Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Format. This meeting will be live streamed on the city's website. Members of the public using the hybrid format will be able to provide comments using the Zoom webinar platform. Members of the public who wish to provide testimony remotely must enter the virtual queue by clicking on the raised hand icon before the queue closes. The virtual queue will close five minutes after in person testimony ends. Also per section 2.6.2 of the Rules of Council, speakers participating virtually may not allocate their time to other speakers. Time can only be seated by speakers who are in the hearing room. Michael Prince will now go over the specifics of how the public can participate and give their public testimony.

Thank you, Chair Modine. If you are in person, please complete a speaker slip if you wish to speak. In person testimony will conclude before virtual testimony begins. Members of the public can join the webinar by computer, tablet, or smartphone by accessing the link, which is listed online in the preamble language of the agenda on the Planning Commission's webpage. Or you may dial 605-0252.

The webinar ID is one six zero nine four four zero three six seven. Please note that if you are watching online, there may be a thirty second delay. Please participate via the audio on your phone and mute your TV or computer when it is your turn to speak.

Thank you, Michael. I would now like to take roll call. As I call your name, please indicate if you are present. Commissioner Mazari. Present. Commissioner Malbro.

Present.

Commissioner Miyahara?

Present.

Commissioner Reeves?

Present.

Vice chair Boomhauer?

Present.

Chair Modena is present, and commissioner Ringer is absent. The staff members present with us today are Michael Prince, assistant deputy director from development services Tate Galloway, deputy director, city planning Shannon Eckmeyer, deputy city attorney and Eric Masalgo, senior civil engineer, engineering division and our legislative staff. Can't forget about them. We will now start our agenda with public comment for non agenda items. This portion of the agenda is an opportunity for the public to make comments on planning related items that are not on today's agenda. Any person wishing to speak will have three minutes maximum to provide testimony. If you would like to speak, please click on the raised hand icon on your screen. David Modi?

David. My

name is David Modi. And I know that this is a new facility for you, but I wanted to note that there is no drinking fountain or water cooler. And given the amount of public speaking, there should be one. Thank you.

Thank you. Tom Mulaney? Could you please turn on the mic? Yes. Thank you.

My name is Tom Mulaney. I work with a volunteer group called Livable San Diego. I wanna look at some things that relate to all community plans in the city and in the population forecast. I wanna explain why I call this up zoning madness, what's what's been going on. So start with the latest forecast. The city of San Diego expected to gain 65,000 people between now and 2050. Based on the current population of 1,400,000, that's about five percent over twenty five years. That works out to one fifth of 1% per year, the annual growth rate. Now we shouldn't be surprised that it's that low because the last baby boomer was born in 1964. Soon after that the school enrollment started down.

That told us something and that's been going on since about 1970. The next generations were smaller in number, and then they were having fewer kids. So the double effect is a much slower population growth. Now let's compare that to the up zoning that's been done recently. Mira Mesa plan added enough new units to accommodate 67,000 people.

University plan last year, 65,000. Hillcrest Uptown, 70,000 more people. Today, if you add in the college area, 50,000 more people accommodated. The total, just from those four communities, is four times the forecast growth for the entire city from now till 2050. Each community has enough up zone growth to accommodate the entire city's population growth, and that's only four communities out of 50. Now you can understand why I call it up zoning madness. It's unnecessary, harmful, has nothing to do with affordability and would overload public facilities.

All the growth will not occur.

What we will get with this massive up zoning is inappropriate buildings. It lets the developer go into almost any part of the community, put in high density. He absorbs basically all the growth in that community for the whole year. And and one more thing that's not discussed enough is sucking growth out of downtown. If for some reason you could possibly put 54,000 new people into one community, it would drain the energy from downtown, and we're seeing that now. Thank you.

Thank you. Doreen Diaz? Please turn on the mic if you could. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning. I'm here to talk to you once again about fraud in your bonus ADU application of 1441 Woodrow Ave. I met with DSD last week, and there was a cold violation. At least from 2021 to 2023, there were at least seven code violations, and the code enforcers signed off without making any note.

The property says that it is vacant. There is a house there. The applicant lied that there is no home over 45. The home present is sixty years, and sixty is more than forty five. The description says affordable housing, but yet every single question in affordable housing states no.

So for affordable housing, why are all those questions stating no? And why would a developer, Gardevari LLC, with Pro Cal permitting, say that a property is vacant when there's a house there? It's because they are so assured that nobody's gonna look at the application. It's gonna be rubber stamped and improved. This site also submitted by council member Foster on May, a memo from San Diego Natural History Museum.

Senior paleontologist Katie McCormick test well, wrote a memo that that Property 1141 is highly sensitive, paleontological, that there's been fossils found nearby, that there are fossils on both formations near the surface. They found extinct mammals. They found shark. Yes. Shark teeth in District 4.

Yet when you look at the application, where is that? And I made sure District 4 submitted that instead of me submitting it so I would have evidence. All of this is being ignored. There was supposed to be mitigation. There's a mitigation ordinance, which was submitted in my previous reports, and I will email another one. But this application is moving through with blatant blatant fraud. 1141, and it is not in Encanto. It is in Hammershaw. But because of redlining ZIP code 92114, there's over a thousand homes in Hammershaw not in Encanto planning group, all labeled Encanto.

Thank you. Are there any items to be continued or withdrawn? I'm assuming no. K. Is there a request to place any item on

consent? No? K.

Do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes from 09/25/2025?

So moved.

I have a second?

Second.

I have a motion and a second. We can go to a vote. I think we're gonna have to do a verbal vote on this. Okay. Commissioner Mazari, can you please verbally vote on the meeting?

Yes. Commissioner Marlborough?

Aye.

Vice chair Boonhauer?

Aye.

Commissioner Reeves?

Aye.

Commissioner Miyahara?

Aye.

And Chair Modena's, aye. Do we have any so those aren't oh, sorry. So those are approved. Do we have any directors' reports?

Yes. Thank you, commissioner. The last planning commission hearing was held on September 25. At the hearing, the commission heard two items a community plan amendment initiation to designate 1.32 acre site from right of way to office and visitor commercial in the Mission Valley Community Plan. The request would also consider removing the site from the community plan implementation overlay zone, the specific plan subdistrict, and a specific plan amendment to remove the site from the Atlas specific plan.

The commission approved the initiation by a vote of five to zero to two with commissioner Mazari recused and commissioner Miyahara absent. The commission also recommended to the city council approval of the Midway Rising project, which includes a general plan amendment and community plan amendment, a specific plan, rezone, development agreement, municipal code amendments, site development permit, easement vacation, and other actions to allow for approximately 4,254 housing units, including 2,000 affordable units, a 16,000 seat multipurpose entertainment center, public spaces, and 130,000 square feet of commercial uses. The commission voted to recommend approval with a modification to the development agreement to move the transit improvements to phase one. The commission made the recommendation by a vote of six to zero to one with commissioner Miyahara absent. That concludes my report.

Good morning. I don't have any reports this morning.

Okay. Are there any nonagenda commission comments? No? Okay. We can move forward to item number one when staff is ready to present.

Chair Modine? Yeah. I would like to recuse on this as the applicant is a client.

Okay.

Good morning. Planning commission. Good morning, Planning Commission. My name is James Alexander, development project manager at the urban innovation division at the development services department. Is this full screen staff?

Okay. Sorry about that. Again, my name is James Alexander, development project manager in the urban innovation division at the development services department. This is the call in slide. I'll leave this up for a second for anyone interested in calling in during the public comment period.

The project before you today is a mixed use development at 1620 State Street known as Saline, which includes a historical resource known as the Ordway Residence. The project retains the historical resource on the site, shifting it east to the property line slightly, and constructs an eight story, 91 foot tall building behind and above it. It contains 52 dwelling units, including eight affordable dwelling units, with five units with rents restricted to moderate income households and three restricted to very low income households. The project also contains 6,000 over 6,000 square feet of commercial space located on the Ground Level within the historical resource and on the Top Floor, and the total lot size is just under 5,000 square feet. Due to the project's impact on this historical resource, a site development permit is required, which is what's before you today.

The project site is located in Little Italy in, on the West Side Of State Street between Date And Cedar Streets. It's within walking distance to many nearby attractions, including Amici Park, Waterfront Park, and Little Italy's India Street commercial corridor. This image gives a little more context to the neighborhood surroundings the site. You can see there's multifamily residential to the north, a surface parking lot across the street to the east, and a variety of other commercial and retail uses. In this image, you can also see the close proximity of the weekly Little Italy farmers market right there on Dates Street on the right hand side of this image.

And just off frame to the bottom right is Amici Park. The historical resource that's located on-site, the Ordway residence, it was constructed in 1888. It was designated as historic by the city's historical resources board in 1990 due to its Queen Anne style architecture and its place as part of a collection at the time of four intact Victorian houses that reflected the early development of downtown, at the turn of the century. However, over the years, many of these Victorian homes around the Ordway Residence have been demolished, relocated, or substantially altered. The property is currently vacant, but until 2018, it had been continuously used as residential since its original construction.

Here are some images of the project plans. The image on the left is the Ground Floor plan where you can see how the historical resource connects to the new construction behind it and then contains commercial space. In the image on the right, you can see the building's relationship to the new structure above it. It's also imis illustrated in these two images. The 3rd Floor is set back from the property line, and the 4th Floor is approximately 15 feet above the roof of the historical resource to provide some separation between the new construction and the historical resource and give it a little breathing room.

I'm gonna ask everybody to please refrain from the laughing and the commentary. Let's keep this meeting respectful. Thank you.

A letter of support from the for the project was submitted by the Little Italy Association, and the Downtown Community Planning Council voted eight to zero to recommend approval of the project. The city's historical resources board reviewed the project at their August meeting and voted 10 to zero to recommend adoption of the site development permit findings and historical mitigation measures with an added condition to add an interpretive plaque on the exterior of the development that contains historical information about the Ordway residence, which the applicant agreed to. So staff is recommending approval of the STP for the project. That concludes my presentation. We have city staff here to answer questions, including historic staff from the planning department.

We also have San Diego Housing Commission staff available online, and the developer the developer is here with his project team to answer questions. And then, also, I wanted to bring up that a memo was distributed late yesterday about the change in the mix of affordable housing units to ensure compliance with the affordable housing regulations.

Thank you. Are there any clarifying questions from the commission? No? Okay. We can go on to public comment. Dana Gibbett, looks like you have someone ceding time to you, Yvonne

Jones. K. You'll have six minutes.

Thank you. I won't need six minutes. On 10/06/2025, Christine Smith submitted a public comment regarding the project's compliance with the affordable housing regulations. Based on this comment, to ensure that the project met the requirements of the AHR, the applicant has agreed to revise the project's affordable housing mix from 14% moderate income units to 10% moderate income units plus 5% very low income units. This results in a modification of the affordable housing calculation from seven moderate income units to five moderate income units and three very low income units based on 48 dwelling units in the project's base floor area ratio.

We thank DSD for correctly enforcing the affordable housing regulations. Thank you very much.

Okay. We don't have any online speakers. We can go to commission comment. Vice chair Boomhauer.

Since we don't have the lights. So I'm always gonna support a plan that densifies a lot from one dwelling unit to 50 plus. I'm not crazy about how the existing historic home is being incorporated or even that it's worth saving. But if the historic resource board is good with it, so am I. So with that in mind, I will go ahead and approve the make a motion to approve the STP per staff's recommendation based on the updated staff memo. I got you.

Okay. We have a motion to, recommends or approve staff's recommendation. Do we have a second? Second. K. Any further commission comment? Commissioner Marlborough?

I I just have a question. Once the or Ordway residence is put back in, is it going to be used as business as well as well?

Yes. That's the current proposal is that there will be a retail tenant in the historic building.

Yeah.

Commissioner Miyahara?

Just one question for staff on the affordable housing agreement in the memo that went out. What occurred and why the changes?

We reviewed the project proposal and consulted internally and also with the applicant. And to make sure that we're complying with the affordable housing regulations, the mix was the mix was changed.

So is it just a simple oversight? Or

Yes. That's correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. I think we can go to a vote. We're gonna have to do a verbal vote again. I will start with commissioner Mazari. Yes. Commissioner Mabro.

Aye.

Vice chair Boonhauer.

Aye.

Commissioner Miyahara.

Aye.

And chair Modane is also an aye. That passes unanimously with commissioner Reeves recusing. We can go on to item number two when whenever staff is ready.

I just wanna ask if you could speak up. The the people in the back are having a really hard time hearing.

K. Thank you. Thank you. While staff is setting up, I before we begin public comment on this item, I want to take a moment to remind everybody to refrain from clapping, cheering, reacting, laughing audibly to any speaker, including staff. And this will help us maintain a neutral environment where all voices can be heard equally. Thank you.

It just went off.

