Midway planners unhappy with city’s timeline for Sports Arena feedback

SAN DIEGO The city issued a draft environmental impact record for the Midway Rising Specific Plan to redevelop the Sports Arena site and had questioned stakeholders and the inhabitants for comments But selected locality planners revealed they didn t have enough time to adequately digest such a complex plan and provide feedback The comments are to be included in the document for final approval by the San Diego City Council The council also will consider a long-term lease with Midway Rising to redevelop the -acre Sports Arena property The Midway Rising Specific Plan aims to create a mixed-use locality with a new arena housing entertainment and commercial spaces The plan envisions a vibrant walkable center Build out of the specific plan would allow for about housing units including up to affordable units population parks and open space a multi-purpose entertainment center and up to square feet of commercial uses On May the Midway-Pacific Highway Society Planning Group held a special meeting during which the group unanimously ratified its letter responding to the city s environmental document on the Midway Rising project District planners reacted negatively to the short timeline given for inhabitants reaction to such an extensive document on the long-term project Midway Rising is seeking to secure all necessary grading and construction permits in for the area s redevelopment At this moment there is a -year construction timeline on the project calling for it to be built in multiple phases MPHCPG wishes to express its extreme disappointment with the City s Rise Services Department for its lack of respect states the letter pointing out the group was being demanded to respond to thousands of pages of documents in days The planning group concluded in its letter to the city that the group supports this project as the cornerstone of locality redevelopment in our long-overlooked society Yet requiring a volunteer organization to ingest and evaluate such a large project the largest single affordable project in the country in such a short period is unconscionable and demonstrates the City s lack of interest in the region s input On the positive side the group commended the Midway Rising maturation band for its commitment to not exceed feet in height for the entertainment center and feet for of all other buildings in the project The group s letter goes on to list several region concerns about the redevelopment including The need to understand how the upzoning of the project s city-owned parcels will affect Midway Society Plan s projected full build-out of dwelling units How the pending redevelopment of federally owned land adjacent to Old Town Transit Center will affect the available density traffic noise etc while both projects are under construction and once they re completed Risks of rezoning negatively impacting vague infrastructure plans for the project which may disrupt utilities The historical impacts of the San Diego International Sports Arena and Kumeyaay tools along Rosecrans Street are in the present under-addressed What is the approval notification process if Midway Rising at a later date wishes to exceed its self-imposed limitations We inquired multiple times for an environmental review extension and were denied declared Jason Vieira the planning group s chair Hopefully the city will see specific of this information in our letter and address particular of it