Save Our Access v. City of San Diego

I.

INTRODUCTION

This appeal challenges the City of San Diego’s 2022 approval of a second ballot measure to exclude the Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning area (Midway-Pacific Highway area) from San Diego’s Coastal Height Limit Overlay Zone, which generally limits building heights to 30 feet. We previously affirmed a judgment invalidating the first ballot measure approved in 2020 because the City did not consider important potential environmental impacts of removing the height limit in the Midway- Pacific Highway area, as required by the California Environmental Quality

Act (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.1) (CEQA). (Save Our Access v. City of San Diego (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 819, 829–830 (Save Our Access).) For that ballot measure, we concluded the City could not rely on the program environmental impact report prepared in 2018 (PEIR) for the Midway-Pacific Highway Community Plan Update (MPH CPU) because removing the height limit was “a significant change that was not considered” in the program document. (Id. at p. 859.) While that appeal was pending, the City prepared a supplemental environmental impact report (SEIR) and approved a second ballot measure to remove the…