Hello, everyone. My name is Nathan Cosman. I'm a senior planner with city planning department leading the college area plan update. We do have the full project team here today as well discussion. We would like to thank, all of you for participation thus far in the college area community plan updates and the feedback provided at prior planning commission workshops, which were held in 2021, 2022, and earlier this year.

I'd also like to take a second to thank the community for being here today as well as, the previous chairs of the plan update committee, including Robert Montana, who's also here. It's been a long process, and a lot of hard work has gone into this. And we're really happy to be here today. Staff is returning today to seek a recommendation to the city council, from the planning commission to approve the college area plan updates. I will provide a brief presentation that includes an overview of why the community plan is being updated, the process thus far, the main changes that are being proposed, and key feedback, received that inform the draft plan, including from prior workshops, to consider today.

So we'll start with why the community plan is being updated. The college area community plan was last updated in 1989. Since then, the city's experienced a growing housing crisis and a changing climate requiring additional planning to increase housing opportunities and increase access and use of transit to help the city meet housing and climate goals. The community plan update is part of a citywide program to update community plans and locations that are served by high frequency transit, including the two trolley and rapid bus routes in the college area. And this This is consistent with our city of villages, strategy.

The general plan's village climate propensity map, which you can see here on the right, identifies where additional homes and jobs could have the best opportunities to increase the number of trips taken by transit, biking, or walking. And it shows that the college area has higher propensities higher propensities for, mixed use residential developments near SDSU and along transit corridors. So the community plan is being updated to better align with the general plan and the climate action plan and will provide additional opportunities for new homes, jobs, and infrastructure near the two trolley stations and the corridors that are served by planned and existing transits. State law, government code section eight eight nine nine point five zero requires all cities to affirmatively further fair housing, meaning that the city needs to take proactive steps to expand access to opportunity and overcome, historic patterns of segregation. The goal is to ensure that people of all incomes and backgrounds have access to quality housing near jobs, schools, and services, and that they're not all concentrated in one part of the city.

The state prepares and updates opportunity maps that measure access to schools, employment, transit, and environmental health. And these designations are one of the many factors that the city considers when planning for additional housing opportunities, among access to transit and services and environmental factors and feasibility. It's important to note that some areas, such as those with large student populations, may show lower resource scores even though they're well served by transit and facilities and community amenities. And furthering fair housing also includes providing access to transit, which is abundant in the college area, and there are plans for more. Planning for fair housing is approached citywide where each community plan update contributes to a collective effort to distribute housing capacity equitably across all neighborhoods.

This ensures that San Diego's long range plans meet both state law and local goals for equitable, sustainable growth. Each community plan update, and citywide initiatives contributes to, distributing housing opportunities more equitably across San Diego, ensuring that every community plays a role in meeting our citywide housing goals. Recent planning efforts, including University, Mira Mesa, Carney Mesa, Mission Valley, and the Hillcrest focused plan amendment of the Uptown Plan and now Cal College area are collectively increasing housing capacity in areas across the city. This helps meet both state law requirements and local goals for equitable and sustainable growth. Upcoming plan updates, such as Claremont and Rancho Bernardo, will continue this approach and apply housing in high and highest resource areas.

Citywide initiatives are also looking beyond community plans to further fair housing in single family zones, expanding opportunities and affordability across all neighborhoods. The college area's planned housing capacity is consistent with other recently adopted plans citywide, roughly doubling its previous capacity similar to University, Mission Valley, and Uptown, which were in high and highest resource areas. It's important to note that the existing 1989 plan includes about 8,000 homes of unrealized capacity of development potential that has not been realized at this time. The updated plan takes a more strategic approach by concentrating new capacity in areas that can support redevelopment near transit and near services and near SDSU. The college area introduces a range of residential densities to expand housing choices, including diverse home types, sizes, and price points all across opportunity areas, across all opportunity areas with strong access to services and jobs in transit.

This approach aligns with the general plan's goals for sustainable and equitable growth by ensuring that housing opportunities are distributed across neighborhoods. Within the college area, the plan creates a campus town center in a high resource area and establishes, transit oriented corridors that accommodate mixed use and mixed income housing. In developing the plan, we balance a range of factors, including fair housing, access to transit and services, and environmental constraints to ensure growth occurs in the most suit suitable and sustainable locations. However, as shown on this map, a large share of the community lies in single family neighborhoods, which are largely within the high and moderate resource areas. And while the community plan is not proposing to amend a large amount of single family areas to meet fair housing needs, the city will look at this comprehensively and address citywide.

Together, these efforts, both at the community and the citywide level, affirmatively further fair housing by enabling new homes for people of all income levels near essential services, schools, and transit. So that's the background on why the city updates community plans. In the college area, before city planning kicked off this initiative, the community planning board and community council worked with San Diego State University students on a report that included seven visions for the future of the community that they wanted city planning to consider as, the plan was being updated. So these visions include more housing on the corridors and in activity centers, improved local mobility and, campus town at SDSU, a linear park along Montezuma Road that facilitates better connections to SDSU and facilitates a greater sense of identity in place. And we've worked to reflect these seven visions throughout the process and in this draft plan.

One of the first meetings that we had with the community was to establish a planned vision and guiding principles. And from the beginning, we tried to make sure that those seven visions were reflected here. So in short, the plan seeks to promote vibrant mixed use corridors, more housing near jobs in transit and SDSU, safe and convenient active mobility in transit, preserved and expanded parks and open spaces, and public spaces that encourage cultural exchange. So we know why we're updating the plan, and we developed a good framework for the plan with our guiding principles. I'll talk a bit about the process.

The plan update has been underway for five years. The process launched in 2020, and there have been several different milestones along the way. To summarize some of the key points in the process, the college area community plan update committee has held over 20 public meetings to discuss the plan update. The committee includes residents and business owners as well as representatives from SDSU. Staff has conducted two nonscientific community surveys to gauge preferences and ideas.

And as previously mentioned, there have been, three planning commission workshops previously. Comments have been collected on the various drafts of the plan. The first and second drafts released in January and July, respectively. The college area planning board provided two letters, one for each draft of the plan. And we've responded and addressed a range of their comments.

I'll go into further detail, later in the presentation on how we responded to some of that feedback. But the draft community plan has also been presented to the mobility board, the park and rec board, and, historic resources board for their input and recommendations. And, of course, ongoing comments and input will continue to be collected through the public hearings process. So we've discussed the reason for the plan update, the process, and the milestones so far. And so now I'll address the different community plan update elements.

We've come up with an urban design framework that informed every variation of the proposed land use plan, based upon community feedback and our plan guiding principles. And so here's that framework. Since the seven visions report was developed and throughout the community plan update process, what we've heard pretty consistently from the community is that the corridor should allow a mix of uses and should allow higher capacity for more homes. The community plan identifies the highest density at the major activity centers and community gateways to further highlight the importance of these gateways and help create that sense of community identity in place that was one of the seven visions. There's also strong demand for student housing near SDSU.

So the community plan provides, that campus town, which is a higher density mixed use village and another one of the initial seven, visions. Parks and public spaces are two very large priorities for the future of the community, reflected heavily in both the seven visions and the plan guiding principles. So the framework for land use needs to ensure that new parks and public spaces that serve all residents are provided with new development. So the land use map and the community plan is based upon that framework and all the feedback that we've heard, and here's the draft land use plan. So based upon what we've heard, the greatest opportunity for new homes is near SDSU along College Avenue and Montezuma Road.

The community plan envisions this as the campus town that was one of the seven visions. The community plan provides opportunities for homes along, nodes, major activity centers in the community as well, and near Alvarado Road, near the trolley station in Alvarado Road. It also provides opportunities for homes along the major corridors with moderate to lower density transitions away from the corridor. And this will allow for a transition of densities and encourage the provision of a a mix of various types of homes, for all students and families supporting we have supporting policies in the plan that support the the need for a mix of housing types as well. And you can see on this map, the area shown in yellow are single family and are proposed to remain the same as the 1989 plan.

This land use plan creates capacity for 18,000 more homes in the community than what the currently adopted plan allows, which is just a bit more than double what the 1989 plan allows, around a 104. Specifically, the plan provides an opportunity for an additional 18,000 homes beyond the current adopted plan, primarily located, along transit corridors and near SDSU. Currently, college area has approximately 8,200 homes, and the plan would allow for an additional, almost 26,000 to be built over its horizon. This update accommodates a variety of housing types to meet diverse needs of the community. By acknowledging the demand for housing, the plan provides a comprehensive framework for the development of the college area.

It is important to note, though, that the plan does not mandate any new construction. Development only occurs as demand and economic conditions allow. So based upon the planned land use, the community plan also reimagined the mobility networks that connect everything together. As the college area grows, the corridors can be repurposed to support more users. To do this, the mobility framework for the college area promotes the concept of complete streets, which means that all modes of transportation feel safe.

However, accommodating more users also means accommodating varying needs, so the corridors can be multifunctional in that respect. In addition to providing mobility connections, the corridors themselves must evolve to improve the pedestrian experience by integrating shade and landscaping and places to gather that promote social exchange and sustainability. Looking at the pedestrian route types, the community plan focuses pedestrian activities along the main corridors, with districts that are planned at major intersections and activity centers, and corridor routes that connect the districts. Connect, connector pedestrian route types create additional pedestrian connections but serve lighter pedestrian traffic. The community plan identifies new bicycle facilities throughout the community as well.

So where streets can be repurposed, the community plan proposes separated bikeways in the community. And in other places, the community plan proposes buffered bike lanes and low traffic stress bicycle routes, to facilitate abundant bicycle connections into and throughout the community. Sandag is planning for additional transit to the community, including expanded rapid bus service with ten minute headways at peak times. So to complement those transit investments, the community plan proposes to repurpose some rights of way for dedicated transit and additional transit priority measures and amenities to improve the transit experience. Combined, all of these networks work together to promote that concept of complete streets in the college area, which is to say that all road users, pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and drivers, are treated with dignity and feel safe.

So we know where

we want future homes to go in the community. We know how we want to connect these homes. Of course, with new residents also comes a need for additional parks and public spaces. The college area is largely built out. New development in college area will be infill development within existing neighborhoods.

The lack of parks in these communities today reflect previous growth and development patterns, and providing new parks in existing neighborhoods requires purchasing private property and construction. The community plan provides a framework for new parks and public spaces in the community. The plan establishes a need and a desire. The capital improvements program works complementary with the community plan to provide new parks and public spaces as resources become available. Community plans cannot mandate the priorities of the citywide capital improvements program budgets, but they can set future projects up for success by identifying the need or the desire for them in the community plan.

Community plans provide a framework, and the capital improvements program implements that framework over time. So the framework is very important, but new parks through the capital improvements program process is only one of the strategies for new parks in the college area. The framework for parks has five key strategies. Firstly, maintaining and improving the parks that already exist in the community is a key goal. The plan also explores the possibility of new parks on land that the city already owns as well as on excess rights of way, in order to create opportunities for green networks and a linear park along Montezuma Road, which was one of the community's seven visions.

This community plan also supports new public spaces in the community by including regulations that will bring new recreational features such as small playgrounds, fitness stations, and places for gathering as part of new infill development. And I'll talk a little bit more about how the community plan, implements this soon. As part of the strategy to look at possible parks on city owned land, the community plan includes a concept for a possible new recreation center on College Avenue. Excess rights of way are also considered for public spaces, like this concept for an overlook park on Brockbank Place. The community plan also envisions a linear park with enhanced landscaping, shade trees, wider sidewalks, and recreational amenities on both sides of Montezuma Road, which I'll talk about more as I describe implementation implementation.

The open space and conservation element addresses the protection enhancement of open space and sensitive species and habitat within the college area. This element provides policies and land use guidance that address natural resource conservation, climate resiliency, and sustainable development, and the reduction in the use of nonrenewable resources. The conservation element identifies the multi habitat habitat planning area, which balances the preservation and protection of natural resources with the allowance of compatible public recreation. Most of the community's open space areas, inclusive of natural canyons and natural slopes, are privately owned and located in the multi habitat planning area. Only a limited development, may occur within the multi habitat planning area to ensure the long term habitat conservation plan for the covered species and preservation of the natural, vegetation communities.

We're also planning for additional public facilities to serve the community. A variety of city departments and partner agencies provide public and semi public and community facilities. In particular, the city provides police protection and fire rescue services and has multiple facilities nearby to serve the community. As the community grows, new opportunities include construction of new fire stations and schools alongside associated staffing and operational strategies depending on the amount of future development that occurs, which will require future technical analysis. We've been working with the city departments, including fire departments and San Diego Unified School District to address the need for public facilities as development occurs over the life of the plan.

