Special Protection for 10 Developers Is Rejected by City

Bowing to pressure from the city attorney, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday refused to enter into special agreements with 10 developers who were bidding for vested rights that would protect them from two slow-growth measures on the November ballot.

However, the council did approve agreements with five other developers who said they were willing to abide by terms proposed by City Atty. John Witt, terms that the city attorney’s office maintains won’t undermine the two slow-growth measures.

In approving the five agreements, City Council gave the developers the authority to build about 8,300 housing units in exchange for the builders’ constructing public facilities--such as roads, libraries, recreation centers and parks--worth tens of millions of dollars.

The authority to build the units, however, is subject to restrictions contained in both ballot measures, which, if approved by voters, would impose yearly building limits and environmental constraints that would severely curtail construction on “sensitive lands,” such as steep hillsides and river beds.

It was the threat of those very restrictions that caused the 15 developers to appeal to the City Council and ask for special “development agreements.” The agreements, actually contracts between the city and builders in which developers receive guaranteed rights to build homes in return for supplying needed public facilities, were the focus of two days of hearings that ended Tuesday.

The tenor for the hearings was set Monday, when Witt surprised the council by warning them that the developers had refused to go along with agreements proposed by his office. Instead, Witt said, the developers had come up with their own versions, which the city attorney couldn’t support.

Not only couldn’t the city attorney support them, but Witt said it was clear that the versions being pushed by the developers were aimed at protecting them from the restrictions contained in the two ballot measures. More important, Witt warned, the developers’ versions could be attacked in court as attempts to circumvent the slow-growth measures, leaving the City Council at legal risk for approving them.

Witt’s opinion not only startled many council members but shifted the focus of debate. By Tuesday, the City Council made clear that it would not approve any development agreements unless Witt’s office was satisfied that the agreements met the city attorney’s standards. Those standards are basically that the agreements must abide by any restrictions contained in the two slow-growth measures.

Ten developers, representing 6,353 housing units, told the City Council they couldn’t enter into the agreements as defined by the city attorney. The reasons varied, but all had to do with the two ballot measures. Some said they couldn’t live with the potential environmental restrictions, others said they couldn’t risk investing millions of dollars in public improvements without a guarantee of being able to recoup their investment by building (and selling) homes.

The 10 developers, some of which had spent years on their proposals, represented projects that included:

- Miramar Ranch North (3,360 units).

- Scripps Eastview (360).

- Scripps Sunburst (316).

- Regency Hill (910).

- Sorrento Hills (525).

- Four small builders in Miramar Ranch North (880)

- Stonecrest, an industrial park developer in Serra Mesa.

Although the 10 were defeated or a vote was delayed until after the election, it is also clear that most, if not all, will be back before the council in some form.

After agonizing over the proposed agreements for several hours--with the City Council at times playing lawyer and attempting to draft legal language acceptable to all parties in the middle of their hearings--the council did approve the five agreements with developers, all of whom said they were willing to go along with the contracts as proposed by Witt’s office.

The five projects approved by the council:

- Westview/Casa Mira View, in Mira Mesa (3,050 units by Pardee Construction Co.).

- Penasquitos (1,680 by American Newland Associates).

- Mercy Mira Mesa (890 by American Newland Associates and J. L. Elder Corp.).

- Tierrasanta Norte (1,690 by Tierrasanta Norte).

- Riverwalk, in Mission Valley (960 by Chevron Land & Development Co.).

Councilman Ron Roberts, in a statement that seemed to sum up the consensus of the council, said, “I’m not going to go forward on any agreement that isn’t enforceable by the (two) initiatives.”

Linda Michael, representing the Sierra Club, told the council that it was apparent to her organization that many of the developers were attempting to get around the environmental restrictions contained in the ballot measures.

She said the developers and the council were engaged in a “rush to beat the clock.” In doing so, she claimed, the council was “gutting its own initiative . . . (making it an) empty shell of worthless promises.”