City Acts to Preserve Otay Mesa for Airport

Seeking to preserve the option of upgrading Brown Field to a major regional airport, the San Diego City Council on Monday laid the groundwork for a yearlong freeze on planning and construction of 11,195 homes slated to be built near the small Otay Mesa airfield.

The 12-month moratorium proposed by Councilman Ron Roberts also would hold up planning of a small number of commercial and industrial projects while the San Diego Assn. of Governments reviews alternatives to overburdened Lindbergh Field.

“We are heading for a major problem with Lindbergh Field,” said Roberts, who has adopted the future of regional air travel as one of his major projects. “It’s not the Laurel Travel Center, and it’s not the noise. It’s the fact that you and I, and everybody else in this region, are not going to be able to get in and out of that airport.”

The 5-2 vote in favor of Roberts’ proposal fell one vote short of the six votes Roberts will need for approval of an emergency ordinance when the issue comes back before the council Nov. 15. With Councilman Bruce Henderson, who is on his honeymoon, expected to be absent again, Mayor Maureen O’Connor will cast the deciding vote on the matter.

O’Connor, who missed Monday’s council meeting because she was meeting with a Soviet cultural official about plans for next year’s Soviet arts festival, said in an interview that she has not yet decided how she will vote on the proposed moratorium.

While Sandag conducts a 12-month review of where the regional airport could be relocated, paper work for 11,195 homes on 2,147 acres of Otay Mesa is working its way through the city’s planning process. At least one major project is scheduled to come before the city’s Planning Commission in December, causing the need for an emergency ordinance, a Roberts aide said.

The homes would be located immediately west of Brown Field, putting them near the end of a runway and squarely in the path of commercial aircraft noise if Brown Field is converted to a major airport. In addition, some of the land proposed for the residential developments might be needed to extend the runway, Roberts said.

Roberts, whose 2nd Council District includes Lindbergh, said he has no preference about where the airport should be relocated, but noted that Brown Field and Miramar Naval Air Station are “far and away our leading options.”

Destined to Reach Capacity

Lindbergh, which has experienced a 63% increase in passenger traffic during the last 10 years, now serves 10.1 million people annually with its single runway. By 1995, it will reach its capacity, and will probably be one of the 20 most-congested airports in the nation, Roberts said.

Seeking to preserve both Brown Field and Miramar as alternatives, Roberts proposed a moratorium on all residential development east of Interstate 805 to the Mexican border. No new planning maps for industrial and commercial development north of state highway 117 would be accepted, although projects already in the planning pipeline would be allowed.

The proposal would also put on hold three planned 50-year leases of city property in the area.

Major opposition to the freeze came from Councilman Bob Filner, whose 8th Council District includes Otay Mesa, and property owners in the area. With community plans calling for 46,000 people to eventually live on Otay Mesa, Roberts’ proposal threatens the planned balance between residential and commercial real estate in the area, Filner said.

“I believe that this hiatus in developing the West Mesa would be tragic to our city,” Filner said. “The people in the South Bay are eager for the opportunity to move up to single-family homes.”

Filner also accused Roberts and Councilman Ed Struiksma, whose 5th Council District includes Miramar, of attempting to shift the unwanted airport from “the affluent communities you all represent to less affluent communities” in the South Bay.

Filner noted that, in 1976 and 1981 studies, Sandag rejected the use of Brown Field as a regional airport because of the proximity of the international border and because the 3,566-foot height of Otay Mountain would make landings by westbound jets impossible.

But Roberts aides claimed that advances in instrument technology and realignment of the runway on a northwest-southeast axis would allow jets to approach the airport at a different angle, possibly from over Mexico.

With most council members agreeing that relocating the airport is one of the most pressing issues they will face, Filner attracted only Councilwoman Judy McCarty to his side. Council members Abbe Wolfsheimer, Wes Pratt, Gloria McColl and Ed Struiksma voted with Roberts to direct the preparation of the emergency ordinance for consideration next week.