Historic preservation is guided by the general plan for the preservation, protection, restoration, and rehabilitation of historical and cultural resources throughout the city. But the historic preservation element of the college area plan provides a summary of the prehistory and history of the community and establishes policies to support the identification and preservation of its historical, archaeological, and tribal cultural resources. We have more detailed historical narratives, provided within a historic context statement and cultural resources report, available on the project website. Community plans are implemented a few ways. They themselves are implementation policy documents designed to be referenced whenever questions arise about the future of a community, including questions related to capital improvements and parks.

Community plans are also include land use designations with implementing base zones that regulate density, intensity, and allowed uses. And community plans are also implemented through supplemental development regulations. As part of this plan updates, we are creating a new section in municipal code with regulations that supplement the base zones to help implement the community's vision and ensure that new development brings broad community benefits. This is called the community enhancement overlay zone, proposed as a new overlay zone in the code with regulations to supplement the base zones. As part of the college area community plan update, the city proposes to amend the code to include, the community enhancement overlay zone, which will establish these supplemental development regulations for locations that have increased opportunities for residential and mixed use developments.

Previously, supplemental development regulations for community plans have been contained in, the community plan as part of a community plan implementation overlay zone. And moving forward, the difference is that these regulations would be within the community enhancement overlay zone, which means that they will be in the municipal code itself rather than in the plan, providing more certainty for their application. The college area community plan will be the first update to utilize this new overlay zone, but the intention is that for future community plan updates, we'll use this overlay zone as well. The new community enhancement overlay zone will require new public spaces with recreational value as part of new developments. It will require greenways along the community corridors to make walking a more pleasant experience, and we're asking for additional parkway improvements along Montezuma Road to help implement the linear park concepts, on both sides of Montezuma Road.

The public space requirements will be required by, development exceeding 10,000 square feet. Developments are exempt from these requirements if they're smaller than 10,000 square feet, or if they provide a recognized city park that aligns with council policy. Developments can fulfill the public space requirement by providing a greenway, paseo, plaza, urban green, or podium. Greenways are required in the main community corridors, in yellow, to make walking a more pleasant experience. And to provide some flexibility, development can choose to pay an in lieu fee for up to 25% of the public space or amenity requirement.

So we received a lot of

good feedback on the first and second draft plans. The College Area Community Planning Board has provided feedback that is consistent with what we've been hearing in public meetings and what we've received in public comments and testimony. And that feedback is primarily focused on a few themes, proposed residential densities and home capacity, new public facility needs, including new parks and public spaces, fire and police facilities, and library parking needs, and public safety, including the need for evacuation planning. We've made some land use changes in response to the feedback from the planning board and community at large. The areas outlined in blue have been removed as change areas and are now, proposed not to change, and we've reduced the density in the area along College Avenue outlined in pink.

The capacity for those homes has been shifted to the major intersections of the community, in the central segment of El Cajon Boulevard, are outlined here in teal. Both the college area planning board and public comments gave a lot of feedback on the community's need for additional parks and public spaces. Like I've said, community plans cannot mandate the priorities of the capital improvements program, but they can set future program, projects up for success by identifying the need and desire. An updated community plan with capacity for new homes improves the likelihood, that these things would, be provided through the standard capital improvements program process. We have identified one new potential pocket park on 54th Street that could include a bicycle station, seating, shade cover, or a fitness circuit.

The community plan will also support new parks and public spaces with the implementation regulations that I just described, which require new public spaces to be provided with new infill development as well as with plan policies that support land acquisition and partnerships to provide new public spaces. Library needs has also been a big topic at the the planning board, especially parking. I admit that this is not an easy problem to solve with a land use plan and a policy document because additional library parking is an implementation measure that requires allocating funds for land and construction, which is beyond the scope of any community plan. As I noted, community plans don't determine how citywide resources are allocated, but they do determine some of the things that communities need and that they want. And this plan does identify additional parking as a community priority.

We have several policies that are supportive of the library, including one specifically related to additional parking. We've heard a lot from the planning board and the community about fire safety as well. Fire safety department has determined that two new fire stations could be needed in the future depending on future development that occurs. Although the precise sighting of a fire station is typically beyond the scope of a community plan, we have identified general locations for two potential future fire stations, one near SDSU and another near the eastern boundary of the community. The community plan also includes additional policies that support fire safety.

The policies emphasize improving wildfire resilience through upgraded facilities, vegetation management, fire safe construction and infrastructure, adequate water and power systems, public education, and coordinated community preparedness and response. Some feedback also indicated a desire to see evacuation routes included in the public facilities element. However, the community plan cannot account for all scenarios. Emergency responders need the flexibility to determine routes based upon the hazard at the time. Each evacuation is context specific and requires regional coordination.

That said, we do have additional mobility policies that encourage new mobility connections throughout the community to support emergency services. The community plan also includes a change to the boundary with the Kensington Talmadge, plan area to address a request from the Kensington Talmadge Planning Group, and the college area planning board to move an open space area along Montezuma Road, in a developed area along the western side of 54th Street, to the, to the mid city communities plan. The city planning department, does not support including the residential area, just West of College Avenue, Collwood Boulevard, and mostly North of Monroe since it does not have direct access to the Kensington Tallmadge community, but what is outlined in blue, city planning does support. The following boards have provided recommendations. On September 25, the Park and Recreation Board voted to oppose the parks element of the plan.

Also on September 25, the historic resources board voted unanimously to recommend approval of the plan on the consent agenda. And then on October 1, the mobility board recommended to approve the plan as well with one abstention. On September 8, the College Area Community Planning Board voted to provide comments to the city regarding, the second draft plan. The College Area Planning Board also sent a letter with the recommendation on the first draft plan on February 10. City planning has addressed the two, planning board response letters as much as possible while still meeting the city's goals around climate action and affirmatively furthering fair housing.

The next steps would be to present the college area plan update to the land use and housing committee in November. And then following the land use and housing committee, college area plan update would be presented to city council for potential adoption in December. City staff recommends that the planning commission recommend approval of the community plan updates, and associated actions listed on this slide. This concludes staff presentation. We do appreciate your time today and would be happy to answer questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any clarifying questions from, vice chair Bumour?

Can you speak especially in light of the Parks and Recs board's position on this, can staff address how this plan compares to other community plan updates that we've done recently in built out neighborhoods where parks are an issue?

What this plan does, similar to other built out neighborhoods, Hillcrest, I think, is a good example, is we're looking at the supplemental development regulations that we use in Hillcrest that, we think will be successful, that were contained within the plan itself, and we are moving those into the municipal code, similar to what we did in Hillcrest replicating in college area and replicating in communities going forward, that have a similar urban context, to provide new parks and public spaces with new developments, as well as green ways to facilitate pedestrian connections in a green pedestrian realm.

And if I can add to that, I'd also say, you know, one of the challenges that we have is looking at community plan updates in not just college area or all of our communities citywide as we get in a situation where unlike twenty, thirty years ago where we had communities that were newly developing and we had opportunity to plan for large, you know, ten, fifteen, 20 acre park sites. Often, we're dealing with the existing neighborhoods, and we're looking at existing spaces. And we look at opportunities where we do have city owned property and how we can, repurpose that or re enhance the facilities that are there, recreational opportunities. We also look at the opportunities to provide, trails within, areas where it's wouldn't impact our habitat. In addition, as Nathan talked about, really just taking advantage of the park master plan in terms of how to reinvention urban public space and looking at opportunities when new development comes by that we can include plazas, linear parks to provide additional urban related amenities and recreational opportunities.

And I'm assuming, but I'll let you confirm this, that these planning efforts and this type of approach is consistent with best practices elsewhere and within the planning industry?

Yes. Certainly, the city of San Diego put a lot of effort into developing the parks master plan and really looked at moving away from just strictly a acreage based standard, but instead using recreational value points that look at the quality of the recreational facilities and amenities provided, which is, I would say, pretty leading edge in terms of looking at the the issue and the needs for how to balance our limited space and availability to provide recreation with a growing demand in terms of our population and housing needs.

Thank you.

Are there any other clarifying? Commissioner Reeves?

Thank you for the presentation. This just builds on Vice Chair Buenauer's question. Is there have you done a calculation, is there an anticipation on how many recreation value points would be gained through the developer built public open space in the overlay zone?

We we're gonna look into it and and

follow-up. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Mazari?

Thank you for the presentation and all the information. I wanted to know if there is data on the transit ridership. I know college community has good transit, but is there data on what is currently and what is projected in the future?

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think I can answer that. So, operationally, we work with Sandag to get transit ridership data. Recently, we've been able to get quite granular data, so we track that as operational improvements are made. Typically, in plans like these, given the the long range vision, that we incorporate both the projection of local bus service and rapid bus service. So in that regard, we don't include, future transit ridership, but we can certainly get that, and that's part of the San Diego Regional Plan.

Well, my question is kind of regarding you know, in your envisioning so much new development near transit, but maybe those people are not gonna use transit because it doesn't go where they wanna go. It doesn't connect to what they wanna do. Some of the activities is not I mean, the transit might be there, but you you can't use it. So just to assume because it's transit, we're gonna densify this area, it might not be such a good outcome.

Yeah. I I understand the question. Thank you. Again, Sandag plans those long range routes, and there's a lot of thought that goes into, looking at alternatives, because, certainly, they want to increase ridership as much as possible and provide authentic alternatives, including, transit. So, we see in at least the college community plan, and this is true elsewhere, that the connection to major activity centers like SDSU and downtown and and core communities in Mid City are a focus. And in fact, El Cone, has been one of the the key local bus, corridors, including existing rapid. So a very strong corridor, and very strong transit ridership today.

Okay. Thank you.

I'll just also clarify on the park points for new potential development. It's 6,472 potential points. Thanks.

Commissioner Marlborough, did you have something? Okay. Okay. Any more clarifying questions?

I just yeah. On on that figure, just to clarify, those points would be attributed to privately built, developed, but publicly accessible, park space.

Yep. That is correct. Thank you.

Okay. If there's no more clarifying questions, we can go on to public comment. Due to the amount of speakers, I'm going to limit comment to one minute. We'll get through the presentation, the organized presentation from the public, and then we'll take a break, and then we'll come back to standard public comment. I am going to start, though, with, Victoria Labruzzo because I heard she has a flight. So I am accommodating this request. You'll have one minute.

Great. Thank you so much. Hopefully, I can fill this in here quickly. My name is Victoria Labruzzo. I am the chair of the Community Planners Committee, CPC. We're the officially recognized advisory body representing community planning groups citywide. Last month, CPC voted unanimously to support the College Area Community Planning Board's letter regarding their community plan update. We submitted our formal comments to the city. We trust you've had the opportunity to review them. I am here to emphasize the priority that CPC places on community plan updates and the impact they have on our city as a whole.

We believe all updates must have the following. Density must be supported by achievable infrastructure, not aspirational achievable. Zone capacity should reflect actual housing need. Development must be equitably distributed. The current proposal significantly exceeds both the College Area seven's vision's plan and the city's broader growth expectations. CPC also recognizes the following concerns severe deficiencies in parks and rec, as we've just talked about. Lack of transfer.

Your minute is up.

Thank Thank you very much.

I'm sorry.

Yeah. This is.

Yes. When her phone flips, we can go to her.

I have a less than a minute left.

Okay. Eva Yakutis? Okay.

Okay. You'll

have one more minute.

Okay. Thank you. The current proposal significantly exceeds both the College Area seven Visions plan and the city's broader growth expectations. CPC also recognizes the following specific concerns: severe deficiencies in park and rec lack of transport and to support proposed density limited local opportunities employment opportunities wildfire risk and inadequate evacuation routes disproportionate upzoning in low resource areas. We urge the commission to require revisions that better reflect thoughtful, locally informed Seven Visions plan and ensure future growth is equitable, achievable, and aligned with community needs citywide.

And the last twenty seconds, I'll just say, College Area has a special place in my heart. In two days, I'll be celebrating my twenty eighth wedding anniversary, and I got married in the College Avenue Baptist Church, so it has a long history, and I'm very familiar with it. I do recognize the progress and the growth we need, but we need to have thoughtful growth. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Robert Montana, looks like you have a few people seating time. They all need to be present in the chamber, so I'll be calling off their names. Jim Jennings, Ken Beerly, Troy Murphy, Sue Richardson, Oliver Rapp, Gerald Rapp, Kathleen

Crane, Jamie Felix,

Dave Nicola, Cherry McCox, Kelly Trenelling,

Angela Guzzi, Ken Horsley,

Kate Callan. Okay. You'll have fifteen minutes.

Thank you member thank you members of the commission. We submitted a PowerPoint. Is it available for Yeah. There you go. And some of this, I I think I'm gonna amend a little bit based on the presentation today and strong support from the community planners committee.

We have two recommendations. It's an either or that, we ask you to consider. First, to, send this plan back to the community for review. A lot of what we saw today, we didn't have a chance to look at, and I think it's incumbent upon the city to allow or to promote citizen input on this very important, project. That's our first recommendation.

