“If the city’s not going to defend its $45 million investment (in the library), it’s up to us,” said longtime College Area leader Robert Montana.
The site of a monthly community meeting in the College Area was significant. It took place at a local union hall rather than the library, and the agenda only had one action item, to discuss ideas to keep the library accessible.
It was also significant who attended – and who didn’t – as residents grappled with the effect of a major construction project on the library.
The audience questioned a representative for Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera and the city’s library director. But no one from Mayor Todd Gloria’s office or the developer behind the project attended, an absence noted by both residents and Elo-Rivera’s representative alike.
Fears for future
The project is of particular significance to the community because of how much residents rely on the College-Rolando Branch Library, the only public space in the College Area, which has no parks.
“It can’t be that the developers are going to tell the city how things are going to go,” said Lindsay Rodriguez, one of three women leading the effort to limit the new high-density housing project’s impact on the library. “The neighborhood needs this asset. This is the one thing we have. And when you guys (at the city) aren’t advocating proactively on our behalf, it’s negligent.”
Dozens of residents piled into the humid sanctuary of a former church for Tuesday’s College Area Community Council update on the construction of a development that has blocked off an entrance and half the parking at the branch, causing the shift to the union hall.
The construction has made visiting the library challenging in the weeks since it began in September, and community members do not expect that to end after the development opens to residents — and their vehicles.
“The future is shared insufficient parking, and that’s kind of a weird idea in terms of sharing. Typically, you have some excess to share,” said Jan Hintzman in a presentation updating the audience on the history of the site next to the library.
The property, once a church, previously had dozens of city-built parking spaces that library patrons could use because the city leased them.
After the construction, the developer, Dinerstein Companies, will give back 25 spots that library visitors could park in — if future residents are not already using them.
San Diego libraries director Misty Jones is trying to get the developer to make those time-limited two-hour spots or mark them for library use only during operating hours. Dinerstein has yet to commit to either of those options.
Search for solutions
In the interim, officials are limited in their ability to improve library access during construction.
“We’re trying to find options for the community because they deserve a bare minimum, which is a functioning library,” said Roberto Marin, the community representative for Elo-Rivera.
With permits issued, the city can’t stop a private landowner from building new housing. The library system, meanwhile, is struggling just to keep up with maintenance, much less adding mobile services or satellite locations.
“Please remember that my budget was cut by $5 million this past year, so I have very limited capacity to do additional services beyond what we’re already doing,” Jones said.
Residents, fed up with bureaucratic red tape, offered several ideas, including raising money to buy a nearby residential lot to convert it into a parking lot.
“If the city’s not going to defend its $45 million investment, it’s up to us,” said longtime College Area leader Robert Montana, referring to the construction of the library in 2005, something that came about after years of advocacy.
The community and city once agreed on the idea of building a park on the former church site and library parking lot. However, when the property became available in 2016, the city opted not to purchase it. That decision opened up the opportunity to the current property owner, who is building new student housing.
Community outrage stems back to that 2016 decision, under former Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
“Todd Gloria and all these people don’t seem to have any of our interest in it, and this cluster mess is really just a case in point of everything that preceded it and everything that’s still going on around us, and it’s so frustrating,” said resident Jessica Manning. “It does seem like Dinerstein (not the city) is running the show.”
The audience proposed other solutions, including leasing spots from a nearby Ralph’s parking lot which rarely fills up. Jones said she has already requested the city’s real estate team to do so.
Notable absences
The community council had hoped to vote on recommending that street parking on Reservoir Drive and Mohawk Street be time limited so library visitors could use the spaces during the day. However, the council failed to reach a quorum.
According to Jones, the mayor’s office committed to strictly enforcing those parking rules if enacted. However, the mayor’s representative to the College Area was out of town and did not attend the meeting to confirm this. His office didn’t send another representative in her place.
Likewise, Dinerstein was invited to the meeting and declined. With their goal clear, but with little control over achieving it, the residents’ frustration at the city and elected officials, including Marin’s boss Elo-Rivera, boiled over.
“(Jones) doesn’t have to be here. So the fact that she’s here is an important first step. The fact that I’m here is another important step. And I want you to ask yourself, who isn’t here?” Marin said,
In his view, that was a representative for Gloria, whom both Elo-Rivera and council colleague Kent Lee called out in the wake of San Diego’s bungled billing of its trash fee. Another councilman, Henry Foster III, went so far as to seek the mayor’s resignation, prompting Gloria, as reported by Voice of San Diego, to actively campaign against Foster, who is fighting to retain his District 4 seat.
Local tensions boiling over regarding projects and developments is common at a community council meeting. Barbs aimed at the mayor by a city staffer – not so much.
“There’s things that are not in my purview. I’m not Dinerstein… I’m not the mayor’s office,” Marin said. “I want things to be done. Misty (Jones) wants it done.”
His conclusion: without the mayor’s or Dinerstein’s cooperation, “our hands are tied.”
