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Massive cranes mounted on a Dole Food Co. cargo ship hoisted containers at the Port of San Diego on Thursday, powered not by the ocean-going vessel’s hulking diesel engines but electricity.
Before the port’s anchor-tenant started plugging its freighters into “shore power” at the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal in Barrio Logan, pollution was noticeably worse, said Todd Post, lead mechanic at the terminal.
“My truck would be parked here with soot all over it,” said Post, a stevedore with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 29, who was overseeing operations Thursday.
Industrial businesses at the port have repeatedly blamed heavy traffic on Interstate 5 and the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge for the pollution that’s long plagued nearby communities.
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The Melbourne, Australia developer seeking to replace downtown’s decaying California Theatre with a 41-story, boutique hotel and condo tower successfully sidestepped an effort by affordable housing proponents to invalidate the project’s permits.
Tuesday, the City Council OK’d the permits with district representatives voting unanimously to affirm a February decision by San Diego’s Planning Commission.
The decision came in spite of dozens of public testimonials challenging the commission’s earlier determination. Several council members also expressed reticence at signing off on a housing project in which just 2 percent of the for-sale units, or seven condos, will be set aside for buyers making 100 percent of the area’s median income.
City of San Diego
Barrio Logan has fewer residents today than in 2010, a reverse trend from most of San Diego. But as its new community plan takes shape, chock full of improvements from parks and bikeway links to many more live-work units, that too is likely to change.
Its location just south of downtown and along the bay is a draw. I know a lot of people are starting to see this as a desirable area to move into, planning commissioner Vicki Granowitz said last week at a workshop on the Community Plan update, worrying that gentrification is pushing at the close-knit Hispanic community.
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The San Diego Air Pollution Control District the region’s top watchdog agency for industrial air contamination is in the midst of a major overhaul.
On Monday, elected leaders approved five new members to sit on the air district’s newly expanded governing board, which must be established by March. The county Board of Supervisors has served as the agency’s decision-making panel since 1955.
For the record:
1:08 PM, Feb. 19, 2021An earlier version of this story misstated how long the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has served as the county Air Pollution Control District’s governing board. The supervisors have acted as the air district’s board of directors since 1955, according to county documents.
The Port of San Diego held a community forum on Wednesday, Feb. 21, to address existing challenges and identify opportunities for improvement between two cargo terminals.
The forum was held as part of the Harbor Drive Multimodal Corridor, a study that aims to examine how people use Harbor Drive and especially focuses on the area between the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal in San Diego and the National City Marine Terminal.
Residents, business owners, and visitors of the area met with staff from the Port of San Diego at the San Diego Continuing Education Cesar E. Chavez Campus from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.