The second recommendation is the or you could go ahead and recommend approval of the seven visions plan, which, the community if we could go to the second oh, there it is. You did it. We could go ahead and approve the plan. The community, started working on this plan in 2017, and it has several benefits over the plan update as it has been described and proposed. The main benefit is that it fulfills the requirement for housing in the neighborhood.

It proposes a doubling of capacity. The specific number is a 137%. And and instead of the what we consider from existing to plan, a 300% increase, under the community plan update. Can you new slide, please. There is a map of the plan.

You'll notice that there's a lot of similarities, except that most of the development is along the transit corridor, along near the San Diego State Trolley Station. Our hope was to for a campus community where the students and the neighbors could have places to mix and and interact with each other. If we can go to the next plan. All all community plans should, respect physical attributes of the surrounding environment. And we would argue that the seven visions plan is better in this regard because it does not place, new residential facilities in high very high fire zones.

If you'll go to the next slide, please. Referring to the these are this is the high fire risk zone that's covering this college area. It's important to note that we have a lot of finger canyons in the neighborhood, and these canyons, create a map like this. And if you compare the seven visions plan with the plan update, you'll see that almost all of the seven visions plan proposed development is outside of this zone. The next slide, please.

The seven visions plan is also, in our opinion, more equitable to the college area. It does not the perception in the community and the way we've, done our analysis, the the draft plan update proposes an increase of about 300%, which is far and away greater than any other community plan, project. And so we feel like, our community, which has a history of discrimination and neglect, is being asked to provide a bulk of the proposed new citizens in the city. We go from I think the well, I don't I'm not gonna quote the numbers because I might get it wrong, but there will be other speakers who, will give you the exact data. The next slide, please.

If you look at this is the, map, and you saw it before with the staff presentation of the low resource areas in the college area. And most of the development under the plan update is in the pale green or the low resource areas. And, we we just kind of feel that that's not a move that's going to help heal past discrimination and neglect. In fact, it perpetuates the same kind of, issues that, exist today. The next slide, please.

Public services. It's been noted that we have one library. It's undersized. It has a severe parking problem. We don't have a fire station. We don't have a police station. We're served by Eastern Division, which is on the North Side Of Interstate 8. We're the only community South Of 8 that has, that kind of situation. We don't have a recreation, center. We don't have an aquatic center.

We are severely, severely limited in, our park recreational facilities. The next slide talks about, growth and alignment and accepted projections. And here, again, if if you do the calculations from existing to proposed, you you find that the college area will be, accommodating a majority of the SANDAG projections for new residents in the city of San Diego, and that, is inappropriate in our opinion. So it doesn't align the the draft plan doesn't align with SANDAG estimates for population growth. It doesn't align with national, regional, or local demographic population trends, and, there's no real rationale, offered for why these kinds of density increases should fall on one community.

I'm gonna defer at this point to, Sue Richardson who's going to talk about parks.

Hi. Can you go to the next slide? Just one slide. Hi. I'm Sue Richardson. I'm the chair of the Colina Del Sol Community Recreation Group, and I'm the park and recreation representative for the College Area Community Planning Group, and I'm the former director of parks and recreation for the city of La Mesa. The college area is not just a community of students. We are residents a diverse community of people with kids and retirees and people who have raised their families there in a a broad community of people. We are more than 90% deficient in park points currently, of recreation opportunities for our existing population. There's only one one point five acre city park without a playground and no community centers, courts, or pools.

The plan proposes a 277% increase in population but does not provide equitable parks or recreation facilities to meet the needs of existing or new residents. The only facilities proposed gets us up to nine seventeen park points that are identified for future population of 74,000 people does not even meet 50% of our existing population needs for park and recreation. There are not enough potential suggestions for quality amenities such as playgrounds or courts reflected in the actual or realistic projects. The scope of the proposed recreation center in the plan, which is currently a 4,000 square foot building that was too small for our old library, is not big enough to be used as a required 17,000 foot community center. Alternative sites need to be identified in the plan, such as other plans.

Claremont identified two new community centers in their plan. Capital improvement projects, fundings and sites need to be identified to serve as the existing population to meet our current needs and the future deficiencies. This plan tells our residents to rely on parks and recreation centers in adjacent communities that aren't even sufficient to meet their own community needs. That page was removed from what you see today because we pointed it out to the planning department. There is no city open space for us to be used as trails.

The plan directs us to travel by trolley, transit, or car to other communities that are also deficient in park points or to SDSU River Park that has limited hours of access and metered parking. This is not a solution for failing to provide adequate recreation facilities and parks for the college area. High density without adequate public open space parks and recreation spaces is poor urban planning and creates an unsafe and unhealthy environment. In your packet, you had the letter from the Park and Recreation Board who, at their special meeting on September 25 rejected the recreation sections park development plan for the community update sorry, the community plan update and recommended that that section be revised in a manner that better serves the needs of present and future residents with sufficient realistic projects and facilities. So as a retired recreation park park and recreation director with over forty years of experience, I urge you to direct the planning department to revise the recreation element and find more park and recreation infrastructure before forwarding this plan to the city council.

Thank you. And Robert will summarize.

I I just want to repeat what the recommendation is from the community planning board. We'd like you to either send the document back to us so that we can comment on the latest round of changes so that we can negotiate or discuss, suggest other ways to meet the needs of the community and the needs of the city for for for for new housing, or go ahead and adopt the seven Visions plan, which we think is a better plan, to be honest with you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Dana Giveitt. You also have people seating time to you. Yvonne Jones, Jeff Hueter, Laura Rybaugh, Alex

Zukas,

Lorna Zukas, Sandra Simon, Patrick Valenta, Betty Schumacher, Robert Grant,

Ron

Anderson, Dawn Anderson, Linda Snyder, Ralph Tessier, Kat Stempel, Susan Baldwin.

K. You have fifteen minutes.

Thank you. I have slides, please. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you.

If you'll go to the first slide, please. I'm Dana Giveitt, and I am a resident of the college area. There we go. As you know by now, there are two college area community plans. The first one on the left is the Seven Visions plan that Robert was talking about. The community has worked on that plan since 2018. The goals generally were to accommodate significant growth in the transit corridors and nodes while maintaining the integrity of our single family neighborhoods. The second plan on the right is the city's plan. Let's compare them. Next slide, please.

The city's plan for the college area is out of line versus other recent community plan updates. The city's plan calls for a 316% increase in dwelling units versus what is on the ground today. The recent plan updates average 98% dwelling unit increase. Claremont, which is in its second draft, is only at a 52% increase. The Seven Visions plan accepts a 137% increase, more than any recent community plan update.

So those opposing the city plan obviously are not anti housing or anti growth. Next slide, please. The city's plan increases population by over 200% depending upon whether you include SDSU students or not. The city's plan did not include the SDSU students who are living on campus. The Seven Visions plan increases population by 91%, including the on campus SDSU students.

That's more than the average of the other recent community plan updates, which was 86%, as you can see in the chart. So how big is the college area? Next slide, please. It was only 1.8% of San Diego's twenty twenty population according to the census. Next slide, please.

And it covers less than 1% of San Diego's land. We're geographically small, and SDSU is five sixty acres of it. So non university acreage is fourteen ten acres or 0.6% of San Diego's land. Next slide, please. Oh, sorry. We're oh, you're ahead of me. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. But the college area is building more than its share of housing.

We permitted 5.4% of San Diego's building permits over the last four years and 8.8% of the city's deed restricted affordable housing. So 27% of our housing over the last four years has been affordable housing. What does SANDAG project for college area growth? Next slide, please. They're projecting by 2,050, we need to add 2,200 housing units, which is 2.1% of San Diego's housing units, and 2,500 people, 4% of San Diego's population.

Next, please. So one has to ask, why is the college area being up zoned for 81% of San Diego's 2,050 population growth and 24% of its housing growth when it is 1.8% of San Diego's twenty twenty population and less than 1% of San Diego's land? Let's explore some possible reasons. Next slide, please. College area the college area is infrastructure deficient.

I'll buzz through these because we've discussed it. We have a 91% Park Points deficiency right now for our current population. We have only a 1.6 acre park, part of which is a drainage swale. We have no rec center, a library with only 22 dedicated parking spaces when it should have 80. The city's plan has no new sports fields, only overlooks and pocket or linear parks, which we have been told by developers they don't want to build, and these are dependent upon the property owners.

They don't want to build them because they don't want the liability those parks present. We have no dedicated fire or police station, but we were told in 2010 and 2017 that we already needed a fire station. So we have inadequate infrastructure to support our existing population. Next slide, please. San Diego State University housing needs don't justify a 316% increase in dwelling units.

There's been an on and off campus housing boom over the last four years. They're adding almost 7,000 beds since 2021 given the 2025 approval of the Evolve dorms at SDSU, and SANDAG projects a significant decrease in the 24 year old college area population between 2022 and 2,050. And this doesn't even count the construction that is going on on the Mission Valley West Campus. Next slide, please. The college area transit doesn't justify this upzoning.

The green trolley line serves one third the number of university blue trolley line passengers, but the college area is inexplicably being assigned three times the university density increase. And most college area transit doesn't get you directly to major job centers, to your question. It takes three to four hours round trip to get to Sorrento Valley or Kearny Mesa or university where most of the jobs are. And we have many buses but poor connections. Most require multiple transfers.

It's not convenient versus cars. Next slide, please. The college area job opportunities don't justify this upzoning. The reported jobs data defy logic. We are reported as having three times more jobs per person than Mid Cities does.

We are not a job center. We have about 9,000 jobs, under 7,000 at state with faculty and staff, under 1,000 at the medical center, and 1,000 in our business district. And anything remaining would be students doing work study. They would be part time. Next slide, please.

We have another major concern. There is low four residential in the city's plan, which is now zoned for RM 2 dash 5. That density is 29 dwelling units per acre, which makes it eligible for complete communities. That will destroy the integrity of the plan that has been put before you because it will attract development off of the nodes and corridors and suck it into the neighborhoods where the land is cheaper and it is not in the community enhancement overlay zone, so it doesn't have those requirements. It also offers lower affordability requirements than are in the inclusionary housing regulations.

That low four residential must be down zoned to encourage development in the corridors and nodes. If not, it won't happen. There are several options. Option one would be to remove low four residential from the plan altogether and restore it to RS one seven. Option two would be to down zone it to low three residential where it isn't eligible for complete communities.

And a third option is to raise the complete communities threshold to 45 dwelling units per acre or to eliminate complete communities as a density bonus option in community planning areas that have had a community plan update. Next slide, please. On the same vein, low four residential in the East College area running up 63rd Street should be removed. It should become RS 17 as it is now. It bisects a single family neighborhood.

It doesn't provide a transition from higher to lower density. And there is no support for it in the Blueprint San Diego Village Climate Goal Propensity Map, which I have provided on the bottom left. There's simply no justification for it at all. Next, please. It's also in the West College Crescenta Drive area, and it should be returned to RS 17.

It is steps from the Canyon Rim in a very high fire hazard zone shown in the map in red. It has limited egress onto the busy College Avenue area, which is already dangerous. It poses evacuation risks, and it has limited parking. Next slide, please. How does the College Area Plan proposed affirmatively further fair housing?

It does not. The staff report says it plans for mixed use villages and corridors that are located primarily within the high or highest opportunity areas. Folks, the college area has no highest opportunity areas. If you'll the statement is simply false. If you'll look at the map on the right side, the yellow highlights are the up zoned areas, which are clearly concentrated in the two, three and five low and moderate zones, but mostly low.

There is almost no upzoning in the dark blue high opportunity zone. Next slide, please. So these are maps for the college area in the upper left with primarily the low opportunity zones in Chartreuse. And then you'll see Claremont University and Mira Mesa, which have limited, if any, of these chartreuse low opportunity zones. The college area is primarily low opportunity, being up zoned almost three times more than the higher resourced areas.

This violates affirmatively furthering fair housing. Next slide, please. This plan has no economic development component. The city proposes quadrupling, that's my error there, sorry, the density and dramatically increasing the population but provides no jobs or economic development for residents. You'll see no increase in the nonresidential square footage that I've highlighted.

This isn't acceptable. The idea should be to put more housing close to jobs to minimize vehicle miles traveled, whether it's via auto or mass transit. Next slide, please. The city's housing and population targets are not justified by SANDAG projections, by the blueprint maps, by SDSU housing needs, or transit availability. The proposed concentration of density discriminates against our lower opportunity community versus other recent plan updates in higher opportunity communities.

The city's plan for the college area for 2050 is for one quarter of San Diego's projected housing growth and 81% of San Diego's projected population growth. Yet we have only 1.8% of San Diego's population and 0.9% of San Diego's acreage, and there is no commitment to meet current infrastructure deficits, let alone the needs of our proposed future population and housing targets. Next slide, please. Meanwhile, 71% of our growth comes from programs that are not even included in these upzoning numbers, 10% more than the rest of the city. These go beyond the 316% increase in zoned dwelling units versus what's on the ground.

