Politics

San Diego City Council Delays One Paseo Vote

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published May 18, 2015 at 3:00 AM PDT

This story was published more than 9 years ago.

An architectural drawing gives a bird's eye view of the proposed $650 million One Paseo project site on Del Mar Heights Road in Carmel Valley.

Council will vote on Carmel Valley development on Thursday, still hearing comments Monday

One Paseo Back On San Diego City Council’s Agenda

Signatures force the hotly contested development planned for Del Mar Heights Road back to the San Diego City Council, where it won approval in February.

The San Diego City Council will vote Monday whether to rescind its approval of One Paseo — or let the public decide.

The Carmel Valley development won City Council approval in February on a 7-2 vote, with only Council President Sherri Lightner and Councilwoman Marti Emerald opposing.

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But opponents have collected enough signatures to force the issue back onto the council’s agenda.

Opponents and supporters are divided over the definition of "smart growth."

Supporters say One Paseo is smart growth — a mixed-use, infill development that brings offices, homes and shops to an urban area and avoids sprawl.

But opponents say it is anything but smart growth and would set a precedent for approval of denser projects in neighborhoods where traffic gridlock is already a problem.

At the February council meeting, those attending had to be shuttled up to council chambers in groups from an overflow space at Golden Hall on the civic concourse.

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To accommodate the large crowds expected Monday, the meeting will be in Golden Hall and will start at 1 p.m., an hour earlier than council meetings normally start on Mondays.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.