Affordable Housing Advocates Applaud Restart Of Sports Arena Redevelopment

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego has been eyeing redevelopment of the Pachanga arena in the midway district for years, the 48 acres of city owned land is strategically located close to downtown and the old town transit center, but the plans have hit a snag after state officials determined the process used to select a development team violated state law. Now, mayor Todd Gloria says he has to restart that process all over again, here to unpack what this means is Andy Keats, assistant editor and senior investigative reporter at voice of San Diego. Andy, welcome Speaker 2: 00:35 Andrew. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 00:36 Let's start with why San Diego wants to redevelop this land in the first place. What's wrong with what's on this property right now? Speaker 2: 00:44 Well, the S the arena's old, uh, for one, and they'd like to have a nice new arena. Uh, that's a little bit more competitive, and I think they, the, the shortest way to understand it, or the easiest way to understand it is that redeveloping all the land around it, uh, offers a good way to pay for the cost of w either renovating or rebuilding the arena. You've got all this public land, it's in a pretty good area. We're in a housing crisis, and we need quite a bit of housing. And if you can get some of that housing and allow a developer to make money by doing so, and then using some of that profit pay for a new arena that you need anyway, that, that the city would look at that as a good situation for them. Speaker 1: 01:26 Former mayor Kevin Faulkner had selected a development team, Brookfield housing and ASM global to lead this project, or what was the vision for the arena property that they had put forward? Speaker 2: 01:38 It was pretty straight forward. It was a mixed use development. There'd be some, some commercial, a little bit of an entertainment district, some public spart, a public park space. They would use the success of that redevelopment to, uh, renovate the stadium. And I do stress renovate their, their plan did not commit them to building a new arena. Uh, they kind of came back after the fact and said, well, if you really wanted a new arena, we could look into that. Maybe that'd be something we'd be interested in if you are. Uh, but there was no commitment to that Speaker 1: 02:10 Did earlier this year, that talks between the city and that development team had hit a snag or stalled because of a change to a state law called the surplus land act. Now, what is the purpose of that law and how did the city manage to overlook it? Speaker 2: 02:24 Yeah, so the, the purpose of the law, and it's not new, it's a, it's a decades old law is that when, when a public entity owns land, if it goes into private ownership, it's probably never going to go back into public ownership. And that there's certain things you can do with public land that, that you, that you can't with private land. I think that the logic of the law is that you want to be very careful whenever you allow property in California to go from public ownership to private ownership. And so they created a process by which if you're, if a city or a transit agency or a county is going to sell land, that they need to first give all the other public agencies in the area, an opportunity to say, well, Hey, hang on. We think we could use that. We think we could do something good with that, that would benefit the public. Speaker 2: 03:15 And so that had been the case for a long time, that law was recently changed and the most crucial change that, that, that, uh, that happened within it was that it became, uh, something that applied to public leases. So the city of San Diego is understanding had been, if you were going to sell public land, sure. You had to offer that up to other public agencies. But if you were going to do a 99 year lease of public land, that that wouldn't count. And so that was really what tripped them up here is that, uh, they were, they were going to lease the land to this developer and the Lea and the developer would build all this stuff on top of this new land that they were leasing. Uh, and the state based on, uh, a recent, uh, legislative change said, no, no, no. That, uh, that, that long-term lease is, is essentially the same as a sale for our purposes. Speaker 1: 04:05 No fast forward to last week, mayor Todd Gloria announced that he is restarting the process of selecting a developer and a new plan for this property. What will that new process involve and how will it differ from how the former mayor Kevin Faulkner handled this last year? Speaker 2: 04:22 So when the mayor, when mayor Faulkner former mayor, Faulconer put this up, he basically just put out a very bare bones request for proposals from developers said, Hey, development community. We've got this land. Uh, here are some of the broad strokes of what we'd like to see, send us your ideas. And then they had a little competition to pick which of those ideas they liked best. They only received two of them. So it wasn't much of a competition this time around what the, what mayor Gloria's, uh, team will have to do is first offer up the land to all public agencies, formula formerly. And when they do that, they'll also have to offer the land to all, uh, affordable housing developers. And so there will be a 60 day period during which the affordable housing community and public agencies have an opportunity to, to step in and say, Hey, we think we could do something good with that land. Speaker 2: 05:18 And if they, if they do then the city has to immediately begin negotiations with, with those respondents. Now, if that doesn't happen, if, if, if no one thinks to come forward and, um, and offer up or suggest that they have an idea for the property, I think it would be a slight surprise if a public agency or affordable housing developer jumped at this much land. Um, if no one does that, then the mayor would basically be able to start the process over from where former mayor Faulkner did a year ago, which is put out a request for proposals from all private developers and pick among those Speaker 1: 05:56 Affordable housing advocates. Uh, as, as you kind of hinted that don't necessarily see this restart as a bad thing, what is their vision for this land and, and what will affordable housing? Absolutely definitely be a part of whatever happens there. Speaker 2: 06:13 Yes, it will absolutely definitely be a part of this change to this state law was pushed by affordable housing advocates and their thought was basically, you've got public land when you develop it, you should start from the premise that it needs to be developed for the public good. Speaker 1: 06:28 The San Diego union Tribune editorial board wrote last week that this, uh, problem or snag, uh, that the city has hit with his property was an example of former mayor. Kevin Faulconer, his quote, stunning and competence when it comes to real estate deals, of course, Faulkner also led the disastrous attempt to lease and purchase the asbestos Laden building at 1 0 1 Ash street. What is the likelihood that these missteps will have any impact on Faulkner's current campaign for governor? Speaker 2: 06:59 I think the political world is, is, uh, so, so strange right now that this actual resumes that the former mayor of the second largest city in the state doesn't actually seem to be especially important in his bid for governor Speaker 1: 07:14 Speaking with Andy Keats, assistant editor and senior investigative reporter at voice of San Diego. Andy, thanks for joining us. Thanks, Andrew.