ADUs, complete communities, and the affordable density bonus are not shown in these projections. They are not included. Next slide, please. We recommend you adopt the Planning Board's preferred seven Visions plan and reject the city's plan or send the city's plan back to the planning department for significant revisions. Remove Low four residential from any college area plan, create an economic development plan with realistic jobs data, create a realistic park and rec plan for the college area, and acknowledge the severe college area infrastructure deficits.

Establish a timetable to adopt upzoning in increments contingent upon the city's delivery of established infrastructure goals. Upzoning should begin on the transit corridors and the nodes and only proceed to single family neighborhoods as needed. And I would like if you could just I I hope I have a minute or two because I would like to address

Thirty seconds.

Commissioner Boomhauer's. If you go to slide 24, I just wanna address commissioner Boomhauer's question about how this relates to if you could go to my slide 24.

You have fifteen seconds. Please read.

Okay. Well, if you put it up there, that will address commissioner Boomhauer's question about how it relates to parks and in other communities. That chart shows you what other communities have, those other community planning areas and what we have.

Thank you. Your time is up.

You can refer to that chart 20

Julie Hamilton. You have a bunch of people seating time to you. I'm gonna read names. Michael Gallagher, Justin Barnett, Jamie Barnett, Sharon Axford, Cindy Moore, Ellen Bevier Turner, Lance Nelson, Mary Young. Is Mary Young here?

Okay. Donna Ingram Parnell, Britt Jones, Janet Sarf, Paul Kruger, Andrea Heathery, Vicky Australia,

and Newell Booth. We have an extra speaker slip for that can seed time.

Brian Fowler. Okay. You have fifteen minutes. Thank you.

Can you put my presentation up? Thank you. Yikes. Can you turn it into slide mode? Thank you.

I appreciate it. Julie Hamilton. I'm the president of the College Area Community Council. The College Area Community Council is a group of residents and students, representatives from San Diego State University and the Business District, and our goal is to further community. We do things like, we hold joint cleanups with the associated students and district nine. We, had recently had a first responders appreciation day. We we host a holiday party called just to show that we are diverse and we do accept everyone. And our goal is to build community. Next slide, please. The community plan update is a real problem.

It

simply is too much density in an area that doesn't have adequate infrastructure. The community began meeting actually around 02/1617 because the update was coming down the road. We were excited. We were happy. We were thinking, what should we put forward to the city so the community plan update can go in a direction that is supported by the community? We knew from the get go, we needed to accept more housing. We needed higher density. We needed to be ready for higher density. So we put into the proposal areas of higher density along Montezuma Road, El Cajon Boulevard, and at the nodes in the corridor. And as everybody has said, that more than doubled the existing density.

It really was our goal to provide the density in a reasonable and rational manner. We also knew that we were going to continue to have a significant park deficit. So we came up with, well, let's at least get a linear park along Montezuma Road. We continued along those goals, and we continued to try to invest in the community and to get to what we needed. Next slide, please.

Can you put the slides on that screen? Because I cannot see that. So what our problem is first of all, we have accepted substantial density since 2020. We have had built more than, I think, 1,500 student housing apartments. We have under construction. I think we have four projects under construction right now, which are going to total about 7,000 apartments. We are accepting density. We're not fighting it. We're just going along with it. We're accepting it.

We know it needs to happen. We have gotten a few public pauses. They simply don't work. Next slide. What we're not getting is infrastructure. This is the current CIP. And as you'll see, what we have in the college area are a few signal mods, one street improvement, and that is it. Despite that, we have contributed a significant amount of money to the citywide DIF. We've contributed I think we've contributed 10% to or 35% to libraries, 10% to mobility, 7% to parks, yet no infrastructure is going into the college area. No improvements are going into the college area.

We don't know how we get those capital improvements. It's not that we're not contributing to the citywide diff. We're just not in an area where those funds are being directed. And as you know, we have one and a half acres of park, no fire, no fire station, no police station. We're not getting anything, and we're built out. Next slide. 82% of the college area is in the very high fire hazard severity zone. We don't have a fire station. We don't have two fire stations. We were supposed to have a fire station.

It was shown in the last community plan. It got developed as student housing. So how do we get a fire station? Needing a fire station isn't new. We know we're deficient, but yet we're not getting any of the capital improvements that we should get despite the requirements in the past community plan. What gives us hope that the improvements shown in this community plan will ever get us the improvements we need? I can tell you that in the Montezuma fire on 10/31/2024, couldn't evacuate. People that lived in Colleges View Estates and Alvarado Estates had about a three hour wait to go a quarter of a mile. Because on the other side of the evacuation route is San Diego State. So we are definitely fired fire safety deficient.

We have definite issues that need to be resolved before we go so expansive in the amount of density allowed. And keep in mind, we walked into this process saying, yeah, we're willing to accept more than double our density. But we need some help, and we are not getting it. And we're not being shown that we are going to get it. Next slide, please.

As you know, we have one one point five acre park. We have little hope of getting any more park space. The developers that I've spoken to, they don't like the enhancement zone because they're going to have to put public plazas on their property that do create a risk to them. We've had, I think, four projects developed with that concept of public plazas and public spaces. Topaz, they came to us, they told us what a great job they were gonna do activating the public spaces, what a great job they were gonna do activating a promenade.

The promenade is an alley, dark at night, not activated. The public space that they activated is extra concrete in front of the retail spaces with no shade and no seating. Monte gave us a corner for a coffee cart. Now it has a standpipe. We're these activating public spaces doesn't work like that. So to rely on that to enhance our parks is just unrealistic. And honestly, 1.5 acre parks for 20,000 is horrible. 1.5 acre parks for 74,000 is despicable. You're creating a I'm sorry, but a Eastern Bloc housing situation. It just doesn't work.

Next slide. As you already know, our library is undersized. Our library is the only community amenity we have. It has the only community room that we have to meet in. It has currently it's going to have 28 or 22 parking spaces. Jan Hanceman can clarify that. We tried to get additional parking by talking the city into doing a public partner public private partnership, purchasing a single family lot adjacent to the library, and creating parking. We got nowhere. Nowhere. We don't know how to get the capital improvements that we need in order to support our population.

Despite that, the community has come forward repeatedly and said, we're willing to double our population. We want you to fight for this infrastructure. We need these capital improvements, but we're willing to go double. And it with based on the hope and a prayer that we will get infrastructure improvements. Next slide, please. So this is the library. It's demonstrating the great mistake that was made with the city. When the library was built, they didn't purchase the property that the parking was on. When the property became available for sale, they didn't purchase it again. And now it's being proposed for student housing, so that we are going to lose our parking.

And there's nothing we can do about it, in addition to the impact on the library itself. Next slide, please. We have one community of concern. It happens to also be the only area of high resources. You can't explain that to me. I don't know how it works. But the only communities of concern in the college area are Alvarado Estates, College View Estates, and San Diego State. So how do we get priority for capital improvement funds? How do we get priority for DIF if our only community of concern is our wealthiest communities? I don't know how to do it.

It's not from lack of trying. It's not from lack of trying to get parks. Troy Murphy, I think, had to leave. She was single handedly responsible for getting Harriet Tubman Charter School to become a joint use field. It's tiny. I I I think it's like half an acre. But one person was able to get a joint use field. We don't have any more joint use fields available. The Language Academy is joint use, and it is used by soccer when it's not been a school. Hardee is currently under construction.

We don't know how much of a field we're going to get. So again, it's not from lack of trying, but for us to get the DIF we need, we're not a priority because we're not a community of concern but for Alvarado Estates and Collegro Estates. The low resource areas are not shown as communities of concern on the city's maps. Next slide, please. And once again demonstrating that the of the only community of concern is Alvarado Estates And College View Estates. Again, how do we get the DIF we need? How do we get the infrastructure improvements we need? These are not new needs. They were in the last community plan. This need has been there for a long time.

There are there are reports from 2011 about how severe the need is. But we're not getting those capital improvements. And we don't have any hope that we're getting those capital improvements. Despite that, we're willing to accept the seven visions plan with the doubling of the density because we understand there's a housing need, and we're doing our best for the housing need. By the end of, I'm thinking, '28, we're going to have added something like 9,000 new units in the college area. So we're willing to accept the density within reason. The problem is that we don't have anything to support it. We're creating I'm sorry to say it, and I hate to say it, but we're creating slums. We're creating housing warehouses with nowhere for people to go. Next slide, please.

I just kinda wanna give you a vision of Eastern Bloc countries and what they look like with no parks and no infrastructure and, you know, as much density as you can get. We want to avoid that. We want a healthy community. We want to welcome people in. We want a vibrant community. We like living at San Diego State. We have students. We have vibrancy. We have a dynamic culture. But we've got to have the support for that, or recreating an unlivable city in the college area that is unjust and unfair.

Next slide. Oh, that's my last slide. So what I do want to ask is that you do one of two things. Send the community plan update back to the planning department to come up with a plan that is balanced with what we can expect for infrastructure or adopt the seven Visions plan. The seven Visions plan put density in the areas that were suitable for density and increased our capacity by about 137%. We'll do it. We'll jump on board. We'll accept it. We'll welcome it. But we've got to have some infrastructure to go any higher than that.

As it is, we're accepting a terrifying situation where we don't have any hope for infrastructure, but we're still going to accept a doubling of the density. Thank you for your time. Oh, I wanna do one more thing because I have a minute. I wanna thank Nathan Cosman, who has the patience of a saint. Has been with us this whole time, even went on a bike ride with me to check out the bike routes. He has done everything he can to receive the input. Unfortunately, the department has ignored a lot of it. Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to take a ten minute break now. I want to thank everybody in the audience for not cheering and making noise, so I want to appreciate you. But we've got ten minutes for a break, and then we'll resume. Alright.

We are going to resume our hearing. Continuing on with public comment, Jan Hintzmann. Jan, you have multiple people seating time to you. I need to make sure they're here. Carol Hanken Hank Hankis? Yeah. Maria, Gomez? Bill Hintzman? Sandy Bass? Is Sandy Bass present?

She's here. She's still out on break.

She has to be present in the in the hearing room. Linda Thomas. Susan Grant. Is Susan Grant in the hearing room?

Susan, raise your

hand. Sandy? Yes.

Susan Grant. And then is Sandy Bass present? Okay. You'll have seven minutes.

Thank you. First slide, please. I'm good morning, planning commissioners. I'm Jan Hintzman, president of the Friends of the College Rolando Library. We've appeared before you every time you've discussed the college area plan update, and you've done everything that was allowed by the city to support our problems, but they're still unresolved. And even more discouraging is that we believe that some of the recommendations in this plan will make our problem even worse. For those new on the Planning Commission, here's a quick recap. Next slide, please. This

is

the library boundary. The northern half is the college area. Below the college area is Rolando, Rolando Park, El Cerrito, Colina, and part of Talmadge. There are about 52,000 residents served by this library. Minority groups make up 67% of the population, and the median household income in the area is $53,000 compared to the citywide figure of 83,000. We have the fourth largest population area of any city branch library. We've just celebrated our twentieth anniversary. Next slide, please. Yes. This slide.

This is how it worked for most of the first twenty years. You see the library on the left, and the adjacent private property is located is outlined in red on the right. You can see that the library's main driveway is on the private property as is most of the library parking. And the city built all of the driveways and parking that you see. The intent was to share the property access with the church.

And if and when the church property came up for sale, the city would purchase it to preserve library function and to expand the city development with a park, which was much needed. But that didn't happen. Next slide, please. To clarify, here's the city's construction site plan. The city property is yellow.

131 parking spaces were constructed with only 26 28, I'm sorry, on city property. That's the official number, 28. Trust me. What happened was that the church did wish to sell in 2016, and the city ignored its first right to purchase. And the city lost control of its major investment there on the private land.

Our future was not important to the city in 2016 and has not been important over the past nine years even though you guys helped us to try and resolve this problem. The library operated in 2017 without that parking on the private property, and the library use fell by over 50%. There is no available street parking. The city has, in effect, established a barrier between our citizens and our library, and our library is not accessible. This plan update is full of goals and short on reality.

This update does not address the current state of our library as it looks to the future. It also fails to address existing inequities in levels of support for our neighborhoods across the city. The update is also silent on the city's $6,500,000,000 shortfall in its five year infrastructure budget. The $6,500,000,000 shortfall over five years. Facing that shortfall, we have little hope of ever recovering our parking.

Yet this plan update anticipates a future of truly astonishing population growth for us. And so the plan gives us many, many, many more people without library access. The next slide. You you this okay. I'm sorry.

The city's stated objective is to place density in high opportunity zones. You see these this slide versions of this before. But, yet we see a glaring disconnect in this plan update. This is the opportunity ranking by the city. Low resource areas are yellow, and the high resource areas are blue. You'll

see

that there are many yellow areas in the college area. They've been discussed before. And here, we've added the southern next slide. Thank you. Next slide.

