Downtown skyscrapers, sidewalk cafes and everything in between have enjoyed a speedy review process for 40 years through a special city agency, but all that could change under a bill given final approval by the Legislature last week.

The bill, AB504 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, would allow major projects to be appealed to the City Council and, if one reading is correct, it could add extra hours to council meetings and require the hiring of more than 30 planners to review projects. The bill will go into effect Jan. 1 if Gov. Jerry Brown signs it in the next few weeks.

Gonzalez said the bill would improve "public accountability" for planning decisions in the city's central business district, while critics said it could delay developments and make downtown less competitive.

"As it stands now, if residents do not agree with what Civic San Diego has planned for their community, they can only go to the board of directors of this nonprofit organization -- which is not accountable to the City council that was elected to be stewards of the city's development," Gonzalez said.

CivicSD, a successor to the Centre City Development Corp. formed in 1975, oversees planning and permitting in the 1,600-acre area generally south and west of Interstate 5 as it sweeps past Little Italy, through Balboa Park and toward Barrio Logan. It also has some authority in overseeing former redevelopment areas throughout the city. Created as a nonprofit, public benefit corporation, it is owned by the city and its nine members are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council for three-year, nonpaid terms of office. Counting 40 employees, its current budget totals $7.5 million.

The new law would require city approval of all discretionary projects and allow appeals of zoning changes, development permits, variances and other planning functions that deal with residential projects of 50 or more units, hotels of 50 or more rooms and commercial developments of 25,000 square feet or more. It's unclear how CivicSD's review of building designs and approval of conditional use permits for sidewalk cafes, signs and other development details would be affected.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer 's spokesman Charles Chamberlayne said the mayor is not yet ready to lay out how the city would implement the bill.

"Until (the governor) signs the bill, the city is still expressing its hope that the governor recognizes the needs of the community and value that Civic San Diego brings to San Diego," he said. "The city's position is that this is a bill that adversely affects some of our underserved communities that need Civic's help with affordable housing, smart growth and that sort of thing."

CivicSD Chairman Jeff Gattas said his agency was set up to review downtown projects "efficiently with city oversight" and consequently has accounted for a third of the city's entire new housing units over the past 10 years, including many affordable units.

"This bill seeks to purposefully remove efficiency from the process, making development downtown the least efficient place to build in the city instead of the most efficient," Gattas said. "Now, the City Council could potentially spend hours debating minor design issues on small projects versus key policy discussions. That’s just one of the many unintended consequences we could foresee occurring as a result of this ill-conceived bill."

With downtown high-rise apartment and condo towers adding hundreds of new dwelling units annually, the new review process will be "clogging up the only relief valve we have for San Diego's severe housing crisis," said Kris Michell, president and CEO of the Downtown San Diego Partnership business group.

Gonzalez, whose 80th Assembly District borders downtown, said elected officials must have a say in the "character and economic future" of various communities.

"AB504 resolves lingering uncertainties around the local development process and restores public accountability for the decisions that shape their lives," she said. The Assembly voted 53 in favor and 27 opposed.

Sen. Marty Block , D-San Diego, who handled the bill in the state Senate, said the goal was "transparency and representation in government." The Senate vote was 26 in favor, 14 opposed.

CivicSD board member Murtaza Baxamusa, who sued the city and his agency earlier this year over some of the issues raised in the Gonzalez bill and had a hand in the crafting the new legislation, said the goal isn't to impair development but put pressure on developers to do a better job.

"I do hope it will create more opportunity and a more robust discussion on which projects, especially the larger ones, that get approved," said Baxamusa, planning and development director for the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council Family Housing Corp.

He said downtowns across the U.S., including in San Diego, are attracting much new development and Gonzalez law won't derail that interest.

"If a project goes to the City Council, it is more likely to address broader community-wide concerns, such as inclusionary housing onsite," he said. "It becomes a bigger discussion than just the bottom line in terms of meeting the land-use code. That's the intent here. Community input will make projects better in terms of receptivity to community amenities."

Baxamusa has regularly criticized developers for paying fees rather than including affordable units in the residential towers. The hotel workers union, Unite Here 30, has pleaded the case of low-age workers as it has raised raise environmental impact questions on various CivicSD projects. Gonzalez was previously the CEO and secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council.

Gary Smith, president of the San Diego Downtown Residents Group, said he thinks the new law could lead to downtown developers accepting project labor agreements as the price to be paid for speeding city approval. Otherwise, he said, the council could face many hours of tedious debate over building color, garage door placement and other details that CivicSD now attends to.

"How many future projects (that have been proposed) that don't go forward because of this, I haven't a clue," he said.

Smith said if CivicSD staff findings have to be reviewed by city planning staff in the same manner other city neighborhood projects are processed, he guessed the Planning Department would need to add 30 to 35 more planners and charge additional fees to cover those additional administrative costs. Downtown's planned district ordinances will have to be modified and a new agreement signed between the city and CivicSD, he added.

Anne Macmillan-Eichman, president of the Little Italy Residents Association expressed a more dire view of the future: "If signed into law, this will be the death knell for downtown development as we know it."

Since it was reconstituted in 2012, CivicSD also has taken over the former duties of the Southeastern Economic Development Corp. and focused on redevelopment opportunities in City Heights and Encanto by applying for federal tax credits. CivicSD earns an administrative fee for arranging the credits as a way to make up for the loss of redevelopment property taxes when the state dissolved redevelopment agencies that same year.