Quote:
Originally Posted by SDfan
First, THANK YOU for the laying out the rules and regs regarding this.
Second, so a policy solution could be a state bill giving SD a narrow carve out from Caltrans regs over height limits in this very specific (downtown) jurisdiction?
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Yes a state bill mandating exemptions from Caltrans height regs in downtown SD would be an effective solution, but in much the same way napalm is an effective pest control solution. There are alternatives that could achieve the same goals without yanking away Caltrans' state granted jurisdiction over aviation safety.
Now the big thing here is that there isn't any law that says Caltrans
can't issue a permit in these circumstances. They just choose not to. The reasons why are a bit complex. First off you need to understand that there's only 8 or so people in the entire Caltrans Aeronautics Division, which regulates the safety of hundreds of airports and heliports across California doing everything from inspecting pavement conditions to updating pilot's charts.
There's one guy who handles everything south of LA. His name is Mike, and he's very overworked.
A building that is tall enough and placed close enough to an airport requires complex airspace studies, wind analysis, glare simulations, and a ton of experts in all of those fields to go over them line by line to make sure nothing is missed. Taller building further away from an airport also need these expensive and lengthy studies. Caltrans doesn't actually have the manpower to do them, so they have to get them from someone else. The FAA is the one that conducts these studies, but even their resources are limited. They would prefer to limit the amount of them they do.
Well, downtown SD is so close to its airport that damn near every project would need one of these things. So back in the late 80s when San Diego was negotiating the current height limit the FAA agreed that anything below 500' could be permitted in downtown without the need for these detailed individual studies, and Caltrans agreed not to permit anything over 500'. The FAA was happy that they didn't have to spend thousands of dollars conducting studies every time a skyscraper was built in SD. Caltrans was happy to have a simple rule they could easily enforce. Developers were happy since they wouldn't need to wait months for the FAA to finish inspecting every little detail of their designs. The city was thrilled just to get 390'+ buildings.
And that's the way things have been for the last 30 years. Nearly every other major city's airport is far enough away from their downtown to make building 500'+ tall buildings near it unnecessary. The only other exception in California, San Jose, has an approach path that goes directly over its downtown core and so isn't going to make it to 500' anyway. This issue doesn't effect anyone but San Diego, and that means no one else particularly cares to change things.
Now if one were interested in getting this limit removed you wouldn't need to take away Caltrans' jurisdiction, which would be a controversial move. All you need to do is convince them to issue permits. If you want to go through Sacramento, you could get a state bill mandating Caltrans study the feasibility of allowing 500'+ buildings in downtown San Diego. Send them some money to hire an engineering firm, and I can pretty well tell you the answer is going to come back that there's no real reason you couldn't do it. Then the pressure is on Caltrans to justify why they're holding everything up. Of course, Sacramento isn't likely to put down dollars unless there's some form of commitment from the city that they're actually going to make use of this. But then the whole thing is just another city government asking the state to conduct a scientific study to further its economic interests, which absolutely every city everywhere does all the time. Not an unreasonable thing to ask for or get.
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