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Council Approves Uptown Community Plan Without Historic Protections
December 2016
By A. Hayes
 There is grave discontent in central San Diego and beyond about the approval of the Uptown Community Plan at an epic long City Council meeting on November 14. The hearing for the plan was placed on the same weighty agenda as the destructive Balboa Park Plaza de Panama Project. It was almost as if the objective was to cram in as many controversial items as possible before several outgoing councilmembers are replaced at the next meeting.
At approximately 10:30pm, after more than eight hours since the meeting's 2pm start time, the Council finally approved an amended Uptown Community Plan. The outcome was a disappointment for many community volunteers, some of whom had spent years trying to work with the City to preserve their neighborhoods' historic resources and character.
The concerns the public and SOHO share regarding the now-approved Uptown Community Plan focus on two areas: historic resources go unprotected, as no districts were proposed, and developers' incentive to build out and substantially alter the historic commercial core of Hillcrest went unchecked. Since the regulations for potential historic districts were taken off the table earlier (during the North Park Community Plan review process), and because City staff's presentation and recommendations contained no work plan to establish the identified historic districts, the Uptown Community Plan was approved with ZERO mitigation for historic resources. Therefore, it does not comply with CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act).
Ushered by Councilmember Todd Gloria, the council voted in favor of the plan after many hours of testimony during which several developers and lobbyists led the charge for a substantial carving out of Hillcrest's historic core. (This commercial center appears on SOHO's Most Endangered List) Although Gloria did make amendments to address height and overreaching ministerial project concerns brought forward by several Mission Hills residents, as well as a height issue in an area of University Heights, most councilmembers expressed little to no concern for the establishment of historic districts or for the lack of mitigation for historic resources.
Only City Council President Sherri Lightner shared the vision expressed by a majority of the residents, including Uptown Planners. That group voted on multiple occasions to support the Density Redistribution Alternative, an option that would put much of the proposed growth along Park Boulevard, nearest the transit arteries, while retaining the central core.
Moving forward, SOHO is weighing options to ensure that the City upholds CEQA and that mitigation for historic resources will be undertaken through the establishment of historic districts. We will keep you posted.
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