Council to Vote Again on Map Shift : Members Aggravated by Possible Violation of Prop. A

Heaping criticism on its own Planning Department, an aggravated San Diego City Council decided Monday to take a second look at a simple Penasquitos map change that has turned out to be a probable violation of Proposition A, the city’s slow-growth initiative.

The council Monday voted unanimously to hold a public hearing June 17 on whether to include the 43-acre Carmel Rancho 2 tract within the Penasquitos community plan boundary.

Council members did just that on April 21 when, at the urging of Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, they voted to amend the community plan boundaries to include portions of the property for development. Wolfsheimer asked her colleagues to redraw the plan line so it would match the city’s General Plan line, which some council members presumed ran along the parcel’s western boundary.

The change was approved on the council’s consent agenda along with other housekeeping chores.

But the vote kicked up a political dust storm after further research by environmentalists and mayoral candidate Maureen O’Connor showed that the parcel did not lie between the two lines. In fact, city planning maps showed it was bisected by the General Plan line and the council’s vote opened up for development a part of the city’s “future urbanizing zone,” property designated by the city to be off limits to construction until 1995.

Environmentalists and O’Connor cried foul, since Proposition A dictates that all decisions to shift land out of the future urbanizing zone be approved by San Diegans in a citywide vote.

On Monday, City Atty. John Witt told the council that “there was a substantial question of what was done” and advised them to vote to hear the matter again.

“I feel very much the game here is to blindfold the City Council members, spin them around and have them stick the tail on the donkey,” said an angry Wolfsheimer. “By God, I hope this time we stick the tail on the right donkey.”

Wolfsheimer’s comments were directed at the city’s Planning Department, which in July issued a report stating that the 43-acre parcel was, in fact, within the future urbanizing zone. But Planning Department staffers did not volunteer this information on April 21 when the council discussed the matter.

Saying she had been unaware of the Proposition A wrinkle, Wolfsheimer demanded that planning staff members submit every relevant map pertaining to the property.

She showed her displeasure again when questioning Chief Deputy City Atty. Frederick C. Conrad about the fact that the 43 acres are in the future urbanizing zone.

“Did you all know this when we were ruling on this?” Wolfsheimer asked.

“Yes,” Conrad said.

“You did and you didn’t say anything?” Wolfsheimer shot back.

After the hearing, Planning Director Allen Jones declined to comment on why the staff did not volunteer the information in the previous hearing.

Assistant Planning Director Mike Stepner said planning staff members did not offer the information before because they were not sure whether the 43-acre tract was the “same one” about which it wrote in the July report.

The council voted for reconsideration after acting Mayor Ed Struiksma assured his colleagues that the hearing on the mapping change could not be held any earlier than June 10--a week after the mayoral election. Council members eventually opted for a June 17 date because that is when the Planning Department is bringing forth other, similar cases of properties that straddle the General Plan lines for the urban reserve.

The decision, however, wasn’t made before considerable wrangling that prompted Councilman Mike Gotch, the only one to have voted against the mapping change in the first place, to complain, “We’re all looking like fools up here.”