San Diego’s Midway Height Fight Shows Why CEQA Review Has to Come Before the Ballot 

San Diego’s City Council voted recently to repeal Measure C, the 2022 ballot initiative that had exempted the Midway District, home to the old Sports Arena site, from the city’s 30-foot coastal height limit. The repeal was not a policy change the council chose on its own timeline. A judge ordered it, and the council was told plainly that ignoring the order would put the city in contempt of court. For anyone advising clients on land use entitlements, ballot measures, or coastal development in San Diego, the case is worth a close look, because it shows how a popular vote can be undone years later when the underlying environmental review was incomplete. 

A height limit that keeps coming back 

The Midway District has now had two separate voter-approved attempts to lift its height cap, one in 2020 and another in 2022; the courts have unwound both. Measure C passed by a narrow margin and was meant to clear the way for taller buildings near Pechanga Arena as part of the broader Midway Rising redevelopment. A Court of Appeal panel later found that the city had not adequately informed voters about the environmental consequences of removing the height restriction before putting the question on the ballot. The California Supreme Court declined to take up the city’s appeal and refused to depublish the appellate ruling, which means the opinion now stands as binding precedent rather than a one-off result tied to this particular ballot measure. 

What the courts found 

The legal problem was not the height increase itself, rather, it was the process the city used to get there. Under the California Environmental Quality Act, a public agency generally has to study and disclose a project’s likely environmental effects before asking voters to approve a change that removes a regulatory constraint like a height cap. The Court of Appeal found San Diego had skipped that step, effectively asking residents to vote on taller buildings without giving them the analysis needed to understand what that would mean for the surrounding area. The panel ordered the 30-foot limit reinstated on that basis. 

That is a meaningful marker for any city, developer, or advocacy group considering a ballot measure to unlock zoning relief. A citizen initiative does not get a free pass on CEQA simply because it goes through the electorate instead of a planning commission. If the measure changes what can physically be built somewhere, the environmental review obligations still apply and skipping them creates years of litigation risk even after voters have already said yes. 

The council’s repeal and what still might save the project 

Councilmember Jennifer Campbell was direct about why the council acted now rather than waiting: continuing to enforce a measure a court had already invalidated would expose the city to contempt findings and potential fines. Council President Joe La Cava framed the vote as a housekeeping matter, cleaning up the municipal code to reflect what the courts had already decided. 

That does not necessarily end the Midway Rising project, which calls for approximately 4,254 apartments, nearly half of them affordable, along with a new arena and retail space on the 48-acre site. La Cava pointed to state density bonus and affordable housing statutes that may let the developer obtain a height variance independent of the now-repealed local measure. Separately, State Senator Akilah Weber Pierson introduced emergency legislation, with an end-of-August deadline, aimed at shielding the Midway Rising project from further CEQA challenges and clarifying that a height increase alone does not automatically count as a significant environmental impact. 

In other words, the city is now trying two different paths around the same obstacle. One runs through existing state housing law that already overrides certain local height and density restrictions for qualifying affordable projects. The other runs through the Legislature, which can rewrite what counts as a significant CEQA impact going forward, though that kind of project-specific fix tends to draw its own legal challenges once it passes. 

What property owners should be watching 

Local land use disputes like this one rarely stay local for long, and a few threads are worth tracking over the next several months. The City Council is expected to take up the full Midway Rising proposal again this fall, and that vote will need to account for community concerns raised at recent hearings, including flooding history in the area and exposure to sea-level rise. Whether Senator Weber Pierson’s emergency bill passes by its deadline, and in what form, will matter well beyond this one project, since a bill that redefines what qualifies as a significant environmental impact could affect how future height and density measures get challenged statewide. And regardless of what the Legislature does, any developer relying on a state density bonus or affordable housing exemption to bypass a local height limit should expect that approach to get tested in court the same way the ballot measure did. 

For municipalities and developers alike, the practical lesson from Midway centers on sequencing. Voters can approve zoning changes, but the environmental review needs to happen before that vote, not after, and a favorable election result does not immunize a project from a CEQA challenge if the underlying disclosure was incomplete. 

This article is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Property owners or developers with questions about a specific project should consult with counsel.  

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