Builders Mobilize to Block a Border Airport
A potentially powerful coalition of large developers is quietly organizing to block the placement of an international airport on Otay Mesa, a project that could wipe out builders’ plans to put thousands of homes and hundreds of acres of industrial and commercial structures on the mesa.
Led by Michael Murphy, president of California Structures, the group, which is still in its formative stages, would represent the first substantial organized opposition to efforts by Councilman Ron Roberts to locate a binational airport on the border with Mexico.
Its activity could put business and real estate development interests at odds with Roberts, an architect who during his two-year tenure on the council has enjoyed generally good relations with business leaders and builders.
A consulting firm hired by the San Diego Assn. of Governments has narrowed the list of potential replacements for overburdened Lindbergh Field to Miramar Naval Air Station, a site east of the air station and a joint facility on the Mexican border.
The Sandag consultant is scheduled to issue a final recommendation in September, and the San Diego City Council is expected to discuss a choice this fall, sometime before a moratorium on housing construction near Brown Field expires Nov. 21.
Open to All 3 Sites
Roberts, who has said he is open to all three sites, has been negotiating with Mexican officials to keep the binational option open. He is in Mexico this week for negotiations on the airport, aides said.
Known currently as “Keep Lindbergh Field,” the anti-Otay Mesa organization includes the Pardee Construction Co. and has conducted discussions with the Baldwin Co.
The two home builders could see their plans to build 6,000 homes west of Brown Field wiped out because of noise and safety concerns if Roberts’ negotiations with the Mexican government come to fruition. An Otay Mesa airport with north-south runways also could jeopardize Baldwin’s plans to build homes and offices on more than 20,000 unincorporated acres of Otay Mesa.
The group is negotiating a contract with Stoorza, Ziegaus Metzger, a prominent public relations firm that frequently represents development interests, said Gail Stoorza Gill, the firm’s chairman.
“No contract has been signed,” Gill said. “We’re talking about it.”
Officials with California Structures, which owns 240 acres of industrially zoned land on the city portion of Otay Mesa, did not return numerous telephone calls. Steve Doyle, a Pardee executive, said he believes his firm is participating in the formation of the interest group.
Greg Smith, president of The Baldwin Co. and John Kern, a consultant for the firm, said the company is not involved in formation of the interest group. However, sources said the company has been approached and is engaging in discussions about creation of the organization.
The sources said committee organizers are considering Great American Bank Chairman Gordon Luce, former City Councilman Bill Cleator and others as possible chairmen for the organization.
A key test of the business leaders’ clout could come today, when the San Diego Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors hears a presentation from a subcommittee on airport location alternatives. Though there are no specific plans for the board to take a position on the site, “anything can happen,” said Gill, who also is chairman of the chamber’s board.
(Gill said that because of her firm’s possible involvement with the Keep Lindbergh Field group, she will not participate in chamber votes on the airport site selection.)
Pitch to Keep Lindbergh
Murphy and Roberts made presentations to the Chamber’s executive committee July 13, but Stoorza declined to reveal whether that group, which makes recommendations to the full board, took a position.
An outline distributed by Murphy claims that Lindbergh, now overcrowded with 11 million passengers annually, could handle a more than 30 million passengers annually if 48 acres of the adjacent Marine Corps Recruit Depot were acquired. However, Jack Koerper, project manager for Sandag, said there is no support for that position in a consultant’s report on the crowding prepared for the San Diego Board of Port Commissioners.
South Bay politicians such as San Diego City Councilman Bob Filner and County Supervisor Brian Bilbray publicly oppose placement of the airport in the South Bay, but both said they are not working with the organization.
“It makes no fiscal sense,” said Filner, who also believes that negotiations with Mexico would be impossible to complete. “It destroys the whole industrial economic policy we have for Otay Mesa, and it’s fiscally irresponsible. There’s no way we can afford to buy all the land.”
The two options outlined by the Sandag consultant for a binational airport would consume 6,638 or 3,436 acres, depending on which one is chosen, according to the consultant’s report. The larger would require acquisition of 5,585 acres of commercially and industrially zoned land. The smaller would require purchase of 2,411 acres, the report shows.
Roberts, who supports the smaller option, believes that the city has little choice in relocation because Lindbergh is not a viable long-term option and the Navy has flatly refused to negotiate giving up Miramar, home of its famed Top Gun flier school. Safety considerations also make it the best choice, an aide said.
“The justification is that we don’t appear to have another option for a site physically in this county, and the consultant looked at the entire county,” the aide said.
