www.sdchamber.org

Public Policy Update

By Scott Alevy, Vice President of Public Policy & Communications

The Chamber’s Public Policy staff and our 16 active committees have been busy ensuring that the best interests of the business community are heard at City Hall and the legislative chambers in Sacramento and Washington D.C.  With legislative missions to both capitols ahead of us this year, we will take our message to those who set our laws.

This month, we thought we’d let you know what we have been up to in San Diego, and what we see before us in the next three months.

San Diego’s General Plan Update:

A task force of Chamber members spent over a year reviewing the nine elements of the City of San Diego’s General Plan Update (GPU), the policy road map for development in the city.  The Chamber’s Board of Directors approved the task force’s recommendations and Chamber staff testified in general support of the issues at several city council meetings.

The Chamber’s process looked at the implications these citywide policies have on business, and their impacts on the future planning of the city.  The Chamber generally supported the updates on eight of the elements, while strongly objecting to Living Wage Ordinance language being inserted into the citywide land use document.

Council President Scott Peters and Council member Tony Young worked with the Chamber, and co-authored a compromise memo that suggested that the non-specific language “self sustaining,” be inserted in place of the onerous “living wage” verbiage.  With a five-two passage of the amendment, this was a victory for the Chamber and our partners, the Restaurant Association and the Taxpayers Association.

The Chamber’s position on the Living Wage Ordinance is unchanged since its passage three years ago.  We strongly believe that the ordinance is out of line and will hurt business.  It is social engineering that does not belong in a city-side land use policy document.

Housing:

The Chamber was vocal in its support for the Affordable Housing Density Bonus Amendment, passed by the city council in November 2007.  Affordable and market rate housing needs continue to be a priority for the Chamber, and our 2008 Housing Action Plan has been adopted, as in several past years, as a guideline for the city at the City Council’s Land Use & Planning Committee. 

San Diego’s Airport:

The Chamber formally supported the Memorandum of Agreement signed by Mayor Jerry Sanders, the Regional Airport Authority board, and the San Diego Association of Governments.  Recognizing that Lindbergh Field is likely to be the region’s commercial airport for the foreseeable future, the Chamber believes that the planning process for enhancing existing airport facilities should proceed, prior to capital expenditures, while accelerated study of alternative options for optimizing Lindbergh Field are pursued over the next 12 months.