Group Sues City of S.D. in Wake of Shelter Plan

Barrio Logan activists have filed a lawsuit against the city of San Diego, following the hotly debated approval of a homeless shelter project in their neighborhood.

The suit, filed Thursday in San Diego Superior Court, alleges that the City Council decision to permit construction of the Rachel Grosvenor Family Center violates a city ordinance prohibiting construction of residential care facilities within a quarter of a mile of each other.

Members of the Harborview Community Council, an association of residents in the predominantly Latino community of Barrio Logan, said Friday that they fear the shelter will add to problems already brought by a half-dozen area agencies now serving the homeless, rehabilitating drug addicts and helping convicts on furlough.

The Harborview association and residents from adjoining neighborhoods on the eastern fringe of downtown are named as plaintiffs in the suit.

“Social service doesn’t mean donating a bunch of money so you can put the people the city wants to forget with the Mexicans in Barrio Logan,” said Al Ducheny, chairman of the Harborview council. “I think the city needs shelters. But they don’t all have to go to poor neighborhoods.”

A spokesman for the city attorney’s office said the council’s vote to approve the project was within the law, and that the center could obtain a variance to a building ordinance designed to prevent residential social service agencies from proliferating in one area.

City building ordinances serve only as guidelines to development, Deputy City Attorney Fred Conrad said.

“The quarter-mile provision is not a mandatory requirement,” Conrad said, adding, “Provisions are for the City Council to consider when making a decision. They are not absolute.”

A spokeswoman for Mayor Maureen O’Connor said the mayor had no comment on the case.

The mayor does not publicly discuss legal matters before the city, said Mary Adams, the spokeswoman.

The site for the proposed 130-bed center is located at 16th Street and National Avenue, a block east of St. Vincent De Paul Village, which has beds for more than 400 homeless, and a block south of the Model Ex-Offenders center that houses 45 former convicts. Other centers are located nearby in Barrio Logan and in the Centre City East area.

The Grosvenor shelter property was paid for, in part, by a $1-million donation from local philanthropist Rachel Grosvenor. The San Diego Rescue Mission will manage the new center and is also raising money to pay for renovations to the huge warehouse that will house the shelter. Rescue Mission officials estimate the center will cost about $3.8 million.

The City Council voted earlier this month to ignore recommendations by the City Planning Commission, which turned down the proposal, and approved plans for the center.

One of the commissioners who voted to reject the project said Friday that he was concerned about possible environmental hazards at the site.

“There was some ambiguity as to whether there were some hazardous chemicals that had been stored there,” said Karl ZoBell, chairman of the Planning Commission. “If there was going to be some question about people’s safety, I thought it should be looked into before I approved it. I voted it down based on the ambiguity.”

ZoBell said it is now up to a judge to decide whether the ordinance variance is legal and, if so, whether to order a more thorough environmental analysis of the site than had been conducted.