Building Industry Association
of San Diego

The City of San Diego’s Community Planners Committee (CPC) wants changes to the planning department’s Substantial Conformance Review process (SCR).  Currently, city staff conducts a ‘process one’ review to determine if any minor modification to an approved development permit is in substantial conformance with the original permit.  The CPC wants to change it to a ‘process two’ that would subject every minor change to new planning group review that can be appealed to the Planning Commission.  Such changes would add months to the development process. City staff is opposed to the changes sought by the CPC.

In early September, both the City Planning Commission and the Land Use and Housing Committee agreed with city staff and voted not to alter the city’s current SCR process. The issue goes to the full city council for a hearing on January 5, 2010.

Are you getting the most out of your BIA membership?  Beyond the all-important networking and committee-level  involvement, BIA provides other meaningful tangible benefits to its members.  Topping that list is our easy-to-use online Member Directory.  This resource can assist your marketing efforts, or help you  find a qualified industry pro.  You can find other BIA members by the type of business, company name or the principal contact.  Check it out today

This document has restricted access, and is only available to current BIA members. Ask your Information Ambassador for your Company ID, or call BIA’s membership department today at 858 450-1221.

This week’s featured BIA blog advertisers are long-time supporters of the association.  We greatly appreciate their involvement. 
Be sure to check out their websites to learn more about their services.

Aspen Insurance Brokers

Benchmark Landscape

Check back next week for more!

What’s Happening in Your Industry at the State Level?

Your state association – CBIA – recently set its  2010 legislative agenda at its annual meeting in Napa.  The topics CBIA’s lobbyists will be pursuing on your behalf include:
1) Renewing the state homebuyer tax credit
2) Seeking passage of a school facilities bond
3) Moving the codes adoption cycle from 12 to 18 months
4) Gaining standing for BIAs and HBAs to sue regarding impact fees
5) Eliminating the sunset date on legislation that requires timely release of security provided to local governments to guarantee completion of public improvements in connection with new developments.
6) Water-conservation and personal-guarantee protections

For more information, visit www.cbia.org

 At BIA”s 2010 planning session,  association leaders agreed that the following issues were of top priority for BIA”s legislative/political team for the coming year(s):

• Water supply and availability
• Shaping election outcomes in city of San Diego and County Board of Supervisors
• Assuring housing is accommodated in general plan updates
• Advancing realistic planning strategies for the regional housing supply.
• Advancing the infrastructure needs, and a viable transit strategy for the San Diego region.
• Reforming fee structures.
• Preventing unrealistic green building and Title 24 energy mandates
• Achieving meaningful permit processing changes that reduce the time, cost and
    complexity of entitlements.
• Advocating for a city-wide infrastructure financing bond measure.

Additional long-term priorities included creating an affordable housing strategy, reforming linkage and inclusionary fees, managing stormwater regulations and habitat planning.

The residential market trends, including sales price, total number of sales and permits are now available online at www.biasandiego.org

Also – find out who the top 25 builders were for the same quarter.  Check out the list in the BIA newsroom

The Building Industry Association of San Diego County (BIA) recently announced the 2010 officers and board of directors chosen to guide the association through the coming year. Bob Cummings, of Barratt Group will lead the association as Chairman. Russ Haley, of CityMark Development, is Vice Chairman, Guy Asaro, of  The Corky McMillin Companies serves as Treasurer/Secretary and Andrew Murphy, of American Property Enterprises is the Immediate Past President.  Jeff Chine is the General Counsel and Borre Winckel serves as the President in addition to holding the CEO title.

In addition to the officers above, the 2010 board members include:

Dawn Davidson
Design Line Interiors

Beth Fischer
Pardee Homes

Danny Gabriel
ColRich Residential

Kay Gross
Cornerstone Communities

Dave Hammar
Hunsaker & Associates San Diego

Fred Martin
Martin Roofing Company

Mike Neal
H.G. Fenton Company
Tom Perez
JMP Utility Services LLC

Alex Plishner
Shea Homes

David Poole
Brookfield Homes

James Schmid
Chelsea Investment Corp.

Marco Sessa
Sudberry Properties

Doug Urbick
Hazard Construction Company

Russ Valone
MarketPointe Realty Advisors

(11:01 p.m.) Oceanside City Councilman, Jerry Kern has emerged victorious against a union-backed recall and will keep his seat on the Oceanside City Council.  Voters overwhelming rejected the recall by a 63% to 37% margin.  Kern won going away from the first returns with the vote margin barely moving as the results were counted throughout the evening.  The freshman councilman fended off a brazen union attempt to shift the balance of power on the Oceanside City Council to a more union friendly body on the eve of new contract negotiations with the city.  Kern’s victory with 14,803 votes is a loss for Oceanside Mayor, Jim Wood, who as a former member of the municipal employees union, campaigned in favor of the recall. In all, more than $200 thousand dollars was spent in an ultimately futile effort by the pro-recall campaign.  The cost of the special election to Oceanside taxpayers is expected to reach $500 thousand.

(10:00 p.m.) The union led recall against Oceanside City Councilman, Jerry Kern is headed for a crushing defeat. With 65% of the votes counted, the recall continues to lose by a 63% to 37% margin.

(8:30 p.m.) Early election returns show Oceanside voters strongly rejecting a union lead effort to recall Oceanside Councilman Jerry Kern.  A counting of the 16,000 mail in ballots has the recall failing by a margin of 63% to 37%. A low voter turnout was expected for the December recall leaving the mail in ballots as a strong indicator of the election outcome.  Final results are expected within the next few hours.