Learning From San Diego: City Emerges as Sustainable Model

We do this interview at the 2009 VerdeXchange Green Marketmakers Conference, where you are speaking on a panel titled "Local Sustainability Initiatives." What is the context for the city of San Diego's current sustainability initiatives.

I'm going to start with the context, because San Diego has been doing a lot with sustainability, but we have focused on a different aspect of sustainability ever since we had our growth wars during the ‘70s and ‘80s. Out of that comes growth management, which was known nationally and probably provides some rational process for expansion as a city grew, because it has been growing quite a bit. Our General Plan, which was written during that time, in 1978, was very much focused on growth management. We've since planned or preserved all 330 square miles of San Diego.

We updated the General Plan. It's been about a five-year process, and we just got that adopted unanimously by the council in March of this year. In that process we had to shift from thinking about land expansion and preservation to urban and infill development because that's our future.

The city of San Diego's plan really has two sides; one is that we are a city set within an ecological region. We have the most bio-diversity of any county in the continental United States. We have about 70 to 80 endangered species in the county. In the ‘90s we were on the forefront of developing the concept of multiple species habitat planning, where instead of regulating the preservation of each species one at a time, in their habitat, we have looked at whole systems and how we can create large areas of habitat so that multiple species will survive and will have room to propagate and maintain themselves. In that plan we identified about 53,000 acres to preserve, and we've preserved 92 percent of that, or 48,000 acres. We have probably double that in open space because our other open space is not habitat. Ironically, the preservation of habitat pushed some of the growth out to the other areas. Now our future depends on how we encourage growth within the core.

The General Plan, which we call the City of Villages, is focused on new growth in, maybe, nine percent of our existing land, to intensify near transit and employment centers. That's very much linked to SANDAG's blueprint. We worked very closely with SANDAG; their plan reflected our plan and vice versa, so SB 375 is not a major issue for us. We were already coordinated in that way. We're looking to grow near transit. In fact, we were probably one of the first jurisdictions in the state that addressed climate change through our General Plan.

Was Attorney General Jerry Brown's suit against the County of San Bernardino a spur to better plan to meet the challenge of climate change?

We were in the process of doing our plan when the Attorney General sued San Bernardino County. We were already starting to address it, but because of that lawsuit we tried to address their concerns. We actually worked very closely with the attorney general's staff to make sure our policies were providing the kind of policy direction that would be consistent with AB 32. There were some things that they promoted that we said, "Thank you, but that's not something that we feel we can pursue." At the end of the day they have a letter of support for our General Plan. We're happy with that. We're the second largest city in the state so to be one of the larger jurisdictions to be able to do that without a lawsuit is pretty good.

While updating the city of San Diego's General Plan, how did the city prioritize the nine percent of the land for infill development? Under what process did you select those sites, and how are you prioritizing multi-use or higher density projects?

They are areas served by transit, whether rail or bus. We have a village propensity map. We couldn't go in and say, "This is where you're going to do it" because there would be a lot of backlash from the neighborhoods. We have to go through a community process to identify those areas. We have some already: Hillcrest, North Park, and La Jolla. In introducing new development in very suburban parts of San Diego, some of the opportunities are old, obsolete shopping centers that we thought would give a little heart to the community as a place where we could have a mixture of uses.

In our General Plan we also had the Industrial Lands Policy, which was probably the most controversial part. We have preserved half of our industrial land as prime industrial. We won't entertain anything but base-sector industries there with a mix of services for the employees. For the other half, we would consider introducing other uses and employment in a planned process. Our objective is to get more work force housing closer to where jobs are located. It's not just a question of a car or transit system, but we do have opportunities on the sub-city level where people could bike to work or walk to work and we want to create that opportunity.

What was the biggest challenge during the General Plan update process?

Water! We import 90 percent of our water. Through the CEQA process, we have to do water supply assessments. It's very difficult to demonstrate that we can guarantee there will be water over the next 20 years. We're trying to approve and consider infill development without really knowing if water is going to be available. Because of the way that the process of determining availability is structured, there is a lag between plan amendments and the region's forecast into the urban water management plan. So we can't say with 100 percent certainty that water is going to be there. That raises a lot of political issues for people who wonder if they should approve a development if we don't know that the water is going to be there. Water supply is certainly impacting the process of development applications.

We are working very hard on mechanisms to diversify the water base, including very strict conservation and a desal plant, which was recently approved in Carlsbad. We're looking at other technologies. We already have a great water system.

The mayor of San Diego recently unveiled a new solar roof program. Could you share the approach and goal of this solar initiative?

The solar program, the San Diego Clean Generation Program, is modeled on what Berkeley did. I think, Palm Desert has the other program that is up and running.

We've recently issued an RFP to financial advisors to set it up. We're not going to vote on it; we're doing a pilot program. It is designed to provide long term financing for solar and retrofits to property owners.

What they would do is voluntarily buy into a citywide or sub-region assessment district, or a community facilities district. The benefit to the property owner is that it can address cash flow issues. They finance their solar purchase and installation with their assessment district, in an added benefit to their property tax. It runs with the property, so if someone is thinking, "I like solar, but I might move in seven years and I won't get my payback," or, "I don't have the cash to make a down payment," they can do it this way, and it runs with the property. So let's say it is a 20-year life facility, then it would be a 20-year payment. The subsequent property will continue to pay it until it's fully amortized. It also has the potential of bulk market cost savings. The city program wouldn't require it, but suppliers and installers might offer discounts or provide an incentive through the program to encourage the installation. It is important to note that you can only go so far with new development, because you're building stock might turn over two percent a year. It would take, therefore, a long time to scale the program. Finding a way to finance retrofits on existing properties, we feel, is a major benefit.

Are there city agencies in place in San Diego to collect and share best sustainable practices and policies?

We have what we call "Green Cities," which basically is a case where some of the cities tend to exchange ideas-Portland, Seattle, Denver, and the like-cities facing similar issues. They were getting a lot of credit. But we do that too; we just really don't pull it all together and promote ourselves. We realize that a lot of different departments, whether it's wastewater, the water department, environmental services, or planning are doing green initiatives. We just weren't coordinated. We get together now monthly with what is called the "Green Cities Team" so that the staff and directors can find out and exchange what everyone is doing and then introduce new ideas. The Berkeley program first came through Green Cities. We investigated it, and the mayor's policy staff, who are also on the committee, ran with it. Something will be up and running hopefully by this fall.

The mayor of San Diego has added economic development to your planning responsibilities since Gail Goldberg left to become the city of Los Angeles' Planning Director. What was the impetus behind expanding your position's responsibilities?

It was to more closely integrate planning, which is the long-term visionary side of things, with implementation so that planners are thinking and learning about the practical implementation issues of the plans, but also so that the people doing implementation are aware of the long-term vision. We want to keep those teams closely aligned. That's why we pulled economic development, community development, and redevelopment together. We wanted a Planning Department that wasn't just a regulatory department but one that was proactive in identifying the issues and coming up with the strategies to address them.

From you experience, does reorganizing city departments create or reduce turf battles or confusion?

A couple of parts of the Economic Development Team and our enterprise zone went straight to the mayor's office early this year. The mayor wanted to be directly involved in economic development, but I wouldn't call that a turf battle. In redevelopment we're still trying to figure out whether it works best this way or if we should set up a redevelopment agency as its own department. Right now it's a division in our department. If we did set it up by itself, we would still want planning to be the vision part and redevelopment to be the implementation part.