Will the day come when neighborhood housing projects find a welcome mat in industrial zones regulated by the California Coastal Commission?
That idea is being proposed by commission staff officials intent on expanding the supply of affordable property for housing near “light industry” employment and transit centers.
But it faces likely pushback from leery business interests.
In San Diego's Barrio Logan, residents and maritime companies don't quite co-exist happily.
There are other coastal-zone industrial areas in this region where housing interest might be better-served.
However, fears among local industrial firms range from restrictions that could shut them down in their current locations, and longer odds of expanding or relocating onto what little shovel-ready acreage is left.
Barrio Logan community activists have pushed aggressively to gentrify and make their neighborhoods more livable – all the while in the shadow of an entrenched maritime industry that helps anchor the local economy by making its living on the nearby waterfront.
Now Coastal Commission officials are looking to harmonize things with a new zoning scheme not only there, but in places such as Center City, Mira Mesa, Torrey Pines Mesa, San Ysidro and University City.
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The state agency has final oversight in governing land use near the ocean, bays and tributaries.
"In San Diego County we need thousands -- tens of thousands of homes to get built,” says Voice of San Diego Editor Scott Lewis. “Housing affordability is cited as the biggest restraint on business growth, on people moving their businesses here."
But will the hybrid approach recommended by Coastal Commission staffers – a local coastal plan zoning overlay called “IP-3-1” -- wind up driving businesses away?
"We do anticipate conflict,” said industrial real estate broker Linda Greenberg, who co-chairs the “Working Waterfront” business coalition.
“We have a number of industries that are very location-specific, obviously the shipyards are one,” Greenberg noted in an interview Friday. “The bio-meds, bio-techs, bio-device industries are another. And if we take the little remaining developable land and convert 49 percent to residential use, we're diminishing the ability of those critical, base-sector industries to expand -- and potentially remain in San Diego."
Other government forces figure to be in play here.
"The Port (of San Diego) has a mandate to support industrial and maritime uses, and they're one of the major parts of this coastal zone in San Diego,” Lewis pointed out. “And it's not going to be a clear fight. This is one layer of regulation that might get streamlined, but there's a lot of other areas."
Coastal Commissioners will consider the new zoning proposals Wednesday in Santa Monica.
A Barrio Logan community plan revision is expected to undergo review at City Hall sometime in June.
