In March, Midway Community Planning Group (MCPG) bid goodbye to its longtime chair Melanie Nickel and appointed her successor, as well as discussing a local architect’s suggestions on a mobility analysis for the ongoing Midway Community Plan update.
“I’ve been on this planning board for 16 years and chaired it for the last 10 years,” said Nickel, who is retiring and whose family business is closing, and is therefore no longer eligible to serve on the MCPG board. “It’s time for someone else to take over.”
That someone else turned out to be longtime MCPG board member Cathy Kenton, whom Nickel said “consented” to be nominated to the chairmanship of the group, despite being away on business this month.
“As the old saying goes, ‘Never miss a meeting of the nominating committee,'” joked Nickel.
Board member Kurt Sullivan was re-elected group vice chair. Kristy Swantson agreed to continue as group secretary.
Local architect John C. Ziebarth, AIA, LEED AP, gave a brief presentation, as well as distributing a handout to the group, discussing 18 items/issues he’d like to see dealt with more at length by the city in its ongoing revamping of the Midway Community Plan. That plan is the neighborhood’s blueprint for commercial and residential development.
In a detailed, four-page report with a diagram, Ziebarth expressed several concerns he has with a draft mobility analysis being conducted by city staff as part of the traffic study being performed for the Midway Community Plan update.
A revamped Midway Community Plan, adopted in 1991 and significantly amended in 1999, is currently in the works. Once enacted, it is intended to be viable for the next 20 to 30 years.
Ziebarth questioned the veracity of several issues/points made in a working draft of the mobility analysis. Items he touched on included proposed urban trail segments, new bicycle facilities, center-median dimensions, left-turn pockets, potential acquisition of right-of-way and the potential creation of pedestrian walkways.
The architect also offered some suggestions of his own as to how traffic and circulation might be improved in the Midway District, large portions of which are dedicated to industrial and warehouse uses.
MCPG will next meet Wednesday, April 20 at 3 p.m. at San Diego Community College West Campus, 3249 Fordham St. in Room 205.