In October, La Jolla Shores Association heard about parking expansion at UC San Diego, clashing with the university over the “timeliness” of scheduled public review for a new planned parking structure.
UC San Diego representative Anu Delouri presented on plans for the Voigt parking structure, a proposed project calling for a four-story, two-bay parking structure that would support about 840 parking spaces for faculty, staff, and students. She said it was an increase of as many as 791 parking spaces from the current campus inventory.
“We have environmental documents out for a mitigated negative declaration (no significant issues) in Warren College on west campus,” Delouri said, adding, “The public review period closes Nov. 9.”
Noted Delouri, “This structure will accommodate an existing 400 spaces and an additional 400 spaces.”
“This is too important a project to dump on the community over the (year-end) holidays,” replied acing LJSA chair Janie Emerson. “We are dark in December. We feel like the university is trying to shove something through.”
“The only way a project like this can be stopped, if anybody wanted to do that, is to intervene during this time period (45-day public review),” said LJSA board member Dede Donovan.
“We didn’t have the flexibility, at the time, to release it (mitigated negative declaration) anytime sooner,” replied Delouri. “There is no way we (university) can delay it.”
“Getting it released sooner — that would help,” said LJSA board member David Gordon, who asked, “Any way you could get it out before Nov. 1?”
“We should put it on the agenda for next month, at least that would give us a shot to look at it right at the beginning,” said board member Mary Munk.
“I move we oppose the timeline,” said Donovan.
“We appreciate your coming and telling us things we don’t want to hear,” said board member Susan Chern. “With UC San Diego, it always feels like they’re running roughshod over the community. That perception never seems to go away.”
LJSA voted overwhelmingly to oppose the university’s stated timeline for the project.
LJSA will next meet Wednesday, Nov. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in Building T-29 at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