So here we've added the the area that's identified for the whole college area, Rolando Library. So the areas to the south are all yellow, and there's even a hashed neighborhood there, Kalina Park, which is in the high poverty and segregated area designation. So we feel that this we fear that this plan with its dramatic growth projection is in fact pushing our neighborhoods into the high poverty and segregated categories because the the the distinction between the highly high poverty and segregated and the the low resource areas are affected by the density of population. So as the neighborhood gets denser, the the area falls in in population in its designation as low resource and will fall into high poverty and segregated. So we fear this plan with dramatic growth will, in effect, push our neighborhoods into the high poverty and segregated categories.

And this is not the direction that we want to go. We can see nothing that's good coming from this plan. What you can do for us today is to carefully consider the amount of growth that you endorse in this plan. Thank you.

Thank you. Michelle Rasicotte, You have people seating time to you. Kelsey Smith, Renee

Rasicotte, Nancy Uffelman, Kathy

McClellan.

But we should have one more speaker since preceding time.

We have Russell Leviton.

You'll

have four minutes.

Thank you. Please start the slideshow. Thank you for the time to speak today. The College Area Area Community Planning Board, Dana Givitt, and Neighbors for Better San Diego have all spoken about how excessive overzoning of the second draft of College Area Community Plan update will affect our community as a whole. We are here to tell you how to this kind of overzoning will affect different neighborhoods within the community.

My name is Michelle Roscoe. I have been a resident of College Area since 2014. I am here with other neighbors who have also invested their life savings and their hearts into this tight knit community. I live on Soria Drive directly behind 4700 Block Of College Avenue. We are a diverse community of single family homes, and our neighbors come from all walks of life.

Next slide, please. The Seven Visions plan originally called for no change in zoning on the 4700 Block Of College Avenue. As a neighborhood, we wholeheartedly support this. As the gateway to historic El Cerrito, over zoning here would destroy so much more than our immediate neighborhood. It will have imperable effects, irreparable effects, on the entirety of College area.

The Seven Visions plan allowed for the necessary growth of over 100% population increase, which is in line with other recent community update plans, while still preserving the fabric of our neighborhood. The over 300% increase in density currently proposed will adversely affect our already over served community. Next slide, please. We realize the city and the community must work together to reach a solution. And in that light, we are proposing that if there must be rezoning on the 4700 Block Of College Avenue, that the zoning be structured to low two instead of currently proposed medium three.

We have a vision which would be actually medium two. We have a vision that we hope the city will see and support with us, called Cerrito Square, By zoning for Load two with shopkeepers buildings in mind and working with community leaders, the CACPB, the College Area Business District, the the Parks Department, and the Planning Department, we can create a community oriented space that bridges the city's need for growth with the residents' need for amenities. Currently, it is recommended that the residents of College Area visit other neighborhoods for any recreational purposes. But by zoning for this specific vision in mind, we can mitigate that and also build a destination for other San Diegans to frequent. Next slide, please.

Cerritos Square has the potential to create a desirable, walkable, and safe business and housing hub. Two story buildings would be built to keep the neighborhood's characteristic charm while welcoming the future of the College area. Low two zoning will allow for buildings that can intersect commerce and housing while creating a community oriented space both current and future residents so desperately need. By repurposing city owned property on this block, a pocket park could easily be installed that would help alleviate our 90% plus park deficit. The addition of new MTS transit, which is already drafted, will bridge more of San Diego to the college area and alleviate parking issues for easy access to Cerrito Square.

Next slide, please. Buildings could contain commercial and community spaces below and housing on the 2nd Floor. This could be a space to build connections, a place to spend money that sustains local businesses, and a way to create jobs for neighbors. A college area sign in line with other neighborhoods' iconic signage could complete the vision. This community center vision is a course of action that the city and the people of the community can work on together to rebuild trust and plan for our future. This space would integrate commerce, community,

and I'm sorry, but your time is up. I'm sorry. Stephanie Benvenuto, you'll have one minute. Oh, good. Can you please turn on the mic? Oh, this is great. I'm here on behalf of the Building Industry Association of San Diego. We represent the homebuilders of our community. I want to thank the staff for their diligent and thoughtful work to produce this plan update. We're pleased to be here in support and believe that the additional housing capacity represents the appropriate densities and locations that reflect city priorities, and more importantly, reflects the real need for housing for all families at all income levels in San Diego.

We urge your support, and thank you very much. Thank you. Karen Austin. You have a couple people seating time. Valerie Deloach.

Susan Redelings. Is Susan present?

Okay. You'll have two minutes.

Not given their time yet? Are

there any more up there? Any more slip slip?

No. Okay. Do you see my slideshow, please? Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity. Do you I think she's looking for it.

Okay. Should we just go with that one? Okay. My name is Karen Austin. I live in Alvarado Estates in College Area, and I represent my neighborhood on the board of the CACC, and I also co chair our Alvarado Estates Fire Safe Council. As you heard a year ago on Halloween, College Area neighborhoods as well as Talmadge and Kensington experienced a nearly 40 acre fire along Montezuma Road. There's a picture of it on the slide. One house did burn down in my neighborhood from that fire. The evacuation, as you heard previously, was difficult. It was a real evacuation, so we learned a lot about it.

A lot about what what needs are still, unmet maybe and and how we need to better support community members, and, the infrastructure for future evacuations. We we know that a lot of the, things that we can do with, the Kalajiria community plan update, the land use policies apply to wildfire preparedness, and we're hoping that the commission will, recommend the implementation of some of these policies as part of that package. You can see some of them here on this slide, the ultimate goal to protect life, property, and natural resources from the risks associated with wildfire. Next slide. These are some of the, images that help to set the stage.

The very high fire hazard severity zone is estimated 82% of the college area. Next slide. Thank you. They're in the red in this one within the pink very high fire hazard zone. These are AB 2911 subdivisions where there's only one ingress or egress for more than 30 dwellings.

Those put those residents at particular risk, and that's something that we need to protect and help with evacuation planning. Next slide. This shows that in the areas for upzoning in within a very high fire hazard severity zone, we'll also need commensurate infrastructure, and that's what we're asking for. Next slide. There was a city gate audit back in 2010 and then again in 2011 2017, and they analyzed fire coverage gaps and recommended 19 more fire stations be developed.

I'm sorry. Your time is up. Can you wrap up the last sentence?

Just I guess I you know, we all hope that you'll recommend the seven Visions plan or let us continue to work on the appropriate plan to balance, development and safety. Thank you.

David Modi?

I think I did. You have one

person seating time to you, Lisa Sinclair. Okay. You'll have two minutes.

I have a presentation. Can you go to full screen?

In the interest of time, can you please proceed? We can see your slide presentation.

Well, no. Now you can't. Alright. Thank you very much. My name is David Modi.

I'm the chair of the Kensington Talmadge Planning Group, and I wanna start off by thanking staff for agreeing to those parts of the boundary change that they did agree to, including the newly added yellow section on the map before you. I wanna call out the white area that you see between the two colors. Can you go to the next slide? Or down below. Thank you.

That is a one single census block group, and the boundary line splits that census block group in half. And so that will create thirty years of calculation problems for any, analysis that you wanna do in the future. Just saying that it might have been better to go with the solid boundary change that we had asked for. And then I wanna go to my next slide. And I wanna talk about the great North Mid City Park Desert, and the college area is a major component of that park desert.

The area in pink that you see there is nearly a 100,000 people with a park points goal of 9,700. The actual existing park points there is 1,862. That represents 19% of the standard. So this if there was any conception that the college area could rely upon surrounding areas for their park facilities, that is not possible. The entire North Mid City is one of the great park deserts of of San Diego.

And in fact, the college area plan cements into official city planning and doctrine that that two San Diego's is the is the concept that they wanna go with, that there are communities in the North that get more, and there are communities in the South that will perpetually have less. Park master plan says parks for all of us, but it doesn't apply to us. Thank you.

Thank you. Tom Mulaney. You have someone seating time to you. Garth Winterling. K. You'll have two minutes.

Yes. Thank you. The city villages plan was done twenty years ago, but this is becoming the city of mindless upzoning. Apparently, the planning department's under orders to just focus on the number of housing units. As you've heard, it's not matched with infrastructure. I was involved in what we call the growth management wars of nineteen eighty eight with five ballot measures on one. And the city promised they would focus on infrastructure. They said they didn't want a moratorium, they didn't want to slow down growth, but they would provide infrastructure. That promise is being broken. So the plan as written now would quadruple the number of housing units based on what is on the ground now, which is the way planning has to be done.

Let's look at parks. I think that the 6,000 park deficiency points out the point system's not working. I worked on the park master plan, it didn't make any sense to me. What the city's not doing, and especially the planning department, they're not really looking at park needs. And we really appreciate the Parks and Recreation Board has looked at this and said we cannot have communities with up zoning without planning for parks.

Now here's how it can be done. Development impact fees can legally be matched to provide park and rec facilities, and they're not adequate now. And of course the idea of diverting them to other neighborhoods is a huge problem, as Julie Hamilton pointed out. Besides development impact fees, you can require the developer to put in two kinds of on-site recreation. One is a inside gym and the outside is outdoor recreation space.

One model for that would be North Park had a PDO that required if you were in a park deficient area, the developer had to provide adequate on-site space. So we can look back at the Mid Cities, a mid city communities PDO that was eliminated in 2016. Uptown had that same PDO. By the way, the PDOs were actually intended to provide

I'm sorry. Your time is up.

Okay. Thank you.

Lou Haberkorn. You have Chau Ismerian seating time to you. You'll have two minutes.

Good morning, commissioners. I'm here to speak against the community plan, but only in one very specific part, and that is the requirement of dedicated public open space. At presentation of the first draft, this commission raised a few concerns about the public open space. I'm here to raise large concerns. I've been a part of nine student housing projects at SDSU campus, all within easy walking distance to the campus and some actually abutting the campus.

One of my paramount design features is safety for the student residents. Some of you may know and a lot of you probably do not know the amount of activity that takes place beginning on Thursday evening through the entire weekend where people come from all over looking for parties, looking to hang out, and a few people come in to cause problems. If safety isn't enough, the impact on design should be another factor. In the first draft of this commission, one of my projects was exempt from the public space requirement. In the second draft, one of my projects is now part of it.

Previously, 25,000 square feet or less were exempt. Now only 10,000 square feet are exempt. I'll be now dedicating 982 square feet of public open space open to the public, creating a dangerous environment for the type of people that come up there in those evenings. Keep in mind that it's open from dawn to dusk, dusk going from eight to 08:30 in the latter part of the year. My second project, is now required to have a 14 foot greenway, eight foot excuse me, 14 foot parkway, an eight foot greenway, and an open space of 1,883 square feet.

That design pushes my entrance to my building back 48 feet from face of curb.

I'm I'm sorry, but your time is up. Thank you. Marcella Bothwell? And you have Frank Gormley? Is Frank in the hearing room? Okay. You'll have one minute. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you please turn on your mic?

Thank you. There we go. Thank you, Chairmodan Commissioners. My name is Marcella Bothell. I'm Chair of the Parks and Recreation Board.

On September 25, the Parks and Recreation Board voted nine to one to oppose this plan and reject the College Area Park Development Plan. This plan fails to address the area's critical park deficiency. For a population of nearly 20,000, the college area only has 157 recreation points, or just 8% of what's needed for right now. By 2050, with the population projected at 74,000, the proposed addition of nine seventeen points doesn't even meet the current park needs. Furthermore, including 6,500 speculative park points labeled in the Excel sheet as potential parks with new development is misleading as these lack any realistic timeline.

I'm sorry. Your time is up.

Had two minutes.

You did not have Frank in in the hearing room. I'm sorry.

Okay. Thank you.

Jeff C. I need you to pronounce your last name for the record.

It's day and age of

prosecution and doxing. I think I'll just keep it Jeff. How's that? I live in, on Tierra Baja Way just south of the college in a house that I've owned since 1984. Any plan here that says that it's increasing the density of our neighborhood to improve the community is bunk.

When you charge that much money for a college student to live in a converted garage, park in the front yard, and drive down the sidewalk to get his car out, this is about profit. Profit for the owners, profit for the developers, profit for the investors, and those of you who support their cause with no apparent reason. If you wanna put any more development in my neighborhood, review the city ordinances for relevance, for enforcement, then fund that enforcement, then hold the landlords and owners of commercial businesses inside my residential neighborhood responsible for the degradation and maintenance they lack, causing fire hazards and who used the word slum? So the slums that my neighborhood is turning into. Thank you.

Thank you. Mary Neese. Nice.

