Allied Gardens June 2013
• Del Cerro • Grantville • College • Northern La Mesa • Rolando • San Carlos • Fletcher Hills On the Internet at www.MissionTimesCourier.com
Volume XIX – Number 6
Mission Gorge Condo Project Hangs in Limbo
View from Lake Oroville Visitors Center
The $2 Billion Fight:
before it was put out later in the day. The fire caused an estimated $9 million in property damage. There were no deaths, but the destruction encouraged the city to take new steps to prevent something like Normal Heights Fire from happening ever again. One of the results of that fire was the weed and brush abatement program through the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
Navajo Community Planners, Inc. (NCPI) declined at its May meeting to reconsider its opposition to rezoning on a downscaled condo project along Mission Gorge Road. In August 2012, NCPI voted to oppose a rezoning request on the Varzi Condo Project to allow up to 18 units to be built on a site previously designated for mobile home use at 6736 Mission Gorge Road. This May applicant Iraj Varzi returned, asking planners to reconsider their previous opposition to his rezone request, in exchange for his pledge not to build more than eight condos on the site. “I have been told by engineers that it’s almost impossible to redevelop this site to have more than eight units,” Varzi told planners. NCPI chair Anthony Wagner asked for assurances from Varzi that he would willingly “cap” the number of condo units that could be built on the property. “We need to know if we’re going to be having a relationship with you or somebody else,” said Wagner, who then asked Varzi, “Are you going to be sticking around, or are you planning to offload the property?” Varzi replied that he intends to redevelop the property. Planners asked city planner Morris Dye was asked if there was some legal mechanism to ensure that no more than eight units could be built on Varzi’s Mission Gorge Road site. “The short answer is you don’t have any [assurance],” Dye said. “Mr. Varzi could resell that property tomorrow and it could be rezoned. There are no guarantees, particularly if he sold it later on to somebody else, it could be developed at a higher number [of units].” Dye pointed out Varzi was making a good faith effort to reassure planners of his intent to
See PREVENTION page 17
See CONDO page 14
San Diego’s Water Supply By Genevieve A. Suzuki
The old adage goes, “He who controls water controls life.” Power, big money and secret meetings between agency representatives - it’s only a matter of time before the legal battle between the San Diego County Water Authority and the
Metropolitan Water District hits Hollywood. The Water Authority filed two lawsuits, one in 2010 and the other in 2012, challenging MWD’s rates, which improperly classify hundreds of millions of dollars in its water supply costs as
transportation costs, according to the Water Authority. The Water Authority further believes the rates were purposely conceived to “specifically disadvantage the Water Authority,” the only agency that uses MWD’s pipeSee WATER page 16
SDSU Jewish Community Center to Open 2014 By Jeremy Ogul
After decades of being squeezed into small residential houses, Hillel at San Diego State University finally broke ground last month on a new 10,850 sq. ft. building that will serve as a Jewish community center on campus. The new Melvin Garb Hillel Center will sit on a half-acre site east of Campanile Drive at 5705 and 5717 Lindo Paseo, where Hillel had been using two houses built in 1945 and 1951. See COMMUNITY page 7
Clearing the Way for Fire Prevention By Jeremy Ogul
One of the biggest fires in San Diego history began with a spark near Camino Del Rio South, just east of Interstate 805, on the last day of June 1985. It was already the hottest day of the year, and it only got hotter as winds blew the flames up a canyon wall covered with thick, dry brush. The Normal Heights Fire burned 300 acres, destroying 76 homes and damaging 56 others
By Dave Schwab