Under pressure to shrink its carbon footprint, San Diego on Tuesday rolled out proposals aimed at encouraging commuters to curb their driving — from eliminating parking spaces to getting businesses to offer incentives for employees to walk, bike and take mass transit.

The move comes as the city continues to largely avoid changes to the allowable housing density of urban neighborhoods amid controversy. Homeowners and merchants often object to what they see as too much density while environmentalists argue that taller and more tightly packed development is needed to encourage less driving.

The city’s planning staff unveiled the transportation strategies just hours before the council approved updates to the long-range community plans for North Park and Golden Hill — two neighborhoods currently projected to fall short of the city’s climate-change goals for reducing car trips.

“There are many, many tools available to this council and this city to make sure that we hit the mark,” Councilman Todd Gloria, whose District 3 includes the two neighborhoods, said at the meeting, expressing support for the new proposals.


“What I would say is I think it is important that we keep a close eye on whether or not we are moving the needle in the right direction,” he added.

Of all residents who live within a half-mile of a major transit stop, the city’s Climate Action Plan calls for only half to drive to work by 2035, down from about 89 percent today.

The zoning blueprints for North Park and Golden Hill are the first to be updated since the city approved its climate document in December. That overarching vision calls for combating global warming by slashing the city’s greenhouse-gas emissions in half during the next two decades through steps such as greening up the local electrical grid, embracing federal and state clean-car programs and planting more trees.

Environmental groups and developers argue the community-plan overhauls should dictate denser development to promote walking, biking and busing, while some residents, specifically in North Park, said future growth could ruin their neighborhoods’ aesthetic character as well as worsen noise and traffic.


Aug. 3, 2016: an apartment complex for seniors is going up on the corner of 30th Street and Howard Avenue in North Park. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune )

Would you accept denser, taller neighborhoods to fight climate change? »

Reflecting this divide, the community plan updates don’t add markedly to the projected housing stock in North Park and Golden Hill — which are both more than two-thirds built out.

Nationwide, other cities are grappling with the density debate. Some, including Seattle and Portland, have spent decades considering the trade-offs and benefits of tighter neighborhoods, while others like San Diego are intensifying their discussion because of growing attention to climate change.


Next month, San Diego will address the same issues again when it votes on the community update for Uptown, which encompasses Hillcrest, Bankers Hill, Mission Hills and a portion of University Heights. In its present form, the update doesn’t raise the cap for housing units and is also out of line with the city’s transportation targets.

What I would say is I think it is important that we keep a close eye on whether or not we are moving the needle in the right direction. City Councilman Todd Gloria on the city’s Climate Action Plan

City officials downplayed the recent analysis of neighborhood plans that shows Uptown, North Park and Golden Hill limiting car commuters to 58.4 percent, 58.7 percent and 63.7 percent respectively. Rather, they have said the city could make up shortfalls with the proposals unveiled Tuesday.


“I believe we’ll meet our transportation targets by 2035 by using a variety of methods that include but aren’t limited to updating community plans,” Mayor Kevin Faulconer said in an email Tuesday. “These neighborhood blueprints are one piece of the puzzle, and they are one of many things we’ll be doing to meet the main objective of improving air quality and the environment by reducing greenhouse gases.”

These additional strategies call for encouraging businesses to explore ways to encourage workers to take alternative modes of transportation, including charging employees for parking or paying people to forgo driving.

In its memo, the city’s planning department also proposed removing on-street parking spaces to beef up bike lanes. The memo states that such a move may become more politically palatable as commercial fleets of self-driving cars reduce consumers’ need to have their own cars — thus reducing overall demand for parking.

Such strategies would be on top of gains projected in the community updates for North Park and Golden Hill, and in coming years, the city might incorporate them into the update process for other neighborhoods.


Councilman David Alvarez and Councilwoman Marti Emerald both expressed concerns that even with the additional strategies, the city may not be on track to hit its targets for reducing driving.

“The memorandum that we received … not long before this hearing doesn’t really make me feel entirely comfortable about hitting our Climate Action Plan goals,” Alvarez said Tuesday.

“The strategies that we’re actually going to use to hit these goals, I question that, and I think it’s something this council will need to question on an ongoing basis,” he added.

Bruce Appleyard, a professor of city planning and urban design at San Diego State University, said cities need to try a wide variety of ways to get commuters out of their cars and into buses, trolleys, vanpools and the like. That includes at least a moderate amount of housing density coupled with greater investments in transit, as well as measures to dissuade residents from driving, he said.


“Parking strategies can be hugely effective at encouraging people to take (transportation) modes that are the most appropriate for their travel needs,” he said. “One of the things that we’ve found is that parking has been hugely subsidized, and it’s a huge determinative of your mode choice.”

San Diego’s planning officials said future community plan updates, as well as new transit projects, in job-rich areas like University City could also help boost transit ridership in places such as North Park and Golden Hill.

If these neighborhoods are not on track to meet the driving-reduction goals set out in the city’s climate plan within five years, officials said they would consider again revising those community zoning documents.


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