Figueroa in March 2024.
In the messages, Figueroa tells her friend about some of the conversations and encounters she had with Fletcher. She had referred to these as incidents of sexual assault in her lawsuit, but she described them as “make-out” sessions to her friend, revealing a starkly different tone.
One incident described in Figueroa’s lawsuit, for example, claims Fletcher asked her to meet in an adjacent conference room after an MTS meeting. Once there, Fletcher sexually assaulted her, Figueroa’s lawsuit alleges.
But in text messages to her friend that same day, Figueroa describes the incident differently.
“Hahahaa, I just hugged him and congratulated him … and then we moved to the corner of the room, away from the window and kissed.” Figueroa said in one text message. “Having a make out session was not in my plans today, but hey..what do I know anymore.”
Read all of our previous coverage of the Nathan Fletcher scandal here.
In Other News
- A discrimination lawsuit filed by four people against longtime San Diego city clerk will be split into four separate cases. City Clerk Liz Maland is accused of denying her employees promotions if she considered them too old or if they weren’t White or Hispanic. (Union-Tribune)
- An unknown number of families displaced by historic floods earlier this year have now fallen into homelessness. After a county program sheltering families in motels ended in June, some families returned home, but experts estimate that hundreds of families may now be homeless. (Union-Tribune)
- UC San Diego was recently ranked in the top 25 most selective, expensive and fastest-growing public universities in the country. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.