Posts about Responsible Development
Adverse Effect Here, Adverse Effect There, Adverse Effects Everywhere!
By Murtaza Baxamusa | Published in VoiceofSanDiego.org | December 1, 2010 |
I am quite amazed by the hullabaloo over the need for a report to justify that approval of superstores in the city will indeed bring economic value to San Diegans. The origin of this nonsense comes from the city’s Independent Budget Analyst (IBA), which hypothesized that the findings of a development permit “may constitute a de facto ban on superstore development.” An illustration of this concern by the IBA is the following finding in the proposed superstore ordinance: “The superstore will not adversely affect the city’s neighborhood and small businesses.” Read More
Socrates and Superstores
By Murtaza Baxamusa | Published in VoiceofSanDiego.org | November 2, 2010 |
Update: The San Diego City Council passed this ordinance on a five-three vote.
San Diego is often identified as a “City of Villages.” It derives its character from local business districts and diverse neighbors tied together through a filigree of natural resources. Our beaches, canyons, deserts and mountains encase our identity, and we loathe being the southern California expansion of Los Angeles.
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Be Wary of the ‘Cap Thing’
By Murtaza Baxamusa | Published in VoiceofSanDiego.org | October 13, 2010 |
There were very few people in this town that were paying attention to the “cap” thing downtown when it came up earlier this year. I was one of them, a policy wonk that cared about plans filled with esoteric planning jargon, who has been following this for a decade.
I have been skeptical about the authority the Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) had in approving development in downtown, and their record in implementing redevelopment and economic development. I have been a vocal critic of large publicly funded projects that do not benefit the community. In fact, I firmly believe that downtown is for everybody. Read More
Economic Soccer by CCDC
By Murtaza Baxamusa | Published in VoiceofSanDiego.org | June 22, 2010 |
If the soccer ball was stuffed with property tax dollars, some want to score it straight into the goalpost of downtown development.
Tuesday’s actions at City Hall made the downtown goalpost three times bigger. That means more property taxes will flow into redevelopment downtown. Now, will the lifting of the cap on redistributing property tax downtown be good for the city’s desperate general fund? We have analysis by the Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) and the Independent Budget Analyst that future hotels will generate more than enough Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT or hotel-room tax) to compensate for any loss of property taxes.
My purpose in penning this commentary is not to support or oppose the lifting of the goalpost cap, but to highlight a key problem in the economic assumptions. Read More
Downtown Developers Should Be Held Accountable Too
By Murtaza Baxamusa | Published in VoiceofSanDiego.org | May 19, 2010 |
The approval of large projects in downtown needs checks-and-balances to ascertain accountability of approvals by Centre City Development Corporation (CCDC) President and Board of Directors.
The City Council review of downtown hotel projects will ensure adequate public input and further citywide economic development goals.
There are four reasons for supporting greater accountability of large hotel projects in downtown. Read More
CCDC, Question: Where Are the Jobs?
By | Published in VoiceofSanDiego.org | March 22, 2010 |
When voiceofSanDiego.org reporting exposed the corruption, questionable executive bonuses, and the role of a clueless board in oversight surrounding the president/CEO of the Center City Development Corporation (CCDC) in 2008, the corporation was hanging by a thread. The downtown business establishment and developers worked to rescue it, rather than have it dismantled like a similar entity, the San Diego Data Processing Corporation. As a result of this effort, on Monday, the city will be bathing the sins of CCDC in the holy Ganges, by amending the operating agreement, bylaws and articles of incorporation.
There is no question that redevelopment has transformed downtown in the past three decades. The question really is whether CCDC is the goose that lays golden eggs for San Diego’s economy. The distinction is important, and the two are often conflated. One is about the benefits of redevelopment, the other about the performance of a service contractor that was exploited by the likes of Florida developer, Nancy Graham.
In these economic times, it is fair to evaluate the economic gain that CCDC claims from spending (on behalf of the redevelopment agency) more than a billion taxpayer dollars. Read More
Building the local green economy
By Jason Everitt | Published in San Diego News Network (SDNN.com) | March 16, 2010 |
The clean energy economy is real and growing. President Barack Obama’s FY2011 budget allocates $85 million for green job training programs and several hundred million for green energy research. According to the American Solar Energy Society, the clean energy economy generated $970 billion in revenues and 8.5 millions jobs in 2006. Just this past December, the county of San Diego received a $5.1 million federal block grant for energy efficiency and conservation projects. It is imperative that the infusion of capital into the clean energy economy create good, middle class careers and not another class of poverty jobs. Read More
Simple Solution
By Murtaza Baxamusa | Published in voiceofsandiego.org | May 21, 2008 |
Sunroad and Blackwater are symptoms of a Land Development Code that does not work. As the Grand Jury noted recently, we have volumes of regulations that put inordinate burden on the little guy at the counter. And major and controversial development projects get a free pass.
