Battle plans to defeat the proposed 22-story Vela hotel and residential building on Turquoise Street were the focus of the Pacific Beach Town Council’s Jan. 15 meeting.
Allies in the cause were in abundance as representatives for local elected officials declared their opposition to the project. These included Rep. Scott Peters and County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer.
Representatives for state Senator Catherine Blakespear and Assemblymember Tasha Boerner announced bills they have introduced to close loopholes in the state’s Density Bonus Law (AB 1287), which took effect last year and created the conditions that brought the Vela project into existence.
Marcella Bothwell, chair of the non-profit Neighbors for Better California that formed on the heels of the Vela project’s announcement in October, updated the meeting’s approximately 60 attendees on the latest developments and detailed the numerous fronts on which her group is operating.
“I’m not going to give you the answers that you want, but I can tell you where we’re at,” Bothwell said. “Because this is a state law problem, (our efforts are) almost like a scattershot and we have to do things all at once.”
In an attempt to alleviate California’s housing shortage, the 2024 Density Bonus Law allows residential developments to by local building regulations if a project allocates units for low-income and moderate-income residents.
By providing five units in each category, the Vela proposal meets the law’s criteria to build a total of 139 visitor accommodation units on floors 6-14 and 74 residential units on floors 15-22. A parking garage will fill floors 1-5 as well as two levels underground.
To accommodate complying proposals, the law mandates cities to waive a number of studies typical for such projects, including environmental reviews, traffic impacts, seismic risks, and health and safety impacts, among others.
“The city normally has the developer do these studies,” Bothwell said. “But state law says the burden of doing the study and paying for the study is on the city. … It’s ridiculous that we have to do the studies to prove that a hotel doesn’t need to be built for five very low-income units.”
Bothwell, who also chairs the PB Planning Group, explained that the Vela proposal will be given level one, or ministerial status, in the permit process. There are five levels of permitting from level one for existing house additions to level five for high-rises and other large buildings.
“They have taken what should be a level five with full CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) review — of which even level two houses have to have a CEQA review — to a level one,” Bothwell said. “(Level) one is you build an extra room on your house, you go to the permit office and they stamp it and you go home. … That’s it. That’s what the state law has done.”
The state law also allows qualifying developments to circumvent local restrictions.
At 238 feet, the Vela proposal flouts the 30-foot height limit for coastal developments in San Diego established by popular vote in 1972, known as Proposition D.
The Vela project is being developed by Kalonymus LLC, an of San Francisco-based Carmel Partners. Ron Zeff is the principal officer of both.
Bothwell displayed a recently-released letter from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, the agency in charge of implementing and overseeing the state’s housing policy. The HCD responded to the city’s request for technical assistance.
“While the state Density Bonus Law contains no explicit requirement for a minimum percentage of residential floor area in a mixed-use development (such as Vela’s residential and hotel), an interpretation that a project with a minimum requirement of five residential units is essentially entitled to a theoretically infinite amount of non-residential floor area could result in an absurd outcome that does not further the fundamental purpose of the state Density Bonus Law,” states the HCD letter.
With almost half of Vela’s floor space designated for hotel use, Bothwell said the age provides ammunition in the campaign against the Vela development.
The HCD asserts that a city can conclude that a project doesn’t require the law’s incentives to recoup the costs for providing affordable housing, but puts the onus on the city to prove its findings in writing “based on substantial evidence.”
Bothwell exhorted the audience to submit emails to Mayor Todd Gloria and the city’s Development Services Department (which issues building permits) head Elyse Lowe. She also directed the audience to her organization’s website at nfabc.org for sample letters.
“We need the city to reject the current permit that resides in DSD services,” Bothwell said. “I want to encourage you right now. I need for you … to tell them, we are watching and we want you to do the right thing.”
Steven Hanson, a 38-year resident of north PB, said he wants clarification on Mayor Todd Gloria’s position on the issue.
“We’re running out of time. Is (the mayor) going to do something or not?” Hanson asked. “He could do something. He’s not done anything. Is he going to help us or not? We need to know.”
Bothwell urged caution in dealing with the mayor. Although she noted that a civil tone is more persuasive, she said since the DSD is under the mayor’s executive authority, Gloria cannot demonstrate any favoritism for practical reasons.
“He needs to be a neutral arbitrator until the permit is reviewed by DSD,” she said. “If he is not a neutral arbitrator before the permit comes up, then we are guaranteed, if we reject it, a lawsuit. So please, we need to be constructive with the mayor’s office at this point. Should they do something that crosses our red lines, then we may not be so constructive.”
If the city endorses the Vela proposal, a final verdict might have to come from a court. Bothwell discussed various legal grounds to attack the project, from a health and safety perspective to home rule doctrine.
“San Diego is a charter city,” she said. “State law can apply to charter cities if they are considered a matter of statewide concern and are narrowly tailored to avoid interfering with local government. Saying a hotel is solving the housing crisis is a stretch. I seriously don’t think that’s narrowly tailored.”
As the only member out of 80 to vote against the state density bonus bill in the state assembly, Boerner has submitted a bill to close a loophole by eliminating any density bonus for structures that include visitor accommodations, according to her representative Ross Tritt. However, he itted that maneuver is more fortification from future attacks than a present foray.
“If the law gets ed (but the Vela proposal) is already set in motion and it’s approved, I don’t think it will apply retroactively,” Tritt said. “But it would prevent projects similar to that from going through in the future.”
Bothwell praised Boerner’s bill as well as a draft bill from Blakespear to mandate that all proposals seeking density bonuses be a minimum two-thirds residential and one-third commercial at most. However, she noted that the bills have to through a legislature that helped cause the present crisis.
“It’s probably going to be very difficult to get through the legislature honestly,” Bothwell said. “While we’re very appreciative of … their efforts to close the loophole, it doesn’t cover everything. Both of their bills don’t address the height limit.”
In combating the Vela project, Bothwell has linked with like-minded organizations across the state facing similar struggles, such as Wake Up California and Livable California.
Bothwell said her organization has received an anonymous $25,000 donation, which needs to be matched in order to launch a statewide poll as a first step to getting an amendment to the state constitution. Regardless of individual battle outcomes, only then can she feel like the war has been won.
“Tasha (Boerner) was one of 80,” she said “Changing 79 other legislators to get the right bills through for local control is almost an impossible hill to climb. That just might not be possible. … That’s why a constitutional amendment may be what we need to do. Because I’m not sure that these incremental savings are going to be enough to really help us (in the long run).”
