Ruling On Oceanside Housing Development Could Have Statewide Implications On Future Projects

Speaker 1: 00:00 The effort to increase housing in San Diego often ends up in the courts. And last week, a ruling on one housing development could have statewide implications, a citizens ballot initiative against the proposed North river farms development in Oceanside one in last November's election. But the judge ruled that a new state law invalidates the initiative since the North river farms development was approved by the Oceanside city council. San Diego has seen a number of council and board approved housing projects defeated by voters at the ballot box, but this ruling puts future citizens actions against development. In question, joining me is San Diego union Tribune reporter Phil deal. Feel welcome. Good morning. Tell us a little more about the proposed North river farms. Where would it be built? Speaker 2: 00:51 It would be as many as 585 homes. Uh, the site is about 215 acres. It is in South Morrow Hills, which is an agricultural region of Northeastern Speaker 1: 01:07 And Oceanside city council members approved. Yeah. Speaker 2: 01:10 Yes. Oceanside approved it in November of 2019. It was a three to two vote with Esther Sanchez. Now mayor at the time she was a council member. She was against it and Ryan kind voted against. Speaker 1: 01:25 So as happens frequently, people who didn't want the housing development got together, they collected signatures and got the North river farms development on the ballot for an up or down vote. The people opposed to the development one, but apparently that wasn't the end of it. Speaker 2: 01:43 Well, the developer filed a couple lawsuits and both were filed before the referendum. Initially they challenged the referendum saying that they didn't think the signatures were valid, that there was some underhandedness in gathering the signatures, but a judge overruled that claim and dismissed it. Speaker 1: 02:03 What is this new state law or code? The judge based his ruling on Speaker 2: 02:09 His ruling is based on the housing crisis act of 2019, which is something the legislature passed. And the governor signed to streamline the whole development process because there is such a housing shortage. There's a homeless crisis. There's a re-answer up and housing costs are really going up. So the idea is to increase the supply of housing and make it more Speaker 1: 02:34 And he ruled the ballot initiative. Wasn't valid. Why? Speaker 2: 02:39 Well, you said that the legislation is intended to maximize housing development and that therefore it preempts the referendum that the referendum itself sets a limit on housing development. Speaker 1: 02:53 If this ruling were to stand, what kind of implications would it have for future development in the state? It Speaker 2: 03:00 Has strong implications for at least two other projects. The Newland Sierra project, which was overturned in March, 2020 by a referendum, another incident or another development is the Phoenicia ranch in San te, which, uh, the Santee city council approved. And there was a referendum and they agreed to place that on the ballot in November, 2022. So that's more than a year away, but the developer there has already said that he will challenge that in court, based on this housing crisis act, Speaker 1: 03:35 Critics say the judge got it wrong. And that the housing crisis act doesn't apply to voters, but to government agencies, can you explain that Speaker 2: 03:45 The housing hacked is designed to streamline the whole application process? Like there was a previous case in Los Angeles where the LA city council approved a project or denied a project. The city council denied a project because it didn't have enough affordable housing and the, uh, superior court judge Derr overruled that decision by the council and said that the project could proceed because of the housing crisis act. So that's a case where it was based more, not on a referendum and it was aimed at a city council action. Speaker 1: 04:25 The housing crisis act seems to have generated actually more litigation than home-building isn't that the case? Speaker 2: 04:31 Well, locally, that seems to be the case. There's definitely a couple of big cases in the works. And it's hard to say, I mean, it hasn't been around that long, so it's pretty new still. So it's hard to say statewide what the effect will be, but it does seem, I mean, the referendum is a pretty widely used process, so there's a chance it can have a widespread effect. Speaker 1: 04:53 What was the reaction to the North river farms ruling from both sides of this issue, Speaker 2: 04:58 Integral communities, which is the developer building North river farms. They were pretty much thrilled with it. And they said that, you know, it's good for the community. And clearly the area needs more housing. There is a huge homeless problem in Oceanside and throughout North County. So the developer there was pleased and, and said, you know, it upholds the, the purpose of the act. Well, and the opponents, the people like Cathy Carbone, who was one of the leaders of the referendum, she said she was horrified by it. But the people I talked to who weren't ready to issue a statement said it was clearly a bad thing for voters rights because they were just were unhappy with it. Speaker 1: 05:42 What's the next move? Do we know in, in that case, Speaker 2: 05:45 There are multiple parties. I mean, named at integral, the developer, uh, named the city, the city clerk, the County registrar of voters, and some of the people who circulated random referendum were all named as parties to this. Uh, so, and I guess any one of them could file an appeal. The city says they have 60 days to decide whether or not they will appeal and it appears likely they will. But I guess it's hard to say it's up to the city council. The city council will decide probably in a closed session, not this week, but in the next few weeks, what to do Speaker 1: 06:21 You spoke with Steven Russell, head of the San Diego housing Federation who told you that developments housing developments should proceed within the rules of existing general plans. And he said he was not a fan of ballot box zoning. So do you think that in general housing advocates are in favor of this ruling against citizens ballot initiative? Speaker 2: 06:41 He, as he pointed out, developers want a clear cut path toward their project and things that go back and forth unpredictably like this are never good. So, uh, and I think a lot of developers feel that way. They don't want to see anything go to a referendum. It costs them a lot of money to, uh, defeat this. I mean, integral has spent millions of dollars, uh, on the referendum, in the lost, and they're spending a lot of money on court cases and so on. So I don't think they're happy about the referendum process Speaker 1: 07:23 Speaking with San Diego union Tribune, reporter Phil deal and Phil. Thanks. Speaker 2: 07:27 Yeah, you're welcome.