GrokSurf's San Diego

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Posts Tagged ‘San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG)’

Legal challenge continues over SDSU’s Master Plan and Adobe Falls development

Posted by George J Janczyn on June 21, 2011

This is to catch up on the multi-year legal maneuvers that involve the Adobe Falls area — undeveloped open space adjacent to Alvarado Creek just north of the I-8 freeeway across from San Diego State University, west of College Avenue. San Diego State University’s Master Plan intends to develop that land with up to 348 residential housing units for faculty and staff.

Alvarado Creek (the green tree belt) crosses to the north side of Interstate 8 near College Avenue. The Adobe Falls cascades wrap to the north and then the creek turns westward.

Beginning with the 2005 Master Plan and then the 2007 Master Plan revision, California State University’s certification of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) was challenged in lawsuits by the City of San Diego, Del Cerro Action Council, and other entities.

February 2010: after years in court during which the cases were consolidated into one, the Superior Court entered a judgment in favor of SDSU (for history up to that point click here).

Subsequently, the City of San Diego and its Redevelopment Agency, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), and the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) decided to appeal the decision (due to lack of funds, Del Cerro Action Council was unable to join the appeal).

December 2010: City of San Diego and other parties filed opening briefs in their appeal of the Superior Court judgment.

February 2011: CSU filed its brief.

March 17-18, 2011: San Diego [et al.] filed reply briefs.

April 26, 2011: Amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs were filed by California Department of Transportation, League of California Cities, and California State Association.

May 26, 2011: CSU filed responses to the amicus curiae briefs.

Del Cerro is in the background. Alvarado Creek's Adobe Falls, which flows year-round although sometimes at a trickle, is hidden at top right

The issues discussed in the various briefs go into considerable detail. Note that SDSU’s Master Plan includes other development projects in addition to the Adobe Falls proposal, so the mitigation issues discussed in the appeal are much broader. I would characterize the arguments very generally as going back and forth over the following:

1. The City asserts that CSU abused its discretion under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by claiming its financial obligation to ensure mitigation for traffic is limited to requesting funds from the Legislature. If funds were to be denied, CSU would assume no further responsibility.

2. SANDAG and MTS argue that CSU failed to address the impacts that will result from SDSU’s massive increased use of public transit systems to transport additional students, faculty, staff and visitors to and from the SDSU campus” and that CSU should have considered alternate potentially feasible mitigation measures.

CSU argues that it cannot make funding requests for highway traffic improvements, because only Caltrans can do that. CSU says the Master Plan project traffic impacts are just one part of the overall traffic growth picture that Caltrans must plan for. However, CalTrans presently has no plans for highway improvements in the vicinity of the project, so without such a plan, it would be impossible to determine what CSU’s fair share should be. CSU says it can only commit to pay a fair share for traffic improvements when Caltrans develops a plan.

Further, CSU argues that it prepared a traffic analysis that studied impacts to the transportation network surrounding SDSU as required by CEQA; identified significantly impacted intersections, roads, and road segments; negotiated extensively with the City of San Diego and other agencies over the fair-share mitigation amounts; made final fair-share determinations; adopted fair-share mitigation measures specific to both the City of San Diego and Caltrans; and requested fair-share mitigation funds from the Legislature. CSU says it changed its capital outlay budget process to include mitigation of off-campus impacts. CSU also argues that there is nothing in CEQA that requires “alternate potentially feasible mitigation measures” not required by statute or implementing regulations.

Naturally, everybody involved with the case declines to comment because it is ongoing litigation.

What’s next: a clerk at the Court of Appeals indicates that no further hearings have been scheduled, but guesses that it could be September or later before the next hearing.

One of several cascades at Adobe Falls.

 

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San Diego County making good progress diversifying water supply

Posted by George J Janczyn on February 11, 2011

“Our strategies are working” was the message from the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) Water Planning Committee at a joint meeting with the SANDAG Regional Planning Committee held Friday at 1pm at the SDCWA headquarters on Overland Avenue.

The severe drought experienced in California in the 1990-91 years was a wake-up call for San Diego County, which at the time relied on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California for 95% of the county’s water supply — delivered from Northern California and the Colorado River. News headlines from those days delivered numerous grim messages about the effect water shortages were having on the local economy and way of life.

The response, explained Ken Weinberg, Water Authority Director of Water Resources, was to develop a strategy to improve water supply reliability and reduce San Diego’s dependence on imported water.

Developing new supplies would not be cheap compared to what had been spent previously, said Maureen Stapleton, SDCWA General Manager, but the drought made San Diego realize how vulnerable it was and that it could not afford the consequences of a catastrophic cutoff from future drought or when the California Delta breaks (I noticed Stapleton said when, not if).

Facing growth, regulatory restrictions, the possibility of future droughts, climate change, and increased costs, the county’s strategy for supply reliability was to develop a forecast of demand, encourage water use efficiency, invest in regional infrastructure, and diversify supply sources.

SDCWA coordinated with SANDAG to obtain a wealth of information and planning expertise on growth forecasts and the regional comprehensive plan.

