Mailers sent out last week by the No on B and C campaign to rescind the Barrio Logan community plan update read, "Wrong Place for Housing Next to Shipyards."
San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez, who lives in and represents Barrio Logan, said the flier's claims "just aren't true." The Barrio Logan plan update does not place any housing next to shipyards, Alvarez said.
"The shipyards are on the bay. There are no homes close to the shipyards. There's no plan to put homes close to shipyards. This is about the rest of the industrial uses," he said.
The Barrio Logan plan update was passed by the City Council last year. It would install a five-block-long commercial buffer zone that separates residential and industrial zones. The plan allows "community and neighborhood commercial uses'' in the buffer area, but no houses, according to a city staff report.
After the council passed the plan update, business groups objected and gathered signatures to overturn the council's actions.
Melissa Ratcliff, a spokeswoman for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, which supports the No on B and C campaign, said the plan update would "allow more than 2,000 new homes, including six-story high-rises, to be built close to the largely industrial shipyards."
Alvarez said this isn't true.
"No homes next to shipyards," he said. "In the areas closer to the East Village, the residential communities would have increased density there. But I wouldn't say that developments in the East Village are next to shipyards, yet that's exactly the type of development that the Barrio Logan plan envisions closer to the East Village, downtown area."
Chris Wahl, a spokesman for the No on B and C campaign, said by email that the two blocks in Barrio Logan "directly in front of the shipyards are currently zoned exclusively as heavy industrial." He said the plan update rezones them to "neighborhood commercial uses, which support residential development across the street."
The mailer also says, "More Pollution," but Alvarez said he doesn't know where that claim comes from. He said if the plan update is not passed by voters "because of the message that is being put out by opponents saying that there's more pollution, then I'm going to be interested in looking for ways that we reduce the pollution in Barrio Logan. And that probably means trying to find a way to eliminate some of the industrial uses as they exist today."
Alvarez said that could include a City Council ordinance.
San Diego voters will decide the fate of the Barrio Logan plan update on June 3. A yes vote on Propositions B and C upholds the plan update passed by the City Council, and a no vote rescinds it.
