Politics Report: State Validates Midway Rising Theory

The state of California has officially assured the city of San Diego that the Midway Rising project can build an arena and other buildings higher than the 30-foot coastal height limit because it includes affordable housing.

After a Court of Appeal threw out the second ballot measure voters approved eliminating the 30-foot height limit for building along the coast for the Midway area, the developers of Midway Rising have insisted that the state’s density-bonus law would allow them to build higher, regardless. City leaders, though, has been conspicuously less confident. Now the state has told the city to roll with it.

In a letter to the city’s director of development services, Elyse Lowe, an official with the state Department of Housing and Community Development, answered a series of questions, including this one.

“The City’s question in this case is not whether it can grant an exception to the 30-foot height limit, but to what extent it may do so, particularly for the non-residential portions of the Project, including the sports arena,” reads the letter.

The answer is yes. If waiving the coastal building height limit helps the project make money that will be used to provide affordable housing, it can be built taller.

A main question though was whether separate buildings, in particular the new arena, were actually part of the project that needed to be taller. The state again said yes.

The letter, written by Melinda Coy, the chief of housing accountability for the state agency, concludes that the project as a whole could not go forward if the height limit was enforced. Thus the whole project must be allowed to go higher to ensure we get the housing.

“In sum, based on HCD’s understanding of the information presented by the City and Applicant, the Midway Rising Project qualifies as a ‘housing development’ for purposes of the SDBL, which makes the Project eligible for concessions and waivers as described above.”

Why this matters: Someone could still sue but this is the clearest validation yet of the developer’s theory that they never needed the lifting of the height limit at all to proceed with the project.

Related: You might have seen a story this week in the Union-Tribune about a dramatic change to the bill that state Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson had put forward to exempt the Midway Rising project from CEQA. It had been re-written. The U-T wrote: “If signed into law, the bill would override the court-imposed height limit in San Diego’s Midway District, making the project’s 165-foot-tall sports arena and 105-foot-tall residential buildings legally permissible.”

But it’s hard to see how the bill does that. It’s written for the future and doesn’t change the voter imposed height limit or the court ruling that it is still in place. It says that if your building a project and studying it’s environmental impacts “… the environmental impacts of a project that are associated with increased building height alone, including, but not limited to, air circulation, noise and light refraction or reflection, the potential to attract wildlife, or geotechnical or hydrological effects, shall not be considered significant impacts on the environment…”

In other words, if someone sues to stop a project like Midway Rising, for not adequately studying and mitigating its environmental impacts, they would not be able to cite the impacts of higher buildings. The court cited those things when it through out the voter-approved removal of the height limit.

We don’t know why the city and the senator are pursuing this. We fully expect the developers and the city to still pursue a state law that would essentially validate their environmental impact report and plans and prohibit people from suing to stop it based on the California Environmental Quality Act.

County Sales-Tax Coalition Submitting Signatures Monday 

Dispatch from Lisa Halverstadt: A coalition of labor unions and advocacy groups plan to submit signatures Monday in hopes of getting a countywide sales-tax hike on the November 2026 ballot. 

Dave Lagstein of Service Employees International Union Local 221, a leading force behind the initiative, said Friday that the coalition would turn in more than 167,000 signatures. 

The San Diego Health & Safety Act will need at least 102,923 valid signatures to make the ballot – and the coalition has sought more in hopes of automatically qualifying with a random sampling by the county registrar’s office. 

The proposed half-cent sales tax measure – which would raise a projected $360 million annually – aims to fund healthcare, child care, solutions to the Tijuana River sewage crisis and public safety.  

If approved, up to 60 percent of the tax hike – the equivalent of $261 million annually – could back child care and health services for children, health care for uninsured or underinsured people, food aid including staffing for CalFresh eligibility workers in the county, in-home health services and affordable health care.  

Nearly 23 percent – or roughly $81 million annually – would go toward combating the Tijuana sewage crisis. Proponents have made this line item a central argument for the measure but have yet to share specific plans for this funding. In the initiative filed late last year, they simply wrote that , at least 20 percent of this share of funds directed toward infrastructure projects to “stop sewage flows from Tijuana into the United States or through the Tijuana River Valley.”  The measure says the funding could also address related health issues and protect local waters from pollution.  

Nearly 18 percent – or almost $63 million annually – could back public safety services, wildfire prevention and crisis response.   

City with Less Water Power in the Future?

Dispatch from MacKenzie Elmer: Over bowls of soup at a meeting of the Albondigas South County club, I asked a panel of San Diego County Water Authority board members whether the city should retain the same amount of voting power once its huge wastewater to drinking water project comes online. The project would mean the city would be buying significantly less water from the Water Authority.

Otay Water District’s board president, Frank Rivera, was the only one to say, “no.”

The lunch room erupted in laughter and applause. Someone shouted, “hey Frankie, alright!” from the back. The panel, which also included Nick Serrano, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s deputy chief of staff and the chairman of the Water Authority board, and Frank Hilliker, from Lakeside Water District and Serrano’s vice chair.

Up until that point, none of the panelists disagreed on much while discussing rising water rates and the Water Authority’s recent sales of its surplus to other parts of California. The crowd goaded them to argue about something.

Rivera’s resolute defection from supporting the city of San Diego represents growing cracks in the city’s ability to maintain power over the Water Authority as it rolls off its reliance on them. Smaller water districts have been complaining about San Diego’s advantage for years, and even tried to ask the state Legislature to get involved.

Right now San Diego gets 10 directors on the Water Authority’s board, far more than any of the other water districts. They represent 40 percent of the total vote on the board, which means San Diego can swing most decisions their way with the help of just one other water district.

The amount of water a district purchases from the Water Authority determines their voting power. But once San Diego’s Pure Water project starts churning out recycled water in early 2027, the city will have to buy a lot less from the Water Authority.

And maybe, they’ll have to relinquish some of their power, too. 

If you have any feedback or ideas for the Politics Report, send them to scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org or will.huntsberry@voiceofsandiego.org.

The post Politics Report: State Validates Midway Rising Theory appeared first on Voice of San Diego.