 he City of San Diego's 5-year
ef- fort to rewrite the regulations gov- erning what can be built where
hit some bumps late last month when the developer-driven "Zoning Code
Update" came up for official adoption.
 For one brief, shining moment at
San Diego's City Council in late October, the forces of neighborhood politics
prevailed. But only for about ten minutes. I had the rare opportunity to
see Mayor Golding stunned when a vote requiring that developer projects
be consistent with community plans passed 5-4, against her wishes. "We
can't move forward with the Zoning Code!" she railed. "...this
throws out what we've been doing.... this has to be the worst public policy
decision we've ever made." Within ten minutes, she had whipped the
Council into line and gotten a motion to reconsider.
Evidently Councilmember Chris Kehoe,
who put forth the motion, and the others who initially supported it understood
otherwise. Judy McCarty, Juan Vargas and George Stevens all spoke passionately
about community participation in creating community plans. According to
McCarty, she received "the shock of her life" when she was first
elected and discovered that the plans that citizens invest hundreds of hours
of volunteer time creating, and the city thousands of dollars to support,
are "only guidelines."
According to one City Attorney, "Community
Plans.... could interfere with the zoning we are granting by right."
Huh? You mean the city has a General Plan and 40 Community Plans representing
the vision of folks for their communities and the zoning has not been designed
to implement those plans? Why has the city spent five years and an untold
amount of money for an "update" without dealing with the Community
Plans?
The majority of testimony at the
council hearing summarized problem after problem. The only group supporting
the complex package were developers and other related professionals and
property owners. Eight local environmental groups, including the Sierra
Club, Surfirder Foundation and Surfer's Tired of Pollution (S.T.O.P.), joined
with other citizen groups, including the League of Women Voters, opposing
aspects of the plan and the process.
Thanks to the efforts of Kehoe, the
environmental coalition was successful in getting key reductions in resource
protections for wetlands and hillsides either reduced or delayed. And the
code still faces review by the Coastal Commission, who has already questioned
the practice of allowing additional hillside encroachment. The council will
be reviewing the workings of the new system quarterly and will appoint a
Citizen's Review Committee. Let's hope there is more balance on this Committee
than past groups where vested interests had the upper hand.
Happy 4th Anniversary to the San
Diego Earth Times! Our ongoing quest for a sustainable presence in San Diego
is leading to some changes. This is will be the final free, newsprint edition
of SDET as we shift to a subscription basis; see all the details on the
back page. While in some ways it is a disappointment to stop the free, printed
edition, we are confident about the need to move in this direction.
Thanks to our long-term advertisers
who understand and will continue their work of creating a sustainable economy
in San Diego. Thanks especially to our most consistent advertisers: Environgentle,
Harry's Surf Shop, OB People's Natural Food Coop, Chula Vista Nature Center,
The Natural Gourmet, Christina's Daily Bread, Cloud 9 Shuttle, Green Beans,
Science Adventures, Mobile Recycling and TCR Services.
Thanks to all the San Diego Earth
Day volunteers, our amazing volunteer copy editor Susan Self and our regular
columnists, many of whom will continue: Robert Nanninga, Catherine Kineavy,
Michael Oshman, Minister Masada, Bob Ocegueda, the Garden Goddess, Laurie
Cohen, David Bainbridge and Skip Fralick.
Onward and upward!  | 
