City Council to hear BR Station Project On Oct. 14, the SD City Council will hear an important issue that will affect development on La Jolla Boulevard in Bird Rock, and other parts of La Jolla. This is the Bird Rock Station (or Mixed Use) Project which seeks to build a three-story building where only two stories are allowed. The LJ Planned District Ordinance restricts commercial buildings to two stories in Zone 4 to give a height transition/buffer between the businesses and homes. Obviously, this transition is very important for the quality of life in the adjacent homes. Approving this project will not only allow this three-story building, but will set the precedent for deviations allowing at least two other pending projects to do the same, and then likely more projects will follow. All La Jolla Zone 4 will lose this restriction. This is important for all of La Jolla as well since the two stories above the commercial ground floor will be condos. Population, crowding and traffic will increase and views will be lost. The only one benefiting will be the developers. This developer seeks a second deviation from the LJ PDO by placing a driveway on Bird Rock Avenue, next to the splitter island. The PDO requires him to use the convenient alley. His plan will interfere with traffic flow on Bird Rock Ave and La Jolla Boulevard. This project is a direct contradiction to the community’s repeated reviews and feedback. There have been about 39 public meetings about this project and it has never been positively received; every community planning group, including the LJ CPA, has consistently rejected it. It was approved by the City Planning Commission. To prevent this project from being built, please attend the SD City Council Meeting. See the No Third Story Web site www.NoThirdStory.org for details and updates. Yes, we do need contributions for the legal fund (see the website). Michael Costello, Bird Rock Bird Rock Station: put a stake in its heart Over the years, community action has been instrumental in preserving La Jolla’s special quality of life and its Village atmosphere. Most recently, the community came together to successfully block paid on-street parking. Now the community’s help is needed again. The issue is the Bird Rock Station (BRS) project. During the last two and a half years, the applicant has made numerous attempts to undermine the integrity of La Jolla’s Planned District Ordinance (PDO) by eliminating or by circumventing the two-story commercial building height limit. This limit has successfully prevented out-of-scale commercial development in La Jolla for more than 20 years. And three times during these last two and a half years, the community has rejected these attempts, mostly recently by the Community Planning Association. You would think that three strikes and you are out — but not in this case. It is now time to finally put a stake in BRS’ heart. I am urging as many of my fellow citizens as possible to join me at 2 p.m. at City Hall on Tuesday, Oct. 14, to request the City Council to say “yes” to protecting La Jolla’s special quality of life and Village atmosphere and to say “yes” to protecting the integrity of the PDO by saying “no” to Bird Rock Station. And if you cannot be there in person, please write or e-mail the City Council to let them know where you stand. You can make a difference. Jim Fitzgerald, La Jolla Nothing is the same Judge Pate ruled that the water at the Children’s Pool must be returned to the level it was in 1931. How is that possible? All the seawater for hundreds of miles around is polluted at the 2008 level. The ruling was utterly absurd. The Children’s Pool is only a small cove, not a pool. The water changes completely twice a day because of the tides, and is constantly re-supplied with fresh surf. It would be impossible to put it back to the 1931 level. The judge might just as well have ruled that the City of San Diego must clean up the 2008 heavily polluted air over the area to the 1931 level. The judges and the attorneys who support the ruling ought to go back to high school and take a basic science course, or at least read almost any current periodical. Nothing in this world is the same as it was in 1931. Nothing, that is, except human greed, and even that seems to have gotten worse. Peter Fraser, La Jolla