Council OKs First Major Otay Mesa Housing Project

The San Diego City Council has approved the first large residential development on Otay Mesa, an 849-home project outside the noise zone that would be created by a proposed “TwinPorts” binational airport on the Mexican border.

Tuesday’s 9-0 vote gives Robinhood Homes tentative approval to build the Robinhood Ridge development on 204 acres west of city-owned Brown Field and north of the area that City Council approved last week as its preferred long-range alternative to overburdened Lindbergh Field.

Owners of a smaller land tract slated for 302 homes also received one of the many city approvals needed to build, but did not get the official go-ahead earned by Robinhood.

Until the configuration of the airport is determined, however, Robinhood, which has spent $1.2 million planning the project since 1984, will not be able to begin, said President Barry Ross. The airport’s impact on proposed school sites must be determined before building can start, he said.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor and Councilman Ron Roberts met last week with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to discuss the shared airport, which, as proposed by City Council, would link a new runway and tower on the U.S. side of the border with Tijuana’s airport via a taxiway. Salinas agreed in principle to set up a joint committee to study “TwinPorts.”

Robinhood Ridge was the first of what will be a series of requests--seeking to build more than 12,000 Otay Mesa homes--that City Council will face in the coming years. City Atty. John Witt has ruled that the council can hold up builders whose land is needed for the airport by refusing to rezone land for residential use.

Robinhood Ridge is comfortably beyond the 65-decibel zone where housing cannot be built, Ross said. Anyone purchasing one of the proposed $90,000 to $200,000 homes would be twice as well off as anyone living in Point Loma, where noise from Lindbergh Field takeoffs is a constant irritant, he said.

Just three months ago, the council held up the Robinhood project to avoid sending a message to Mexico that the city is not serious about the binational airport plan.