Podiatrist in Mira Mesa, CA

SAN DIEGO —

A new growth blueprint approved Monday for Mira Mesa aims to transform the car-dependent neighborhood and its suburban strip malls into several pedestrian-friendly urban villages featuring high-rise housing and less traffic.

It’s the first time San Diego has tried to solve its housing crisis by rezoning large swaths of commercial land for high-density housing, but the innovation districts in Miramar and Sorrento Valley would remain mostly unchanged.

To ease congestion and make Mira Mesa a more appealing place to live in coming decades, developers would get incentives to break up car-centric superblocks with new streets and to build walking bridges over some major streets.

Some vehicle travel lanes on major roadways would be transformed into lanes for buses or bikes under the new growth blueprint, which also includes some ambitious proposals for things like aerial skyways.

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Politics

Aug. 7, 2022

City officials and local developers touted the plan, which was approved unanimously by the City Council on Monday, as a balanced effort that will help solve San Diego’s housing crisis and make Mira Mesa a more livable area.

Critics, including Mira Mesa neighborhood leaders, said the plan would bring many more residents without the necessary infrastructure and parks to support them all.

Environmental advocates also complained the plan doesn’t do enough to shift commuters away from cars toward transit, biking and walking. The percentage of people expected to commute alone in a car would drop from 54 percent to 39 percent, a much more modest drop than citywide goals.

The plan, the first update to Mira Mesa’s growth blueprint since 1992, would increase the neighborhood’s population from 78,000 to 143,000 primarily by adding 24,000 new homes, mostly in high-density developments.

Some commercial areas would be re-zoned, but the number of jobs in the community would still rise from 85,000 to 117,000.

Mira Mesa, one of San Diego’s largest neighborhoods by both population and acreage, is bordered on the east by Interstate 15, on the west by I-805, on the south by Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and on the north by Los Peñasquitos Canyon, Torrey Hills and Carmel Valley.

Mira Mesa is the city’s third largest employment center behind Kearny Mesa and University City.

“As one of San Diego’s largest communities by land area, population and employment, Mira Mesa will greatly benefit from having more mixed-used areas where people can live, work and play,” said Mayor Todd Gloria, adding that the plan calls for homes for a variety of incomes and ages.

Councilmember Chris Cate, whose district includes Mira Mesa, said he’s optimistic city officials will follow through on promises to prioritize needed infrastructure in San Diego neighborhoods that are willing to accept the most growth.

Cate praised the plan as something that will boost an already thriving neighborhood.

“Despite what some might say, Mira Mesa is a very vibrant and diverse community,” he said.

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The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and the local chapter of the Building Industry Association also praised the plan as a boon for the economy and significant progress toward solving the local housing crisis.

“The only way we’re going to solve the housing shortage is to provide opportunities for more housing,” said Matt Adams of the BIA. “It’s an appropriate balance between residential and non-residential.”

Critics said the plan is developer-driven and would make an already-congested neighborhood much worse by allowing intense growth without the infrastructure they say is needed to support it.

“The plan will increase the population of Mira Mesa by about 50,000, but it provides very little infrastructure beyond that already in place,” said Jeff Stevens, chairman of the Mira Mesa Community Planning Group, which had 13 proposed amendments to the plan get rejected by city planning staff.

“We have no estimates of the costs of the public facilities identified in the plan,” Stevens said. “We have no estimates of how much money will be available and we can’t predict when any of the public facilities will be constructed. These are serious deficiencies.”The plan identifies more than 91 lane miles of new bike lanes and routes. It also proposes more than 100 acres of new parkland, 17 miles of trails, two new recreation centers, one new aquatic complex and a new fire station.

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But critics note that locations aren’t identified for many of the new amenities and that land will only become scarcer over time, making available sites steadily harder to come by.

The plan calls for rapid buses on Carroll Canyon Road, which would be extended westward. There would be “flexible lanes” for buses and bikes on Camino Ruiz, Westview Parkway, Mira Mesa Boulevard, Miramar Road, Black Mountain Road and Camino Santa Fe.

A key factor mitigating future traffic congestion is a planned extension of the San Diego Trolley through North Park, Kearny Mesa and the western edge of Mira Mesa, with a station planned for Sorrento Mesa when the new purple line is complete in 2045.

City officials said there are also plans for connection to the Coaster and the blue line extension of the trolley, which has stations in nearby University City.

Annexed to the city in 1958 along with Miramar and land east of Del Mar, Mira Mesa was developed mostly in the 1970s when car-dependent strip malls were popular. City officials say a key goal of the plan is to revamp that development model in the community.

Lunar New year is a time for friends and family to come together and celebrate a fresh start and new opportunities. Traditionally commemorated by the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and other Asian communities, Lunar New Year is tied to the lunar calendar. For those following the Chinese zodiac, we’re entering the Year of the Rabbit. For the Vietnamese zodiac, it’s going to be the Year of the Cat.

