County of San Diego Contemplates Bundling GPA Projects to Sidestep State Law
Mark Wardlaw, the director of the County of San Diego’s Planning and Development Services can be seen in the above video discussing with the Planning Commission a way to process more General Plan Amendment projects than are allowed by state law. This publicly-available video shows the thought process involved.
What is bundling?
The term bundling or “batching” as it is referred to by County staff is the combining of multiple general plan amendment projects into one project, thereby sidestepping State Law which limits amendments to the general plan to four in a calendar year. They are currently proposing as many as 8 this year alone.
What does State Law say about GP amendments?
An amendment to the General Plan (a General Plan Amendment or, GPA) is not to be taken lightly. (For more information on what a general plan is, click here). Given the great expense taken to develop a General Plan, amendments are only permitted if they are “in the public interest” and do not “jeopardize the public safety,” particularly wildfire and evacuation risk which are very important in the rural, brush covered areas of the unincorporated County. They also only require a vote of 3 out of 5 County supervisors to approve the change. An initiative that is seeking to get on the November ballot (www.saveoursdcountryside.org)
State Law states that the General Plan of a given jurisdiction may not be amended more than 4 times in a calendar year. The following is the code relevant to General Plan amendments:
The last sentence in the subsection “Each amendment may include more than one change to the general plan” is how they are justifying completing 8 general plan amendments in one calendar year–by bundling multiple amendments into one. We’ve spoken to top land use attorneys and they have indicated that bundling appears to be legally defensible. While it may be legally defensible, it appears to be a loophole that the County is exploiting and not to the benefit of the taxpayer who will be on the hook for the added infrastructure costs and fire risks associated with most of these projects.
What are they proposing exactly?
There are 18 or 19 projects in the works at the moment that will require a general plan amendment that will need approval by the Board of Supervisors. However, a very reputable source at the County of San Diego has indicated that 3 meetings will be held this fall to process 7 more GPAs (one project has already been approved this year). The 7 projects that are reported to be heard this fall are:
July 25: 3 projects with a total of 3,936 units being proposed
September 25: 1 project with a total of 2,135 units being proposed
October 31: 3 projects with a total of 4,057 units being proposed
So, 7 projects and a total of 10,129 units being reviewed and possibly approved in the span of 4 months.
What are some of the implications?
Additional traffic: Generally, 10,129 residential units will generate about 10 average daily trips per dwelling unit, according to SANDAG’s “(Not So) Brief Guide to Vehicular Traffic” Now some of these projects will also have commercial units, which generate a good deal more traffic and some will be condos, which generate slightly less, but a good, conservative guesstimate would be 101,290 vehicle trips daily will be added to our roadways and freeways when these projects come online. This is not an insignificant number.
Infrastructure costs: One of the above-mentioned projects, Newland Sierra, was studied by an independent traffic consulting firm. Their studies showed that the project would generate over $220 million in road maintenance costs alone. Traffic impact fees are in the 1-2 million range. If we were to extrapolate across the other projects, we’re looking at close to $1 Billion infrastructure costs that are not offset by developer fees. The ongoing tax base of sprawl projects like Newland do not come anywhere near close to offsetting the costs of the additional infrastructure needed. In fact, the current infrastructure crisis we find ourselves in in this country is largely due to the fact that according to some studies, $1.65 dollars are spent on infrastructure for every dollar of revenue received from each household in suburban sprawl developments.
In other words, sprawl developments like this do not pencil out because the taxpayer ends up having to foot the cost for the added impacts. This, in and of itself, explains why we are being asked to pony up more at the pump with the new gas tax that is being used to pay for the unfounded infrastructure liabilities we have in California.
Many other implications: At least four of the projects are in CalFire designated “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones” and DO NOT address evacuation congestion. For example, HGV South project is on a dead end fire trap road where 30 houses burned in 2014 and has actually obtained an exemption from the fire authorities and will not being putting in a secondary egress. An independent fire expert has said that it is "not only likely, but probable that entrapment will occur" with the additional 1000 cars added to the small country road.
Why so many GPAs?
Hedge funds and other investors have targeted the unincorporated areas of San Diego County that were specifically allocated for low density and then speculating that they will be able to change the General Plan to increase their investment substantially. In addition to allocating density in the “smart growth” areas near infrastructure, transit and away from fire danger, the General Plan also downzones many areas that do not follow the guiding principals. Namely, these are in high fire danger zones, with no infrastructure, away from job centers. Building in these areas increase our tax burdens, our fire risks, congestion, pollution and destroy agricultural, sensitive habitat or open space land. So they are kept off-limits for high density development. In other words, we spent $18 million in taxpayer money to place density in the right places and kept other areas protected from density because of the risk and costs involved.
For the out of state or overseas investors, these are highly desirable targets because their low density makes them much cheaper than land that is zoned for high density and they are confident they can lobby the supervisors to change the underlying zoning rules which increases the value of the land substantially.
Hedge funds and speculators find off-limits parcels in San Diego County very attractive because they know they can lobby the supervisors to change the rules and make unheard of profit.
Here's a sample of who stands to make huge windfalls from setting aside the General Plan:
These companies and likely the other three have targeted the unincorporated County to make huge windfalls while San Diego taxpayers get hit with potentially $1 billion in unfunded infrastructure costs, 100,000 more daily vehicles on the road, fire entrapment deaths and destruction of the very way of life we enjoy in San Diego.
This is not growing the San Diego Way. It is growing in a way that benefits out of state investors at the expense of turning San Diego into an last-century sprawl metropolis instead of a modern, coastal region.
Why the rush?
Every member of the Board of Supervisors has been in place for over 20 years with the exception of Kristin Gaspar. In that time, they have proven to be very developer friendly. Now that two members of the Board are terming out, incoming supervisors will likely not be as friendly to the interests of the developers and their investor partners. In addition, an initiative is being placed on the ballot (Save our San Diego Countryside) that will require a vote of the general public to approve GPA projects. This would force developers to actually build projects in the 55,000 or more parcels that are allowed for in the general plan rather than trying their hand at speculation and lobbying to get the rules changed in their favor.
Links
“Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (c) or (d), no mandatory element of a general plan shall be amended more frequently than four times during any calendar year. Subject to that limitation, an amendment may be made at any time, as determined by the legislative body. Each amendment may include more than one change to the general plan.” (ARTICLE 6. Preparation, Adoption, and Amendment of the General Plan) Section 65358, subdivision (B)
“On average, this simulation indicates that dispersed rural residential development in the conversion of 35 acres of agricultural land in Colo- rado costs county government and schools $1.65 in expenditures for every dollar of new revenue received.” Rural Land Use and Your Taxes: The Fiscal Impact of Rural Development in Colorado, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Fort Collins
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