Hello. The plan's data for this update for our current 2025 is wrong. It's a broken foundation of a plan that purports to serve us for decades to come. Leaving out the 8,400 plus students who currently live three quarters of the year or more on San Diego State and use our infrastructure is wrong. And then for four years, the planning department, instead of asking our own city parks department, they relied on Trust for Public Land score for the supposed ten minute walk.

That's gone now, but they had relied on it till just months ago. Found Trust for Public Land, found this little trail that's a utility easement North of Adams and East of Esther and decided to call it a park and then said we were ten minutes away. So, you know, that was so steep that even I as an experienced hiker couldn't use it without poles and gloves. So if you build something with a broken foundation, it's not going to get any better than that. So please send us back.

Thank you. Renee Mezzo?

Good morning, commissioners. My name is Renee Mezzo, and I'm representing the Atlantis Group. And the owners, some clients that we have along Montezuma Way. We are in full support of this plan update specifically as it relates to the increase of density around the corridors and in the CC 310 zone. We strongly support the land use designation and zoning as it provides for a development potential for much needed housing and reflects the community's planning goals. We would also like to thank city planning staff for their diligence and effort on moving this plan forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Evan Strahan?

Good morning, Chair Modine planning commissioners. My name is Evan Strahan. I'm speaking on behalf of the San Diego Regional Chamber of is that is that better? Thank you. My name is Evan Strahan. I'm speaking on behalf of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. Our mission is to make the San Diego region the best place to live and work. We encourage you to support the College Area Community Plan update today. Our member businesses know the acute need for additional housing to attract and retain talent here in San Diego, including the ability to allow students and recent graduates to live and work in our city. The update creates the capacity for thousands of new homes for this workforce as well as mixed use villages near the SDSU campus.

As a couple of presentations mentioned, we would like to see more of a focus on economic development in the plan. The economic prosperity element is very limited compared to other community plans, and we encourage the city to strategize about how to support current small businesses in the college area and how to create additional opportunity for new businesses to locate in the area. We ask you support the plan today based on its important overall land use goals. Thank you.

Thank you. Saul Amerling?

I'll focus on just one issue where the college community and the city's proposed community plan are already aligned, which is specifically the linear park on Montezuma Road. This is a one mile long park, and I am asking that the city consider seriously, we do not want a median that's not a park. We want the park on one side of Montezuma or the other. This will be a statement. This would make it a usable space.

This will add to our park area. It will give us a shaded area, meandering pathways, shade trees, maybe some water fountains, benches. It will make a promenade and it'll make a statement in the community as opposed to another median in the middle of the street with a little bit of green space on either side. Thank you.

Thank you.

Going to speakers online, Doreen Diaz. Please unmute yourself. You will have one minute to speak.

Hello. I am urging you to please vote no on this community plan update. The city is spending millions of dollars on lawsuits. The city is creating an equity forward and and inclusive community engagement, and it's obviously ignoring the community. You're ignoring the words and the desires of the community.

This type of increased identity is going to cause all the problems that went on in Brooklyn. When you build these massive structures without open space, all it does is create violence and increase mental illness. It makes unsafe communities, and you should not be targeting this area while protecting other areas. Thank you.

Thank you. Sharon Gell, please unmute yourself. You will have one minute.

Hello. The city's proposed college area plan update represents what the majority of people voted for in the last election when they elected pro housing candidates. It's more housing. It does include aspects of the seven vision plan that small group of mostly single family owners put together, but not the low housing numbers they want. That group doesn't represent more than 10,000 college students who live within walking distance of SDSU and other renters throughout the college area.

If the potential housing capacity in the city's plan isn't needed in the next thirty years, it won't be built. There isn't a problem. But if if it is needed, we need to be prepared. Please support the city plan that represents what the majority of voters in the college area and throughout San Diego voted for, more housing in San Diego. Thank you.

Thank you. User n w Will, please state your name for the record, and you all have one minute. Hello.

My name is Nate Wilson. I'm a student at San Diego State, and I just wanted to reiterate what Robert said a lot earlier in regards to making sure density is right next to the city. I mean, right next to San Diego State. I think that people are overexaggerating how much transit and how much people actually use transit. And as a student, for example, I'm, like, housing right next to right across from San Diego State in that main corridor on Montezuma and and college, those are the units that we actually want to be building in order to have a safe and easy travel path for students to go.

If you build it all the way down, especially in these areas with high fire risk, it becomes an issue not only for safety, but also for convenience for students. And people will not. It's just not equitable or happy for anyone to deal with. Thank you.

Thank you. I know, mister Galloway, you wanted to make a clarifying comment, And that concludes our public comment.

Thank you, Chair. Yes. I just quickly want to say before we had started hearing public comments, Commissioner Reeves asked a question and staff followed up. I just want to give a quick clarification on that response. The potential park points that were identified, that does include and 6,500 potential points, that includes a potential for development to include that, but that also has a potential for other opportunity needs to come up in terms of acquisition of additional park space because we don't know necessarily how many exact points each development may wanna provide, and then they do have the option of of developing as a park or looking at just as a public space, which would affect the number of points calculated.

Thank you. Can move on to commission comment, vice chair Boomhauer.

Thank you, chair Modane, and thank you to staff, especially mister Klausman. This this is great work. This plan has been a long time coming, and I I think we've even heard today people that aren't crazy about the current plan think you and and your team working on this have been doing good work. That almost never gets said. So the longer I'm on planning commission, the more I'm impressed with the work that city planning does on these plans and the data analysis that underpins all of these planning efforts.

Miss Tomlin, miss gallo mister Galloway, your teams should be commended for that. And I also wanna thank and I know there's some members from the department here. I I wanna thank the fire department. The memo that SDFD put together in their analysis was super helpful in understanding some of the concerns that this that the community raised, but also just allowing us as as a planning commission, I think, to to be able to understand how you were planning for that and accommodating the the real concerns about fires in this area and and other public safety needs. As my colleague, commissioner Ranger, had said at the last hearing on Midway Rising and actually commissioner Mazari said earlier today, transit oriented development does only work if transit is in place.

However, this is one of the most connected transit transit connected neighborhoods in San Diego, and that transit is heavily used. The SANDAG and MTS data supports this. I've we've reviewed those plans before. We've looked at that information. I look at it regularly in my day job.

And so I'm really glad to see housing densification, but especially along the main corridors and adjacent to this transit. That's what the community has been asking for. Frankly, that's what this planning commission has asked for as we've workshopped this. I think you've heard that the community may not be happy with with the amount of the density there, but that's the right place to put it. It actually goes to that online student's comment about places to put the housing and the density both for San Diego State and also for the larger neighborhood. And just because I keep doing this, I'm gonna give a shout out to the the friends of the library. Yeah. You the the city completely swung and missed on this one. I've acknowledged that before. You've acknowledged it.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot we can do about it. That property's gone. I think the plan does what it can to to try to recognize that and and incorporate future library infrastructure. So let's turn to parks infrastructure. Staff has said this. Members of the community have said this. I'm gonna echo it. This is a mature community. Adding massive amounts of new park space is gonna be nearly impossible. I think that the staff's plan for adding more park and rec space where feasible is logical.

I'd rather have this approach by staff, frankly, than magical thinking that just kind of shows blocks of current housing that would have to be seized and turned into parks and specifically addressing a couple of the public comments that talked about Eastern block planning. That, by the way, would be Eastern block planning. Hi. You need to give up your house and your block because we're taking it for park space for the greater good. But I live in the Mid Cities.

And I you know, David Modi was here and and made the comment about the the Park Desert, and it's it's kinda true. Midcities is underparked compared to other parts of the city, but that simply isn't sufficient reason to stop this plan. Because, and I've said this before, and I'm gonna say it again, we need more housing of all types at all price points in every neighborhood in San Diego. The communities raised concern about housing being placed in lower resource areas. I I disagree with them.

The staff report disagrees with that. The highest proposed densities are proposed near the trolley in a high resource opportunity area. The the report backs that saying it's not so doesn't make it true. The community planning group and their argument against this plan uses the Sandag population growth numbers for needed housing, but then fails to recognize the current housing deficit in San Diego. San Diego's current housing deficit, depends on the study, is somewhere between 96 and a 130,000 housing units, and that's just units that haven't been built historically that are needed for population and job growth.

On top of that, we also need to be building additional housing every year just to meet ongoing growth needs of people that already live here that would like to be able to stay here, whether they're college students or people that are want to move to the area. Because frankly, San Diego is pretty great. I actually have been on this planning commission long enough that I can remember when the college area community's concern was mini dorms coming in and destroying the single family areas. And here we have a plan that the planning city planning department has worked on thoughtfully that adds sufficient housing units that it's going to stop that kind of wholesale decimation of single family neighborhoods by converting them to mini dorms, by putting housing in the right places with the right amenities. Taking a position that we do not need more housing is shortsighted, but that makes sense as a position if you already own a home and have lived in San Diego for decades.

I personally am far more concerned about making sure that San Diego remains the dynamic growing metro area for the rest of my life and well into the future. But I acknowledge that change is scary, especially for older residents and especially when this change is being in this fear of this change is being fear mongered by special interest groups and news outlets. But the staff and the Planning Commission have a job and that's to consider the concerns of current residents, but to balance that with the needs for future generations who are going to live, work and play in this neighborhood, long after many of the older current residents have moved on. We need to be planning for Gen Z and Gen A, not for baby boomers or my generation Gen X. So all my concerns have been addressed.

I it's not a perfect plan. None of these community plans are. I think the community raises valid concerns, and I think that city council, as they consider this, are going to have to think about how do we add infrastructure, how do we make sure that this community's needs are addressed within the constraints that have developed over generations. But I am prepared to move to recommend council approval of this community plan update per staff's recommendations. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other commissioners would like to speak? Go.

Commissioner Malbro?

Thank you, chair, and thank you, staff, for your your hard work. I just have a couple questions, and then I'll make a few comments. I hope you can hear me back there. Okay. Great. So you re we received a letter from the district dated October 3, and I'm assuming that they knew about this much earlier than that. Correct?

Yeah. That is correct. We have semiannual meetings with San Diego Unified School District.

Okay. So one of the things that jumped out to me where their concern is that based on the on this plan draft this draft plan, a thirty year plan, that it could produce about 5,549 students, and majority of them are elementary. And they they gave me reason to they they kinda said, like, we don't know what to do with this. Is is that how you took that?

I I took the letter as, you know, if, if the community were to build out at full capacity, over the next twenty to thirty years, and this is a possible amount of students, that that could need new facilities in the community. So we try to address that in the plan with policies and by acknowledging that new new school facilities could be required in the future to meet the demands of the students.

Right. And the other portion of that, you mentioned just going raising after one story schools to two stories, and that didn't sound like a plan that they could possibly do. And

I'm I as I read the letter, it seemed like the the assumption was that we meant that they could, build a story on an existing school, whereas the intent was more so that, existing sites could, build up, on the existing footprints.

Okay. You might wanna try to reword that a little bit in the plan. Yeah. Of ball of honesty

Sure.

On that. And I and I feel that. I I it's it's a shame that you got this just, six days ago. That's just not a nonworker for me. Also, this goes to the parks. They are actually built out, and if we were to try to put parks in, it would actually have an impact. And I think commissioner Boomhammer. You were so close. I know. I wanna just call you boomer, but boogram. So he mentioned this, and if we were to add parks, it would actually it would actually impact neighbors neighbor neighborhood residential. Correct?

There is no very limited vacant land in college area. It's all developed.

Okay. And there was another mention about the low four and how that could produce additional density. Can you explain that to me, please?

Well, we have a citywide housing program called Complete Communities Housing Solutions. And so that's an incentive program that a property owner could use to develop property in exchange for providing affordable affordable homes and public spaces on-site.

And so it would could have a change in what that would look like as it faces up with, current development. Correct?

Can sorry. Could you repeat the question?

If they could add more density than what we're if they can do that, it it would have an impact to the residential areas that are that are not in the same level.

There there is limited low four, in the the residential areas. We've pulled a lot of that back, but Complete Communities Housing Solutions would would be an option, and it would be a different program than the base zone.

Okay. And I brought this up. I know that, but I I just want it for the the record. So public safety, I I wanna congratulate you on your report. I have been around here long enough, and this is the first time that I've seen a report that has actually provided what you're doing now, what your situation is now, and what you believe will happen and what you will need. You actually asked for it in your report. My days, we couldn't ask. We couldn't say anything. So I wanna bring that to that attention. This is something new, and I hope it continues to happen because it's very important.

So thank you again on that. So, Steph, I just wanted to I know I asked some questions, but I I I just wanted to say I know how tough your job is. Your job is to try to balance our our city policies for goals, for housing, and and what have you, and then plus try to work with the community. And in my opinion, you did a very good job at trying to do that, and and I'm pretty much in favor of of this this up this community plan upgrade. The only thing that I will say I'll have a concern about, and it's a term called transit lag and density serve.