During the pandemic, Lunar New Year celebrations in San Diego were pared back or canceled. But now two years after pandemic restrictions have eased, San Diego is gearing up to ring in the Year of the Rabbit and Cat.

Across the world more than a billion people will celebrate Lunar New Year beginning on Jan. 22 with fireworks, lion dances and Lucky Red Envelopes filled with money (known as "hóngbāo" in Chinese and "bao lì xì" in Vietnamese). The length of celebrations varies, but typically they last about 15 days.

Here’s a list of some of KPBS’ picks to ring in the Year of the Rabbit and Cat in San Diego County over the next three weekends.

Lunar New Year Festival - City Heights

The Little Saigon Foundation's Lunar New Year Festival is back for a second year in person. The three-day festival features lion dances, traditional Vietnamese performances, food vendors and firecracker displays. All proceeds from this year's festival will go fund the Boat People Garden, a community park in the Little Saigon neighborhood of City Heights.

San Diego Lunar New Year Festival runs 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday in the Little Saigon district. Schedule here. Jeremy Henwood Park, 4455 Wightman St., City Heights. Free.

Chinese New Year Festival - International Cottages at Balboa Park

The House of China at Balboa Park's International Cottages is celebrating the Year of the Rabbit with traditional performances, Chinese food vendors, calligraphy and crafts. The House of China expects about 5,000 people to attend.

Chinese New Year Fair at the International Cottages runs 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 21-22. 2191 Pan American Rd., Balboa Park. Free.

Lunar New Year’s Eve: An Evening of Mindfulness - Deer Park Monastery, Escondido

Join the monks at the Buddhist Deer Park Monastery in Escondido for an evening of mindfulness, including a lecture, Lunar New Year's ceremony and performance.

Lunar New Year’s Eve: An Evening of Mindfulness is Jan. 21 from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Deer Park Monastery, 2499 Melru Lane, Escondido. Free (donation encouraged). RSVP required.

San Diego Tet Festival - Mira Mesa

The Vietnamese-American Youth Alliance and Vietnamese Federation of San Diego will be hosting a Year of the Cat celebration Jan. 27-29 at the Mira Mesa Community park. The festival will feature traditional lion dance performances, food vendors, the Miss Vietnam San Diego pageant, a Vietnamese Cultural Village and carnival rides.

San Diego Tết Festival runs from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28 and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m Sunday, Jan. 29. Mira Mesa Community Park, 8575 New Salem Street, Mira Mesa. Free.

Chinese New Year Fair - Gaslamp Quarter

The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of San Diego is ringing in the Year of the Rabbit with a fair Downtown featuring traditional cultural performances, a lantern parade, children's crafts and Chinese food vendors.

San Diego Chinese New Year Fair runs 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 4 and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 5 in Downtown at the Corner of Third Ave. and J Street, San Diego. Free.

The largest Taiwanese dumpling maker, Bafang Dumpling, has confirmed to Eater that it will be opening its first San Diego restaurant at the Village at Mira Mesa before the end of the year. Its corner storefront will be part of the retail center’s new expansion area (where Crumbl Cookies is already located) near the intersection of Mira Mesa Boulevard and Reagan Road.

After conquering Asia, where it has nearly 1,300 locations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China and sells 1.2 billion dumplings each year, Bafang is setting its sights on growing its U.S. market with ambitions to make it bigger than its Hong Kong presence.

Bafang founder Jiayu Lin was a struggling mechanic while his wife was a math teacher who had students coming to their home for tutoring where they made potstickers for the kids, a popular afternoon snack, before buckling down to study. The first Bafang Dumpling restaurant opened in 1998, expanded to Hong Kong in 2008, and launched in China in 2014. Last year, the company went public on the Taiwanese stock market.

Ringing in at 3,000-square-feet, the San Diego restaurant “will be bigger than our City of Industry restaurant with more seating since we’ll have more space,” Stephanie Peng, CEO of Bafang Yunji North America, told Eater over a phone call. The chain made its stateside debut in March 2022 with a restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley and opened a second SoCal store last month in Chino Hills. “Our team is really excited. It’s such a great area and great community. We’re happy that Mira Mesa will be home to our first store in San Diego,” said Peng.

The menu will be the same as the Los Angeles area outposts, featuring specialties like its signature boiled dumplings filled with pork and cabbage, corn and chicken, or kimchi and pork, as well as the Bafang pork chop, a popular Taiwanese breaded pork cutlet. Other favorites include griddle-fried potstickers, Taiwanese beef noodle soup, and old-fashioned noodles, which are bouncy QQ noodles dressed with soy sauce and shallot oil. Drinks range from boba tea to mango soy milk.

There are also combo meals, which include iced lemon black tea or a cup of hot and sour soup, corn chowder soup, or mini wonton soup. “The combinations are easy for the customers to sample what our specialties are,” said Peng.