That planning effort led to the development of new supplies as well as infrastructure investments.

For new water supplies, encouraging a water conservation ethic became a high priority. Negotiations to purchase water conserved by Imperial Valley farmers were concluded. Water recycling programs and brackish groundwater projects were implemented. Seawater desalination (Poseidon in Carlsbad) and the City of San Diego’s Indirect Potable Reuse demonstration project are more recent developments.

As for infrastructure, SDCWA created a $3.8 billion Capital Improvement Program to implement an Emergency Storage Project that would bring new surface storage (Olivenhain Dam, Lake Hodges, San Vicente Dam Raise), water treatment (Twin Oaks Water Treatment Plant), as well as pipelines, pump stations, and hyroelectric generation from water gravity flows within the system, among other things.

This SDCWA chart graphically depicts the progress that has been made towards the goal for 2020:

The meeting ended with the conclusion that the strategies to reduce reliance on MWD through sustained conservation, new supply sources, and infrastructure development have been working. The plan is to continue implementation of these strategies and to pursue further local supply sources.

See also this North County Times story that highlighted other topics that came up at the meeting — including reduced demand by aging citizens.

 

Posted in San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA), Water | Tagged: | 7 Comments »

City of San Diego files opening briefs in appeal of SDSU’s plan to develop Adobe Falls

Posted by George J Janczyn on December 3, 2010

Overlooking the Adobe Falls area. Freeway I-8 is on the left, Mission Valley in the distance

Adobe Falls is a parcel of undeveloped land and open space adjacent to Alvarado Creek across the I-8 freeway from San Diego State University just west of College Avenue.

Since before 2005, SDSU has been pressing to implement its Master Plan project to use that land for up to 348 residential housing units for faculty and staff. Numerous lawsuits by the City of San Diego, Del Cerro Action Council, and other entities challenged the California State University’s (CSU trustees) certification of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The cases were eventually consolidated into one and last February the court entered a judgment in favor of SDSU (for details about the project and those legal actions click here).

On May 25, 2010 the City submitted notice of intent to file an appeal (Del Cerro Action Council had earlier filed an objection to the proposed statement of decision, but lack of financial resources prevented it from filing an appeal).

Just a few days ago, on Nov. 24, 2010 an appellant’s opening brief was filed by the City of San Diego and the Redevelopment Agency. On Dec. 1, 2010 the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) and the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) filed their opening brief.

Adobe Falls is considered to be the only year-round waterfall within City limits

Judges have not been determined yet. According to Gina Coburn, Communications Director for the City Attorney’s office, “The appellate court assigns a 3 panel judge but we don’t know who until they send out the notice of hearing which will be after the briefing is complete, sometime in February 2011.”

The City of San Diego [et al.] opening brief argues that the EIR was improperly certified because the approval is based on an erroneous interpretation of a different case that was cited as precedent. It also charges that CSU was “disingenuous” and abused its discretion under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by claiming it has no obligation to ensure mitigation for traffic and other issues beyond asking the State Legislature for funding (i.e., if funds were not forthcoming, CSU’s position is that it has no further obligation).

The SANDAG and MTS opening brief states that “the most fundamental violation of CEQA at issue concerns CSU’s complete failure to address the impacts that will result from SDSU’s massive increased use of public transit systems to transport additional students, faculty, staff and visitors to and from the SDSU campus.” It goes on to say that CSU “deliberately” understated automobile traffic impacts.

A response brief from CSU is due in January or February of next year.

 

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Water consumption down, don’t be too relieved

Posted by George J Janczyn on October 28, 2009

In San Diego County, total water use for the months of July, August and September was down 11 percent compared to the same period in 2008. The 11% reduction since July equals approximately 22,000 acre-feet (AF) of water. Over the course of a year, 22,000 AF can supply approximately 44,000 households with water, according to Teresa Penunuri at the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA), who also referred me to their chart showing water use totals for July-September 2009.

It’s great that San Diegans curtailed water consumption, but I’m disappointed that many more people haven’t caught on to the problem. When I drive through various neighborhoods I don’t have to look very hard to see many residential lawns still a lush, moist, green. I did see plenty of lawns that looked thirsty too, but either way I don’t think we should be maintaining lawns at all in San Diego, except in parks. As for residential swimming pools, perhaps they could be converted into rainwater/greywater collection systems covered with a blanket of soil to allow planting of California natives.

A backdrop to our conservation success is population growth. A recent estimate by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) projects an additional 1.3 million residents by 2050 (report by VoSD). Those people will consume a lot more than 22,000 AF of water! I recommend reading Dr. Peter Gleick’s (Pacific Institute) discussion on population and water: Part 1; Part 2.

On the development front, although housing permits are at historically low levels (linked story contains several unrelated news items), probably due to the economy, SANDAG is trying to stimulate new development in the county by working to eliminate barriers to development “which may include complex development entitlement and permitting processes, construction defect litigation, and development standards that do not reflect the goal of providing more housing.” Good to see SANDAG pitching in to help.

 

Posted in Environment, Land use, San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA), Water | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »