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Email Alert #24
July 8, 2002
HELP NEEDED TO PROTECT CARROLL CANYON IN MIRA MESA
***** ACTION NEEDED BY JULY 16! *****
For more than two years, many environmental groups in San Diego have been fighting to stop the Carroll Canyon Business Park Development west of Camino Ruiz, south of Carroll Canyon Creek, between Miramar Road and Mira Mesa Boulevard in Mira Mesa. The area, consisting mostly of floodplain and steep hillsides, is also home to one of the last populations of Willowy Monardella on earth.
In early 2000, facing extreme opposition from every major environmental group in the area, the San Diego City Council narrowly voted to deny the project a needed zoning change. The developer sued the City and the City Council has since agreed to reconsider to vote. The hearing will be held on Tuesday July 16, 2002 in Council Chambers on the 12th floor of the City Administration Building, 202 C Street. The meeting starts at 10 A.M.
In the past efforts, the San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club has opposed the development in its current form. Now we are asking CAN to write letters to the City Council to protest the Carroll Canyon Business Park development.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
There are three options for communications to the City Council:
1. Submit your comments to the mayor and City Council to the City Clerk, online, at http://www.sandiego.gov/city-council/docket-comment.shtml.
2. E-mail, mail or phone your City Council representative. Find your Councilmember and contact information at http://www.sandiego.gov/city-council/.
3. Come to the meeting and let them know you are there by filling out a speaker slip. You may indicate on the form whether or not you wish to make a comment.
In your letter say that you oppose the Carroll Canyon Business Park development in its current form. Request that the City Council deny the zoning change. Additional talking points follow. Mix and Match. Use your own words if possible. For those of you that like lots of detail see the background material at the end. If there are any questions contact Carrie Schneider at 858-352-4413 or cschneid@n2.net. Thank you!
BACKGROUND
The Carroll Canyon Business Park development proposes to overdevelop a site that is 65% steep hillside and floodplain, ripping down supposedly protected hillsides and using them to fill a floodplain for the building of eleven lots on about 30 acres. The project calls for cut-and-fill grading of 575,000 cubic yards, which would cover a football field to 430 feet deep. This amount of grading exceeds the City's guidelines by 7.5 times. Encroachment into steep hillsides will be exceeded by 5.5 times the allowance. Native habitat will be destroyed to construct manufactured slopes up to 87 feet high, which will not be restored to the native plants that were originally present.
The development will destroy one of five remaining major healthy populations of the endemic and endangered Willowy Monardella (Monardella linoides ssp. viminea) in San Diego, even though the Multiple Species Conservation Plan claims that 100% of major populations will be preserved. The project calls for transplantation as mitigation even though previous efforts to transplant this species have been totally unsuccessful. Two other major populations lie on the Miramar Marine base and are not protected. If this population is destroyed, only two significant and protected populations will remain.
The development plans to build in 18 acres of the floodplain and channelize almost 1/2 mile of the creek, which will lead to even greater problems with downstream flooding. The City has paid a settlement in a lawsuit brought by downstream business owners because of flooding caused from a "10-year" flood event. Also, the ability of this floodplain to control flooding, erosion, and sedimentation will be lost along with its groundwater recharge function. This will negatively affect the water quality in the Los Penasquitos Lagoon downstream.
The Mira Mesa Community Plan calls for a minimum 50-foot buffer on each side of the creek channel. This project leaves no buffer and the creek will be channelized. Rip-rap will interfere with the ability of wildlife to use this as a transportation corridor.
A project to stabilize Lopez Canyon to protect a declining population of Willowy Monardella has cost $183,000. Given the plan to destroy a major population in Carroll Canyon, it's probable that even more taxpayer money will be needed to save this species from extinction in the future.
The developer bought this property knowing that it was highly constrained from development by the community plan and existing code that is supposed to protect steep hillsides and floodplains. Unless we can convince them otherwise, our elected officials are poised to overrule these environmental protections in the City of San Diego Land Development Code. Why do we have codes if they can be so easily overturned?
The project exceeds the City's cumulative impact allowance for Traffic Impacts by a factor of four. It will generate 7500 Average Daily Trips whereas the allowance is 1859.
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