But the answers come down to money, as always
By Doug Curlee | Editor at Large
City-planning efforts in San Diego are set up to involve the many community planning groups in order to set agendas, or wish lists, for what projects are deemed most important.
Every planning group in the city has similar kinds of problems making the wishes come true.
The Navajo Community Planners, Inc. (NCPI) recently sent a wish list of six items it hopes the city will fund and complete over the next five years. The three top items have been on the NCPI list for more years than some people like to remember.
Number one on the list is Alvarado Creek stormwater and flooding issues.
We’ve written before about the Alvarado Creek problems, and some steps have been taken to alleviate the immediate flooding problems there. The city of San Diego has dredged and cleared some of the non-native vegetation and trolley construction debris left behind. The city is now working with the trolley people to continue that cleanup, but those are at best temporary measures, awaiting the long-planned and debated construction of a permanent fix.
Planning board member Dan Smith, a developer whose property near Mission Gorge Road and Interstate 8 is always flooded when it rains, has been a constant leader in calling for the creek fix and other work there as essential to the overall development plans for the Grantville area.
“I’ve got plans in file cabinets that detail previous efforts to build a permanent channel for the creek that have gone as far as design and cost analysis. One of them dates back to 2000, and would have cured the problems halting massive redevelopment in the Grantville area. But that’s as far as it ever got,” said Smith.
“There are definite plans on the books for the big Centerpoint residential and business development, but those plans can’t really happen without a permanent fix for the creek problem.”
The city is now working with the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) to get a grant from the regional agency to begin design and preliminary work on the creek solution. But it will all come down to money — where to get it, and how to spend it. There could be state and federal money in addition to city funding, but the planning process has to be identifiably far along — at 30 percent — before those plans can advance to actually turning over shovels-full of dirt. Much of this local money will have to come from developer impact fees, which would not come into play until there is actually some development going on, according to Seth Litchney of the city planning department.
Numbers two, three and four on the wish list have the same financing problems with developer impact fees that will not be paid until there is actually development going on.
They are the restriping of Fairmount Avenue between the I-8 ramps; the badly needed realignment of Alvarado Canyon Road; and the expansion of the Allied Gardens Recreation Center.
All are dependent on the developer impact fees that have not been paid, because there is no development currently going on.
Many have likened this to a Catch-22 situation. That’s probably accurate, but it is what it is.
Items five and six on the wish list are actually showing measurable progress, at least by comparison.
Number five is the Pershing Middle School joint-use project, where a half a million dollars has already been allocated to replace artificial turf at the school site.
The sixth and final wish list item is actually in the design and preparation stages for the long-awaited San Carlos Library replacement. This has been planned and talked about for at least two decades, if not longer. The site was once a gas station, so environmental cleanup is still ongoing. Once the county hazmat people give the OK, the city can buy the property and get that project rolling.
None of this is easy, and none of this will happen next week. But at least people are thinking about all of it, which hasn’t always been the case in the past.
—Doug Curlee is Editor-at-Large. Reach him at [email protected].
