Editor:

Your article about Midway Rising paints an optimistic picture of this project and gives the mayor’s endorsement more publicity with no counterpoint!

Residents of Point Loma are unanimously against this project! Look at our community websites like Nextdoor. Or the Point Loma Association.

The mayor is only interested in jamming as many new residences into this space as possible. There are many other considerations for this project that will impact our community forever!

One of the three teams that the mayor did not endorse proposed a smaller sports complex because they felt it was more compatible with the surrounding community. Other than that it seems the companies are out to make as much profit as they can.

We have serious concerns about the impact on the community. This project needs to have a plan for the surrounding community as well as the site itself. This part of town is in constant gridlock and parking is a nightmare already.

Adding over 9,000 new residents to the area each with a car and with friends with cars will impact traffic and parking hugely! They are only providing 1.5 parking spots per unit. Most units have two adults and they have friends. That’s 6,375 parking spots for 8,500 people plus friends. Disaster!

A lot of these units will be families with children. Where will they go to school? Point Loma schools are full. Where will they play sports?

A new sports arena with twice as many seats as the current one will draw insane traffic to the area. Why do we even need a sports arena on this site? Move it out east where land is more available!

Residents of OB and Point Loma are up in arms. We don’t feel the mayor has used reasonable judgment in endorsing this plan. He only wants a lot of housing. He has not explained how the community will absorb these folks.

The construction teams need a lot of units to make the project financially viable and still subsidize the low-income units. They are in it for the money. They don’t live here!

Please use your newspaper to give a voice to the residents you serve! Don’t just blindly report on the mayor’s endorsement with no independent evaluation of the proposal. That’s what free press is for! I hope you can help us defeat this proposal. We need something smaller with a tolerable impact on our community. Oh well, if it takes more government money! Get it!

Thank you.

Tony Batakis

42 year resident of OB/Point Loma