A letter sent last week to San Diego leaders asserts that the environmental analysis for the Midway Rising project is legally flawed, and will, if approved, not only lead to additional gridlock in the area but force taxpayers to bear the brunt of infrastructure needs because of the limited scope of study. The legal letter, addressed to Mayor Todd Gloria and San Diego City Council members, identifies six areas where the project’s state-mandated environmental impact report is substantially deficient. The most severe omission is said to be the report’s failure to evaluate the cumulative impacts of the anticipated redevelopment of the Navy’s nearby NAVWAR property. The letter comes in the weeks leading up to the report’s presumed certification by the council members, which would pave the way for the city’s sports arena real estate in the Midway District to be remade with thousands of apartments and a new entertainment venue. The letter was written by Kathryn Pettit, an attorney with Chatten-Brown Law Group, on behalf of her clients, J. Keith Behner and Catherine Stiefel of Point Loma. The couple hired the law firm, as well as a traffic engineer, during the environmental review process to study the documents as they became increasingly alarmed about the project’s long-term implications for congestion, Behner told the Union-Tribune. “The problem is that the city is doing two things deliberately and very badly. One is soft pedaling what the real impacts are and ignoring others. Our very carefully researched and studied comments on this are being ignored, and they’re critically important issues,” Behner, a retired city planner, told the Union-Tribune. “The other thing is, it’s important to have this on the record going forward. If the city, as it appears, is gangbusters running forward to approve this project … then it could be taken to the court to decide, ultimately, by us or by others or by a coalition of people.” Related Articles Construction contract approved for Carlsbad’s Veterans Memorial Park Money advanced to replace 110-year-old train trestle in Del Mar Condos proposed for Carlsbad’s downtown Village San Diego dedicates land for Mission Valley bridge over San Diego River Cost to finish overdue East Village Green park in downtown San Diego grows by $4.6M When asked to respond to the letter, Dave Rolland, a spokesperson for Gloria, told the Union-Tribune that the mayor’s office cannot comment on potential litigation. In September 2022, San Diego City Council members selected the Midway Rising development team to lease and redevelop its real estate at 3220, 3240, 3250 and 3500 Sports Arena Blvd. The team is composed of market-rate housing developer Zephyr, affordable housing builder Chelsea Investment Corp., and sports-and-entertainment venue operator Legends. The Kroenke Group, a subsidiary of billionaire Stan Kroenke’s real estate firm, is the entity’s lead investor and limited partner. The development plan for the 49.2-acre property, or what’s known as the Midway Rising Specific Plan, calls for 4,254 total residential units, a 16,000-seat replacement arena, 130,000 square feet of commercial space, 8.1 acres of parks, and another 6.4 acres of plazas and public space. It also memorializes the team’s commitment to build 2,000 residential units for households earning 80% or less of the area median income, or what’s considered affordable housing. In September, San Diego’s Planning Commission advanced the project’s package of land-use documents, including the final subsequent environmental impact report, or FSEIR, for final consideration by the City Council. The government body is expected to take up the report and a long-term ground lease with the development team this spring, despite a recent court order reinstating the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District. The Chatten-Brown letter presses council members to require the developer to fully mitigate project impacts so that taxpayers are not later required to shoulder the cost of infrastructure. And it directs council members to withhold approval until the project and the environmental analysis are corrected to address alleged breaches of the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. “As the City Council considers whether to approve this project, we urge it to consider not only the FSEIR omissions and violations of CEQA, but the very real, tangible impact that these errors will have on San Diegans,” the letter states. “The project’s FSEIR fails to study or mitigate critical on-ramps where 90-minute delays are predicted, fails to meaningfully address the concerns of expert state agencies in relation to the project’s transportation impacts, and fails to make a good-faith effort to mitigate these impacts in any meaningful way.” The 90-minute delay refers to the northbound Interstate 5 on-ramp at Old Town Avenue and Moore Street. The on-ramp, which is just east of the NAVWAR compound and roughly 1.5 miles away from the sports arena site, was not studied in the Midway Rising analysis. The report states it was excluded from analysis because the project is not expected to add 50 or more net new car trips at peak hours. However, a separate cumulative traffic analysis, prepared in 2021 by the Navy for the NAVWAR redevelopment, predicts queues of more than 500 vehicles, equating to more than 12,500 feet, during peak hours at the metered on-ramp in 2050, after buildout of both the NAVWAR and Midway Rising projects. The backup will cause delays between 91 and 95 minutes per vehicle, according to the Navy document. “The Local Mobility Analysis acknowledges there will be 80,000 ‘raw’ daily trips occurring from the project at full buildout on entertainment event days, with over 27,000 daily trips from the new residences alone. The claim that there will not even be 50 car trips added — which would constitute 0.063% and 0.19% of the above listed trips — lacks credibility,” the letter states. The city is making a deliberate choice to exclude the ramp, particularly as Behner and Stiefel have repeatedly flagged the ramp for review, Pettit, the Chatten-Brown attorney, wrote in the letter. The omission undermines the report’s entire traffic analysis and underscores an overall lack of transparency, as required by CEQA, according to the letter. What’s more, the Moore Street ramp is described as just one of an unknown number of roads, intersections and freeway ramps where the actual traffic impacts are obscured by the environmental document’s limited scope of study. “The project and NAVWAR were not collectively analyzed for cumulative impacts to conflicts with adopted programs or plans, increased transportation hazards or exceedances of the city’s (vehicle miles traveled) thresholds,” the letter states. Practically speaking, the city’s decision to turn a blind eye to the cumulative impacts will be disastrous for adjacent areas, Behner said. “People tend to think, well, it’s just the Midway District, but once the circulation infrastructure in those areas become clogged … all the ancillary roads are going to be affected. That means Sports Arena Boulevard, Midway Drive, West Point Loma Boulevard, Lytton Street, Barnett Avenue, Harbor Drive, Sea World Drive, as congested traffic seeks alternatives to I-5 South and North and Pacific Highway,” he said. “So it’s not just a small, localized problem. It’s going to have tremendous impacts on access to coastal resources, access to Old Town, access to Mission Bay, and certainly access to the major roadways.” Behner said he and his wife are not fighting to kill the project, but to ensure it is appropriately sized with matching infrastructure. The letter argues that a shuttle from the Old Town Transit Center and an employee transit subsidy, which are the project’s primary mitigation measures to lessen transportation impacts, are insufficient to accommodate thousands of apartments, the new arena and a destination retail center. When reached for comment, the Midway Rising development team did not address the letter or the sufficiency of the project’s environmental analysis. “Midway Rising is proud to have earned a unanimous recommendation of approval from the Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning Group and San Diego Planning Commission, as this project brings the vision put forward in the Midway Community Plan to life with 2,000 desperately needed affordable homes for San Diego’s working families, and a world-class entertainment venue sorely needed in San Diego,” said Jeff Meyer, a spokesperson for the team. Gloria promised in his January State of the City address to bring the project forward for a vote in the spring. The proclamation followed a major courtroom defeat, as the city’s 2022 voter-approved ballot measure to remove the 30-foot height limit from the Midway District was deemed illegal. In October, the appellate court ruled that the city violated CEQA by putting the ordinance before voters without adequately informing them about the environmental impacts associated with taller builders. In December, the state Supreme Court denied to hear the city’s petition on the matter, upholding the appellate court decision. The Midway Rising team maintains that it can apply the state’s density bonus law to to erect buildings taller than 30 feet. Rolland, the mayor’s spokesperson, said that a firm date for the Midway Rising vote has not been set. ...read more read less