The Pacific Beach Town Council has launched an effort to mobilize the community in opposition to a proposed 238-foot high-rise on Turquoise Street which smashes through the city’s half-century old 30-foot height limit for the coast.
Also announced was the formation of two non-profit organizations — Neighbors for a Better California and San Diegans for Responsible Planning — to fight the outsized development in the courts, at the ballot box and on the streets.
More than 70 locals attended the council’s Oct. 16 meeting. It was a two-way exchange as residents were solicited for ideas and information as much as they were apprised about the project.
“It’s important to know that we literally have learned about this 20 days ago,” said PB Planning Group Chair Marcella Bothwell.
“We are in the information gathering stage,” added PB Town Council President Charlie Nieto. “But we want as many minds on this as we can get together.”
Bothwell gave a 20-minute presentation on the development, named Vela, detailing how the 139 visitor accommodation units on floors 6 to 14 and 74 residential units on floors 15 to 22 were able to by local building height restrictions by providing 10 low-income and moderate-income to invoke the State Density Bonus Law, also known as AB1287, as well as city density bonuses. Vela is being developed by Kalonymus LLC. For details, click here.
“They’re being completely manipulative and nefarious with these numbers,” Bothwell said.
As an example, she cited the three-bedroom with den penthouse on the top floor with panoramic views used to get additional density from the city in promotion of housing units for larger families.
“This is not about affordable housing,” Bothwell said. “That penthouse unit is probably going to sell for $10 million. I mean, young people, I get it. You can’t buy. It’s very expensive to buy here. But this does not solve a young person’s home ownership problem. These are going to be extremely expensive units. So when somebody says, we need more affordable housing, this is not the solution.”
Negative impacts to local infrastructure were discussed. These included Fire Station No. 21 not having the equipment to fight fires on a 22-story building. Some said low water pressure in the neighborhood will be exasperated by the needs of Vela.
Noting the seven-story parking garage (two stories underground) with a capacity for 292 vehicles, Bothwell said traffic congestion could become dire.
“Turquoise is a two-lane, slow, sweet beach street,” she said. “There was a study by Tom Coat which said that Turquoise Street and Foothill Boulevard are already 400% over the traffic they can legitimately handle. So adding 292 more cars seems unreasonable.”
Eve Anderson said the proposed development is about one-quarter mile from a seismic fault, first identified in the PB Community Plan in 1972, which recommended large scale developments be excluded from the vicinity. However, AB1287 allows developments to be expedited in the permitting process and forgo normally required environmental impact reports.
“This is what happens when you don’t have an EIR,” Anderson said. “You can’t just plunk a building down. You need to learn these things first. There’s a reason you have (EIRs).”
Attendees voiced their outrage and suspicions.
Dave Valia said there’s nothing to stop the developer from converting the hotel rooms into more market-rate residential units after a brief run as visitor accommodations.
“So these guys are really just taking every chance they can to worm their way through to maximize profits,” Valia said. “That’s all this really is.”
As one of the founders of San Diegans for Responsible Planning, Scott Chipman exhorted the audience to pick up flyers touting his group and distribute them throughout their neighborhoods.
“We have about 500 right now,” he said. “We need 10,000 people. … This is a matter of bodies. We will need as many people as possible so that our elected officials know we’re not going to put up with this.”
Chipman said his group is raising money to hire lawyers in order to stop the project in court.
However, Leslie Dufour claimed that in similar recent battles over jurisdiction, courts have sided with the state every time.
“The appellate courts in every single case have ruled against the cities; vehemently against the cities,” Dufour said. “So I think it has to go to the California Supreme Court.”
In announcing Neighbors for a Better California, Bothwell said her organization is not d with Neighbors for a Better San Diego, but is working so closely with the group that they borrowed the name and widened the scope.
“This is a statewide issue,” she said. “This way, we can work with them and also not conflict with what they’re doing.”
Scott Andrews, who is battling high rises in court slated for his Midway neighborhood since it was removed from the 30-foot height limit in 2022, encouraged the PB audience to keep organizing.
“You are going to be deluged with statewide,” Andrews said. “The good news is you get them organized. You’re getting (started) very early. That’s to your huge advantage.”
La Jolla Town Council president Mary Soriano invited Bothwell to speak about the project to her group to garner more . She advocated for better coordination between town councils to address common issues.
“As you can see, the state is going over our heads,” she said. “We’re trying to get more of a united voice locally on what affects us. Maybe they don’t quite understand what affects us, but if we can get together as coastal town councils, we may have a stronger voice in that matter.”
Bothwell offered a sober diagnosis about expectations in the battle, noting the only cure for politicians flouting local laws is politics.
“Even if we get this one defeated — which there is no guarantee that we will — this is going to be a long-term problem and a statewide one,” she said. “Eventually, we’re going to have to build political strategy on this.”