That is a very scary part to me because I feel that it can't happen in this city since we really have no power over what transit does or does not not do. And I hope that you we can work with them, and maybe in the future, if that doesn't work, we may have to come up with some other ways as to what we can only do if they because we have to use we we are required to use planned development in some of these, and they're based on that. And that's the scary part because they don't really have to transit doesn't really have to do that, and we don't seem to have any empowerment. And I don't wanna go after developers, but we may have to do something like that in the near future if we start to see the transit lag versus diversity I mean, density surge. So with that, I'll just say I am in support.

Did you did we get a did you make a motion?

I made a motion.

You did? Did you get a second? Not yet. Oh, I'll I'll second the motion then. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Reeves?

Thank you, chair Modine. Thank you, staff, for your presentation, for all your work on this, and to the community as always for coming out, making your voices heard. Couple quick questions. I should have asked this at the front, but it sort of popped into mind during some of the public comment. Can you speak a little bit to the planning that went into evacuation routes and the fire high fire hazard severity zone area? There there are a number of comments about that being insufficient, and I'd love for you to just address that.

Sure. So we we did look at the land use plan, the proposed land use plan, and the very high fire hazard severity zones. And in response to the planning board and some public comment, we've refined the land use plan to remove those, change areas, from the the zones, with the exception of areas, very approximate to San Diego State University, and to transit. As it as it relates to evacuation planning and evacuation routes, I I think it's, sort of intuitive that the main corridors serve as the routes to use to evacuate in the event of an emergency, but every emergency is different.

And if I could just Sure. Thank you, Nathan. If I could also perhaps maybe answer that question, have deputy chief fire marshal Tosca come up. Thank you.

Excuse me. So when it comes to the evacuation planning, you have to look at it from future infrastructure, new codes and standards that fall under the fire hazard severity zone. So let's think about what the fire hazard severity zone's intent is. So the intent of the new fire hazard severity zones, when we adopt the state's map, we amended the zones to make them all very high, and then we expanded the buffer zones to capture more areas to mitigate the hazard. So us hazard is is the risk of fire, the frequency rate and spread of fire, if we define that.

So when we look at the areas that we talked about that or if we're gonna do development within those zones, we can use several codes and standards to add additional evacuation routes. We get noncombustible construction. So that emitter resistant zones, new zone zero. When you put new development outside of those zones, you kinda lose that. So the ability to add additional evacuation routes.

That's for future planning. So there's some benefits, just something to consider when something's outside the hazardous zone. But for existing nonconforming communities, there's been a lot of code changes for for that. AB twenty nine eleven amended the public resource code, so we have the the subdivision review program. So we look at at risk communities within this area.

We look at improvements to construction to the area, adding new developments to add secondary evacuation routes. Those are all considerations in in that area. When it comes to the response side of it and the planning so, you heard, a lot of these are incident driven. So we have multiple agreements within the city and county. We have Annex Q with the in the county evacuation plan. That's a a formulated plan already there. We have unique set of plans with operational plans within the fire department. The boundaries have dropped. We have the metro zone agreement. We can respond within one boundary one mile in and outside the boundaries.

First available apparatus gets there. So, also, we have the Genesis Protect, so we have much more available technology. So when there's a fire, depending on what direction the fire is coming from, we will evacuate particular zones. We'll augment staffing with inclement weather. We'll add additional brush rigs, helicopters, and so on. So these are some of the things considered on the planning phase, both existing nonconforming, future development, and operational.

Wow. Thank you. That was that was really helpful. Did you get all that? Really appreciate that response. Thank you so much. Okay. So I feel comfortable that that issue's been addressed. So I'm gonna just make a few comments. I I sympathize on a lot of the things that were said, the the issue with the library.

I'll agree with my colleague. That's a bummer. That that is really a problem that that, you know, that has that opportunity has passed. This is not a planning thing, so I'm gonna couch it as that as an implementation, consideration, the city can do a lot of things to help get people to and from community amenities, like community shuttles, things like that. Would love for the city to consider doing something like that here to help community members get to and from that menu without having to drive their own car.

Recognize that's outside of our purview, but just wanted to say that. On the, park and open space efficiency issue, you know, built out neighborhoods. This is gonna be a problem everywhere. I think even some of the maps that were shown by the by the speakers underscores that point. Yeah.

It's a park desert. Right? And that's because these are the some of the oldest neighborhoods in our in our city, and they were built out a long time ago, before these standards standards were created. So it is a necessity to get creative on how to create enough opportunities for people to recreate in these neighborhoods. I I know people hate this comparison, but I think downtown has done a good job in a lot of ways in getting parks built where there was not a dedicated lot or lots to build that park.

They've partnered with developers. The most recent parks developed downtown other than East Village Green were built by the developers adjacent to those sites. So it can be done in a in a thoughtful and creative way. I hope it will be here. And then, you know, this probably doesn't need to be said, but I'm gonna say it. It's a planning document. Right? We don't operate on the assumption that every one of these parcels will be built out to the maximum that it can be. I also think, some of the eye popping comparisons from current today to what the maximum capacity in the new plan is. I mean, those are eye popping intentionally.

It's a little disingenuous to me to compare existing population to max build out in a proposed plan. They should be compared max build out to max build out plan to plan be simply because the number of people living there may not ever achieve that max build out. So you cannot make that comparison 300% versus what I think staff shown was just north of a 100% increase. It's unfortunate that we're seeing these sort of inaccuracies in in the public comment, but I understand that it's coming from a good place. You know, it's it it this is tough.

And, you know, I I, again, I sympathize with community members who have lived here, owned property here for a very long time, and don't wanna see this kind of increase in density, this change. But, you know, we also can't pretend like the city's not growing. The the population growth is only one component of it. We are underbuilt. We have to build in order to meet just today's needs, not to mention future needs.

So we need to keep that in mind. You know, we're it's overstated. This this is a buzzword. It doesn't really mean anything anymore, but we're in a housing crisis. That's not gonna end if we don't build and build and create enough capacity to build in these neighborhoods.

It was said that this would suck away, you know, energy from downtown. Downtown cannot accommodate the hundreds of thousands of, you know, units that we need in the city to just accommodate who lives here today. I don't wanna see people forced out of San Diego simply because they can't afford to live here, simply because there's nowhere for them to go. That is an unacceptable solution to the problem. We need to be able to fairly and in a thoughtful way create plans that allow for people to remain in San Diego, allow people to move to San Diego, and allow people to, you know, grow their families here and have generational growth here in San Diego without kids having to leave and move elsewhere where it's more affordable.

It's it's tricky. These things always are. I commend staff for doing, you know, a really thoughtful, you know, process here and and for going on bike rides with community members and things. I mean, that's incredible. Good way to go on that. So I'm gonna support the motion. I just wanna say thank you once again to everybody, and your your voices are heard. I understand where you're coming from, but I think we need to look to the future and and plan for the future.

Thank you. Commissioner Miyahara?

I was overall pleased with the the plan updates. I think city staff did a great job. I share many of the same thoughts and comments as my fellow commissioners. We're putting density along major transit corridors next to transit hubs, which is where we want housing to go. I was pleased to see, on the plan pedestrian network map, some changes from district to corridor along El Boulevard between College and Montezuma for the planned bicycle network.

Happy to see changes from class four cycle track to bus bike lane along El Cajon Boulevard. I think that's where we're gonna see, you know, a lot of a lot of bodies, a lot of movement, and then changes along Montezuma and changes on College Avenue next to the university. I do have a question on the land use map in the, what is that? Northeastern Corner along Alvarado. I noticed that that parcel maybe you can pull up the map if so you can see which one I'm talking about.

But it was downsized for medium four in the 2025 draft plan back in January or February, which appears to now be medium one. And I think that existing uses, some older housing stock, low density compartments.

Are you mhmm. Sorry, commissioner. You're referring to, Reservoir Drive, just south of, the East Campus Medical Center or

just west of it? Just east of it. Yep. Next to the the community commercial parcel. Oh, I see. On Alvarado. I'm just curious because, you know On Alvarado. Just down the street from the the trolley stop. So why are we why are we down zoning what was originally proposed to be higher density?

The reason that we changed the the land use plan is to reflect what we think will actually occur over the next twenty to thirty years. All of those properties are condos. So Oh, okay. It's unlikely that they would redevelop no matter what the land use designation is.

That that makes more sense. For some reason, I thought that was apartment. So that that does make sense. And then if you wouldn't mind, can you pull up and put on the screen slide seven of the PowerPoint? I like this slide because it it it compared previously approved community plans.

Thanks. I mean, I think we should acknowledge that, you know, the existing housing units in in all of these plans are below well below in some cases, you know, what what was adopted in the older plan. Updating plans is necessary to essentially create incentives for redevelopment of property, right, which is what we're trying to do. We're trying to create more housing stock. I'm gonna pick on Kearny Mesa.

I think University of Mira Mesa uptown are are too fresh, but I live nearby, and I office in Kearny Mesa, So I have a pretty good take of, you know, what's going on in that community. The community plan was, I think, adopted in 2020. It allowed for approximately 20,000 new units, increasing from 6,000 to about 26,000, a 339% increase. I say that because I office there. I know what's going going on in the area.

I count Atorlieb's six new developments, primarily apartments in this area since 2020. I can't imagine that's more than, you know, 2,000 units in total. I think one of the other commissioners acknowledged that development happens over time. This this plan update is not going to mean a bunch of new housing overnight. I think the example of Kearny Mesa really represents what's going to happen.

It's really going to take time. I do have some concerns over the community enhancement overlay zone, the potential requirements and impacts that it might introduce. My hope is that the way city staff is proposing to rezone some of these parcels that are gonna be impacted by that, that it really helps balance and offset some of those impacts. But overall, I think this plan is really good. I think city staff has been very thoughtful, very thorough in the updates, and I'll be supporting it.

Thank you. Deputy Chief Tosca, do you mind answering some questions? I I read your letter. I'd it would be helpful if you wouldn't mind just summarizing it, really quick for for the public record. And then I I have some follow-up questions.

Certainly. So the the memorandum, just to kind account for a high level overview for future fire protection needs for the general plan safety element. What it accounts for is an accumulation of call response times and commitment times where a fire apparatus is dedicated to a call, so we have to pull in another one. It also accounts for firefighters per capita need, which equates to future projected fire station needs and locations which would be ideal to mitigate any significant impacts.

So I noticed that on average you have a five point five minute response time. And I know there's concern that there's not a fire station actually within the College Area Community Plan. What is the average response time like citywide?

Citywide, you know, I have to look at that to give the exact numbers. It comes from our emergency response planning group. I don't know the exact number off the top my head, but we can get that to you.

Would you say it's relatively close to the five minute response time?

Yeah, I think the main goal is below six minutes on average, but I'd have to look at the our key performance indicators, what we have for our goals for response times and our city gate studies for our response planning for standards for response cover.

I just didn't know what five point five minutes was in comparison.

Right? It was an average looking at the existing conditions of the total call volume for those response districts, Station 1017, and 31. So I did a totality of the past three years of total calls and response times. You look at their average response times per year. I said looking at all of those response times per year, overall all those stations was 5.5.

And so you're saying less than six is the goal?

Overall, that's usually kind of a common standard.

Okay. That was just my questions on the fire. Thank you. I sure appreciate that. I know on a previous workshop, I really wanted better bike lanes along Montezuma, and I see that implemented here. So I'm happy about that. I think the mobility plan is good. I know that this area would probably likely have more bike users than other communities, so I'm happy to see that addressed. I also thank staff for considering the boundary adjustment. I remember in other workshops, that was a kind of a hot topic that was brought up a lot.

So thank you for doing that. I agree with my fellow commissioners on density. San Diego State is looking to have enrollment up to 50,000 students by 2030. The only way to address that is high density on traffic corridors. Unless you guys want it deep in your single family home neighborhoods, which you don't.

Because I've heard countless times about mini dorms and ADUs. So the ADU plan has been rolled back, and the only way to address mini dorms is to create what we're already seeing on Montezuma pretty close to campus. And that's what needs to happen, especially when we have enrollment going being increased at the levels year over year at San Diego State, which the city doesn't control. But the city has to mitigate those housing impacts to the best of their ability, which is by creating density in these corridors. Or we're just going to see more and more of these single family homes taken over by students and disrupting people's lives.

So I'm very supportive of the plan. I think it is well crafted. Steph, I think you've done a great job. I will say we had a lot of speakers today, and I appreciate everybody's comments. I kind of wish we had a little bit more of this when we were workshopping it as opposed to when it's coming to the approval timeline. And hopefully, in future community plans, we get a little more engagement in the workshops at Planning Commission. I don't see any other commissioners wanting to speak, I know we have a motion and a second. And I think we can go to a vote.

There it is. Okay. That was good. I did it.

I did it this way.

You did it. It's not you.

It wasn't him. Okay.

That passes unanimously, and our meeting is adjourned. Thank you.