“We want to be able to offer authentic Taiwanese comfort food, like potstickers, dumplings, and noodles. Our aim is to deliver high-quality food that’s easy and convenient at affordable pricing,” said Peng. “We hope to go in offering a different style of food than burgers, pizzas, and tacos.”

While its North American headquarters and central kitchen will remain based in Irvine, Bafang has set a goal of opening 10 more U.S. stores by the end of 2023. “We’re vigorously expanding, focusing on Southern California because of its diversity,” added Peng.

While 85 percent of their stores in Asia are franchised, the first batch of U.S. Bafang restaurants is all corporate-owned. There will be opportunities for franchisees to expand across the country as Bafang establishes firm footing on this side of the Pacific.

Bafang Dumpling

9690 Reagan Road Suite 104, San Diego, CA 92126

Posted at 5:58 PM, Aug 15, 2022

and last updated 7:22 AM, Aug 16, 2022

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — While a gondola to link Mira Mesa with job centers and transit hubs in University City and Sorrento Valley is getting a lot of attention, residents are raising significant concerns about San Diego's new proposed Master Plan for the large community.

“We see a plan here for lots and lots of housing, but no specifics on, if it’s going to be transit-oriented housing, what’s your plan to put the transit in before you fill up all these units?" said Bari Vaz, president of the Mira Mesa Town Council.

The Mira Mesa Master Plan update is part of San Diego's shift in strategy from large, single-family housing developments as part of urban sprawl, to redeveloping existing plots of land to allow for higher density housing. The idea is to make it easier for San Diegans to live, work, shop, and play in their own neighborhoods without needing to drive as often, creating more desperately-needed housing while also helping accomplish the City's climate action goals.

“How do we create an active street life to get people to want to be able to walk to a cafe, to shop at a neighborhood business? It really creates opportunities to create interesting places, rather than places we just drive to," City of San Diego Planning Department Deputy Director Tait Galloway told ABC 10News.

The plan would increase Mira Mesa's population between 30,000-50,000 residents by re-imagining the areas many outdoor shopping centers. In some, housing could replace mostly empty parking spaces. In others, housing could be built on top of existing commercial stores.

“We’ve run out of land and how do we grow in? How do we take advantage of transit? How do we take advantage of our existing infrastructure?" said Galloway.

One of the ideas being pitched to help transit would be new to San Diego: an aerial tramway, or gondola. The unusual suggestion would connect Mira Mesa to the job centers and mass transit available in UTC and Sorrento Valley without increasing the transit footprint on the ground.

A gondola would have the added benefit of being able to be built down and up the canyons between the areas, which is not practical for a new road. Galloway says the idea is growing in popularity in South America, but the only United States city he knew of with a similar project is Portland, Oregon.

“It could be potentially something that hasn’t been seen very much in the United States.”

Concerned residents say they can accept the new housing. But they say the plan gives no guarantees that the infrastructure to support that housing will be built before those thousands of new residents move in. That could exacerbate Mira Mesa's existing traffic woes and overwhelm other critical infrastructure, such as water and sewer systems.

“We don’t want this to start and then run into problems when you’ve added another 20 or 30 thousand people and you can’t get home in the afternoon," said Vaz.

City Councilmember Chris Cate, whose District 6 includes Mira Mesa, says he is in support of the overall concept the city is attempting to fulfill. But he shares the concerns about infrastructure.

“We’re fine with taking on the homes, but we need the infrastructure to support it. The previous plans have been guaranteed that the money will stay here in these communities to support those efforts. Moving forward, that may not be the case," Cate told ABC 10News.

Cate, who is termed out and will be leaving the council after the November election, says it may be up to residents to rally and put pressure on future city leaders to fund the transit and other infrastructure projects Mira Mesa will require. “These communities that we’re asking to take an these additional densities, we have to have infrastructure to support those new homes.”

Vaz is encouraging Mira Mesa residents to give the city and City Council public input now, while changes can still be made to the plan. “We need to get people engaged now and not ten years from now when all of a sudden the malls start sprouting apartment complexes and everybody wants to know when that got approved. Well, it’s now.”

The Mira Mesa Master Plan update is expected to be presented to the City Council for a vote by the end of the year.

Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The 18^th annual San Diego Tet Festival is one of the largest FREE community festivals in San Diego, celebrating the Lunar New Year! It is held at Mira Mesa Community Park and is a large 3-day celebration commemorating the beginning of spring and a fresh start to the New Year.

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San Diego Tet Festival 2023 will be celebrating the Year of the Cat. Attracting more than 25,000 people every year from all over the city, the 3-day celebration features free admission, several new attractions, activities, Step-Up Dance and Golden Voice, and a whole lot more.

The 18^th annual San Diego Tet Festival featured attractions:

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More Info

The San Diego Tet Festival is hosted by nonprofit organizations – the Vietnamese-American Youth Alliance (VAYA) and The Vietnamese Federation of San Diego.

For more info, visit the website here and follow along Instagram and Facebook.

See you there, San Diego!