The San Diego Planning Commission is an obstacle, hiding in plain sight, to the social and economic progress the majority of San Diegans believe in and are fighting for.
Appointed by the Mayor to four-year terms and confirmed by the City Council, the seven-member commission does not give voice to residents of San Diego’s nine city council districts.
How is this political marginalization possible in a city governed by elected officials known for touting their commitment to social equity, diversity, and inclusivity?
The answer is simple: political expediency.
Defying the city charter’s mandate that “membership of city commissions, boards, and committees should be diverse and reflect the entire community,” the San Diego Planning Commission is a relic of at-large city council elections that denied equal opportunity to minority voters and candidates, while entrenching the interests of the political status quo.
According to a 2019 study, conducted by the Center on Policy Initiatives, the commission has an outsized influence on the city’s civic landscape, infrastructure, and quality of life:
“The San Diego Planning Commission advises the Mayor and City Council on development and land use decisions and has final approval authority over subdivisions and permits. The commission also recommends changes to the city’s general and community plans, re-zonings, and related land use matters.
“Decisions made by this commission influence the lives of many San Diegans, including those who live near industrial zoned areas, need affordable housing, or hope to see local infrastructure projects funded.”
Namely, the San Diegans living in city council districts lacking representation on the San Diego Planning Commission.
Despite its pivotal role in driving the city’s land use planning and development, the commission operates in a political vacuum. As unelected community volunteers, commissioners’ loyalties — and by extension, their voting records — are shaped by their civic patrons’ political and economic agendas. Consequently, social equity and community engagement are relegated to the back seat of the commission’s policy deliberations.
Discouragingly, the odds are stacked against San Diegans eager to participate in the commission’s public hearings. Commissioners meet twice a month, during the day, when the majority of San Diegans are at work or school. Despite the significant impacts of the commission’s decisions on neighborhood quality of life, these often-tedious public hearings rarely warrant coverage by regional news outlets.
Under these circumstances, planning commissioners meet, deliberate, and vote in a world removed from the values and lived experiences of San Diego residents.
This is not what a representative democracy looks like.
It’s time to increase the number of voting members serving on the San Diego Planning Commission from seven to nine. Channeling the spirit that guided San Diego’s transition from at-large to district-only city council elections forty-six years ago, residents of the city’s nine council districts should be granted an equal voice on this pivotal land use and community planning authority.
A second-generation San Diegan and nonprofit consultant, Molly Bowman-Styles is the president of Windansea Communications. Rev. Tim Seery is the pastor of the Congregational Church of La Jolla.
