State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson has introduced a bill that would exempt the Midway Rising project from the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act.
We had reported that San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and his team were considering seeking legislation like this to ensure the project could survive legal challenges even after courts threw out two voter-approved ballot measures to raise the height limit in the Midway area. Developers were confident they could rely on the state’s density bonus housing laws to ensure they could build higher than the 30-foot building height limit on the coast.
Now legislation is moving forward to pre-empt any legal challenges.
The bill: It’s SB-958. You can read it here. It would have the Legislature declare the many attributes of the project — the thousands of new homes, including many restricted for people with low incomes, new parks, new arena and other improvements.
“Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature to recognize the statewide significance of the Midway Rising project in the City of San Diego to support its timely delivery of affordable and market-rate homes, public parks, multimodal infrastructure, and economic development benefits, and to encourage similar high-impact, climate-aligned infill housing projects on underutilized public lands across California.”
Why it matters: CEQA requires a long series of analysis and public reports to examine a project’s impact on the environment and traffic of an area. A deficient analysis of impacts or inadequate plans to mitigate those impacts can halt a project.
Stadium building efforts in California have a history seeking ways around the law. In fact, the main investor in Midway Rising, Stan Kroenke, was able to build the most expensive stadium in the world, Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, after putting together a ballot measure.
“Kroenke and his partner, the Hollywood Park Land Company, successfully took advantage of a loophole in CEQA that allows proposals enacted through the state’s voter-sponsored ballot initiative process to bypass a full CEQA environmental review process,” reads an explanation of what happened from USC Annenberg Media.
The worry: A letter sent last month to the city gave a preview of the type of lawsuit Midway Rising’s leaders want to avoid. First reported by the Union-Tribune, the letter from attorney Kathryn Pettit argues the project will potentially significantly worsen local traffic congestion, specifically when compounded with new development at the NAVWAR complex.
“NAVWAR and Midway Rising have yet to be cumulatively evaluated, obscuring the true impacts of the Project from the public and decisionmakers and precluding the ability to make an informed decision on the Project,” the letter reads.
J. Keith Behner, who hired Pettit, made clear to the U-T part of the point of the letter was to get it on the record to prepare to sue. You can read their letter here.
If the Legislature exempts the project from CEQA, such a lawsuit would have no basis.
County Parks Employee Stole Park Donations
A low-level county parks employee last month pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $77,500 meant to support county parks by altering checks and depositing them into his own bank account, Voice of San Diego intern Rami Alarian reports.
Samuel Ruben Ceja, a former Parks and Recreation office assistant, avoided jail time by pleading guilty to a signal count of identity theft.
Ceja’s ability to reroute two big checks to himself puts more of a spotlight on the county’s oversight challenges in the wake of other recent criminal charges. In the other case, a county contractor allegedly used at least $210,000 in public funds for cosmetic surgeries and other personal expenses.
The county fired Ceja last April after another employee flagged a missing check. A county spokesperson said the county has beefed up security surrounding mail and check handling.
Feds to the Rescue on Housing?
You might not have noticed amid the daily news barrage, but Congress is on the verge of passing a huge housing bill that could help ease San Diego’s housing crunch.
Our Washington D.C. columnist Alan Berube has details on the bill, which awaits a few final tweaks before heading to President Trump for a signature.
What’s in it for San Diego? Berube says the bill’s changes to financing, permitting and environmental rules could speed up affordable housing construction. Other provisions, including restrictions on institutional investors and incentives for manufactured homes, would have less of an impact.
Ultimately, says Berube, local policies matter more in housing. But every little bit helps.
North County Report: Housing Report Cards Are In
The housing saga continues. Cities are filing their annual updates on housing progress and our North County Reporter Tigist Layne has the latest on two cities lagging behind.
Escondido and Poway both are far from meeting their current housing construction requirements, especially for affordable homes.
Escondido is 24 percent of the way toward meeting a state-mandated goal of 9,607 new homes by 2029.
Poway is further along – but only for market-rate homes. The city has permitted just 83 affordable units in the current housing cycle.
North County officials say such progress reports aren’t fair because state housing requirements are unrealistic and often based on inaccurate knowledge of local conditions.
They’re calling for reform and Layne is keeping tabs on their efforts to change state policy.
Read the North County Report here.
Some of What County Supes Did Wednesday
- The Board of Supervisors postponed a vote on Supervisor Joel Anderson’s pitch to increase transparency for county subcommittees due to his absence. The item is now expected next month.
- Supervisor Jim Desmond ultimately voted against his own proposal to aid first-time homebuyers after Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer made amendments. The amendments gave county staff direction to oppose federal policies that increase housing construction costs and study their impacts. Lawson-Remer called out tariffs on construction materials and rising costs tied to military conflicts, among other concerns. The item passed with votes from the board’s three Democrats.
- The board unanimously backed Supervisor Paloma Aguirre’s call for the county to rename César Chávez Day as Farmworkers Day at the county and to urge state and federal moves to rename it too.
In Other News
- County supervisors this week approved a contract with a new company, AmeriChoice, to provide some administrative functions to local jails. Supervisors also nixed a request to cover cost overruns by the current jail services provider, Alabama-based NaphCare. (Union-Tribune)
- In other law enforcement news, CalMatters reports the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office has not investigated at least seven alleged sexual assaults at a privately-run immigrant detention center in Otay Mesa because of a memorandum of understanding signed by the sheriff’s department in 2020 that cedes control over assault investigations to the company that runs the center.
- Here come the blue bins. The city is delivering new recycling containers to households as part of its transition to a fee-for-service trash program. Officials also say they will begin fining a few hundred holdouts who keep receiving city trash service even though they’re ineligible. (Union-Tribune)
- Film advocates, including the leaders of a new Chula Vista-based production company, lobbied county supervisors this week to create a local film commission and tax incentive program to lure more Hollywood productions. At least one supervisor, Paloma Aguirre, was receptive. (Union-Tribune)
- inewsource this week documented the recent rapid rise in San Diego County e-bike accidents, and tracked how cities are responding.
- San Diego has begun the process of replacing the Mission Bay lifeguard station by fencing off the current 44-year-old building and erecting a temporary tower and office trailer nearby. (Times of San Diego)
- A sewage discharge caused the temporary closure of Dog Beach in Ocean Beach. Officials said the beach will reopen when tests determine bacteria levels have subsided. (KPBS)
The Morning Report was written by Jim Hinch, Scott Lewis and Lisa Halverstadt. It was edited by Will Huntsberry.
So they were able to get approval for the project despite the Navy’s buried toxic waste that prevented them from undertaking the Midway channel project connecting the harbor and the bay? Unknown number of barrels of unknown toxins buried behind the sports arena.