In the Blackwater case, the dispute is over nuances of terms. The city claims this is a “security training facility” with a “shooting range”, and Blackwater claims this is a “vocational facility” with a “target range”. Regardless of what you call it, the community was neither informed nor consulted about the impacts of this project. Read More
Stop Subsidizing Economic Doom
By Murtaza Baxamusa | Published in voiceofsandiego.org | March 10, 2008 |
Now is the time to plan a San Diego beyond a recession.
San Diegans are having a tough time making ends meet. The cost of living in San Diego is increasing faster than wages. Today, a single adult needs at least $28,510 a year for basic essentials and a two-adult working family with two children needs $71,385 for basic expenses including childcare.
Falling employment, stagnant wages, uncontrolled debt and slack consumer confidence are afflicting San Diego as much, if not more than, the rest of the nation. San Diego has the lowest average wage per job, when adjusted for the cost of living, among comparable metro areas in the United States. San Diego wages also have the lowest purchasing power, given local costs. In this context, low-wage workers are most vulnerable since they often lack a cushion of savings. Read More
Fixing the Inclusionary Housing Law
By Donald Cohen, Martin Akinfosile, Richard Lawrence | Published in San Diego Union-Tribune | May 30, 2006 |
The San Diego City Council has an opportunity to affirm its commitment to solving the affordable housing crisis for the city’s working families.
Last week, responding to a lawsuit by the Building Industry Association, a Superior Court judge invalidated the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance on a technicality, and an apparently thin technicality at that. The judge gave the city the language it needs to fix the ordinance, and that should be done immediately.
In 2002, housing advocates and the City Council came to the table in good faith, seeking workable solutions for all stakeholders. It’s now clear that the BIA was not sincere in its commitment to build homes for all San Diegans. It has not acted in good faith.
When the City Council considered the first inclusionary housing ordinance, the council brokered an agreement between the housing advocates and the BIA to water down the ordinance. When the ordinance was passed, the BIA promptly went to court to have it overturned.
The BIA went to court a second time when the City Council agreed to a settlement that resulted in even lower in-lieu fees. The BIA then demanded that additional items be included in the settlement. So back to court it went.
The inclusionary housing ordinance needs to be legally amended – but it also needs to be strengthened so that real affordable housing gets built. The City Council has a chance to get it right – to craft an ordinance that creates housing that San Diegans can afford and puts in place an action plan to address the housing crisis.
It can adopt a second amendment to the ordinance to require the construction of affordable housing and eliminate the in-lieu fees altogether. We can say to builders: Either build your entire project affordable to households earning less than $90,000 per year or build at least 10 percent of it for families earning less than $32,000 per year.
Despite arguments being put forth by opponents of inclusionary housing, it has had an impact in San Diego and across the region.
In Carlsbad, Chula Vista and San Marcos, inclusionary housing ordinances have been an extremely effective tool in making housing affordable to working people. The builders in these cities are required to build the units, and consequently more than 4,000 homes have been created that are affordable for the working class. These are 4,000 homes that would not have been built without strong inclusionary ordinances.
In San Diego, the BIA has stated that the cost of inclusionary has been added to the price paid by the home buyers. The truth is the builder does not set the price of the homes it sells, the market does. For the last five years, the market has been willing to pay much more than the original asking price of the builders. Profits have been at record levels, not because the builders asked for those prices, but because the buyers bid them up. In the hot real estate market we’ve experienced in San Diego, it’s a little hard to imagine builders saying they don’t want to accept what the market will pay because their profit margin will be too great.
Furthermore, builders do receive subsidies from the city for complying with the law. They qualify for density bonuses and additional waivers on development requirements. They qualify for expedited processing, which can save them six months to a year in planning. And their large projects even qualify for federal, state and local financing subsidies. As matter of fact, seven of the nine rental housing allocations from the 2002 state housing bond have helped finance inclusionary housing developments in the county.
The BIA argues that inclusionary zoning does not help the affordable housing crisis. We agree. The city of San Diego’s current ordinance is not as effective as it could be because the builders negotiated a compromise that drove the in-lieu fees so low that the fees are insufficient to construct the inclusionary units or serve as an incentive for the builders to build them.
In the midst of the legal and political rhetoric, the hundreds of thousands of families who are experiencing the deep economic pressures of the housing crisis have only one question: When are we going to get serious about building housing for San Diego’s working families?
Akinfosile is co-chair of the San Diego Organizing Project. Cohen is executive director of the Center on Policy Initiatives. Lawrence is president of the Affordable Housing Coalition.
Copyright Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
