SAN DIEGO | Boom Rundown, Vol. 2

[unpermitted_variance]

Oof, hate to agree with the NIMBYs on this one but the developer's rationale for the density bonus is a very cynical twist of the law, and a huge stretch. Kind of goes to show some of the issues with the state density bonus law, as it can be interpreted vaguely in a way that subverts zoning expectations laid out by planners and can kick up a lot of noise in the community. That being said, this is a cool looking project and is in no way out of scale for the area, so really I suppose my bone to pick is with the base zoning.

[SDCAL]

Originally Posted by Streamliner

East Village Green, downtown San Diego’s long-promised park, now costs $80M and comes with fewer features
Jennifer Van Grove
May 17, 2022

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...fewer-features

Tuesday, City Council members will vote on whether to allocate another $27.3 million from downtown-specific funds to the now $79.6 million project. The action, if approved, tees up construction to start in August on the first phase of East Village Green, or 2 acres of public park amenities, including downtown’s first recreation center.

Per the updated timeline, the project should be completed in February 2025.

The latest ask, which does not include money from the city’s general fund, comes 2.5 years after the council approved a $52.3 million budget for the park. Since then, the city has worked to secure permits. In late 2021, Civic San Diego solicited bids for construction.

“Both qualifying bids blew the budget significantly,” said Christina Bibler, who is the city’s director of economic development and noted that increases to construction costs over time were to blame. “It was a shock to everyone. It was much more excessive than we had ever expected.”
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She’s an economic director for development and is “shocked” that things go way up in price when they sit on them for years? Hmmmmm. Ok.

[FromSD]

San Diego needs more park space, especially Downtown. The problem with this project is that half of the "hard costs" is devoted to providing a two-level underground parking structure for park goers, "staff" and "monthly passholders." $34.9 million to provide 182 parking spaces...Downtown. Why? Are people going to be driving from other areas of the county to use this fairly small park? How many staff does this park require that an underground parking structure must be set aside for them? Monthly passholders? Why should adding a park entail providing monthly paid parking? It's a park, not a general parking facility.

This is so typical of the wrong-headed approach to planning in San Diego. It's as if city leaders thought San Diego had vast financial resources. The little money the city has gets spent on astronomically expensive parking, and then people just shake their heads at the obvious waste and vote no on the next park or infrastructure bond issue. An even more outrageous example is SANDAG's out-of-the-blue proposal to spend $4 billion on two people mover links to San Diego's single runway airport. Because other cities have rail links to the airport. Never mind that San Diego's rail transit system is severely underdeveloped, and that relatively few people will be able to take transit to access the airport people mover. And that few people in the county put a higher priority on a people mover to the airport than on more basic infrastructure like pothole-free streets and decent bus and rail transit.