{"id":236473,"date":"2013-09-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/new-city-planner-on-the-scene\/"},"modified":"2013-09-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-03T07:00:00","slug":"new-city-planner-on-the-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/new-city-planner-on-the-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"New City Planner on the scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony King | Downtown Assistant Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis sat down with the city\u2019s new Planning Director Bill Fulton at Politifest Aug. 3 in Point Loma to talk about one of the things the former mayor of Ventura, Calif. was hired for: planning neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>
New City Planner Bill Fulton (Courtesy personal collection of William Fulton)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The discussion touched on several general topics, including the status of current Community Plan Updates, issues of density and infrastructure and the proposed lid over state Route 94.<\/p>\n

First however, Fulton laid out exactly why he chose to stay in the position after the sexual-harassment scandal that marred Mayor Bob Filner\u2019s last two months in office, which saw several other Filner appointees leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cLa visi\u00f3n que se ha establecido para centrarse en los vecindarios y revitalizar algunos de los vecindarios que se han pasado por alto, esos desaf\u00edos permanecen y son tan relevantes y significativos como siempre\u201d, dijo Fulton. \u201cNo quiero alejarme de eso\u201d.<\/p>\n

Filner appointed Fulton planning director in June, and Fulton moved into the position July 8, four weeks before the Politifest discussion and almost two months before Filner\u2019s resignation was final. Fulton is a nationally recognized urban planning expert, publisher of the California Planning & Development Report and, most recently, the former vice president of Smart Growth America, a think tank that promotes urban development.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenges and the opportunities that I was presented with when the Mayor asked me to take that job, those are unchanged,\u201d Fulton said.<\/p>\n

It was smart growth \u2013 a term used to describe denser neighborhoods surrounding amenities like businesses and transit instead of suburban sprawl \u2013 that Lewis initially discussed, moving into a conversation about existing community plans.<\/p>\n

San Diego is currently updating nine community plans, which will in turn direct the city\u2019s overall General Plan. There are four Community Plan Updates in Uptown \u2013 the Greater Gold Hill Community Plan, North Park Community Plan, Old Town Plan and Uptown Community Plan \u2013 and several in South San Diego, including the Barrio Logan, Encanto, Otay Mesa and San Ysidro community plans. Ocean Beach is also being updated, among others.<\/p>\n

Los planes proporcionar\u00e1n un "marco para el futuro", dijo Fulton, tanto para la "inversi\u00f3n p\u00fablica como para el desarrollo privado" en las comunidades.<\/p>\n

\u201cEn mi mente, haremos grandes planes. Vamos a escuchar a la comunidad\u201d, dijo. \u201cAlgunas comunidades estar\u00e1n m\u00e1s interesadas en tener m\u00e1s desarrollo que otras, y eso est\u00e1 bien. Enfocaremos ese desarrollo adicional en los lugares correctos tanto como podamos\u201d.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest obstacles in planning for San Diego\u2019s future is the city\u2019s current infrastructure deficit, or backlog of larger capital projects that Community Plans can address. Some estimate the deficit reaches over $890 million, and Fulton called it the \u201csingle-biggest challenge\u201d in the region\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are going to put additional growth in the right locations in the neighborhoods, mostly in transit-rich locations around the city, we\u2019re going to have to address the infrastructure problem as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Uptown, with some community planners eschewing higher density and growth, Fulton said it was better to be prepared for what he said was inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cEn mi experiencia de 30 a\u00f1os en California, lo que he descubierto es que cuando una comunidad trata de negar que va a haber crecimiento, fracasa\u201d, dijo Fulton. "Simplemente tratar de negar que va a suceder, generalmente significa que suceder\u00e1 de todos modos, y no suceder\u00e1 tan bien como podr\u00eda".<\/p>\n

Fulton worked on the North Park Update several years ago as a consultant, and now lives in Little Italy. He said he is \u201cintensely involved in the communities and neighborhoods,\u201d every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cNuestro objetivo es equilibrar los intereses de cada barrio con los intereses de la ciudad como un agujero\u201d, dijo. Tambi\u00e9n dijo que su objetivo era hacer avanzar los planes m\u00e1s r\u00e1pido y hacer que los planes aborden los cambios con mayor eficacia.<\/p>\n

Heading into Downtown, for example, Fulton acknowledged that a lid or cap over SR 94, as part of the planned Express Lanes Project, was something residents really want.<\/p>\n

\u201cEso es algo que est\u00e1 en discusi\u00f3n. Es algo muy costoso de hacer\u201d, dijo, y agreg\u00f3 que en Ventura se est\u00e1 considerando una propuesta similar. \u201cA medida que avanzamos y construimos m\u00e1s cosas, eso... puede ayudar a reparar nuestros vecindarios, en lugar de da\u00f1arlos a\u00fan m\u00e1s\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony King | Downtown Assistant Editor Voice of San Diego CEO Scott Lewis sat down with the city\u2019s new Planning Director Bill Fulton at Politifest Aug. 3 in Point Loma to talk about one of the things the former mayor of Ventura, Calif. was hired for: planning neighborhoods. The discussion touched on several general topics, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":236474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"New City Planner on the scene","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}