Yesterday was a wonderful day for downtown San Diego residents and business owners.  The city council, in a 6-2 vote, agreed to adopt the quiet zone.  This is a huge victory for the hotel industry and residents in downtown San Diego!  Construction is planned to start this August and projected timeline of the project calls for construction to be completed in November of 2011.

The project includes the renovation and addition of new equipment which will prohibit both vehicles and pedestrians from being able to cross the train tracks while trains are approaching.  Each of the crossings will have unique equipment specifically designed for that intersection.  The largest change comes at the G street crossing where the current two-way street will become one way from Pacific Highway all the way through downtown.

This will allow residents to get a good nights sleep and will help with all of the complaints and refunds that local hotels must deal with.  This will also be great for city works like the Monarch School located at the Cedar Street crossing in Little Italy.  It must be terribly difficult for children to focus on school work when a 120 decibel horn comes blaring through every hour.

Why could we see an increase in property values for downtown San Diego Condos?

The council members that voted against this project, Carl DeMaio and Donna Fry, felt the city could not handle the burden of the extra $60,000 per year to maintain the equipment.  The other council members believed that more revenue coming to the general fund on account of increased hotel occupancy, increased property values and new businesses would be enough to cover the future expenses.  Based on an independent study conducted on behalf of CCDC, it is believed that the quiet zone will help contribute to increases in property values for condos downtown San Diego.

More Good News for Downtown San Diego Condo Owners

The second item of concern at the City Council meeting was to vote to approve the study to analyze if raising the budget cap for CCDC would be beneficial to the city of San Diego as a whole.  This item is very important again to the residents and business owners of downtown San Diego, but more importantly to the entire county of San Diego.  Downtown is an economic engine and when tuned and running properly, adds value to the residents of San Diego county. 

The important component on raising the cap for CCDC is not the Charger Stadium, but rather for CCDC to be able to move forward with the objective of completing the 2006 downtown redevelopment plan.  This will ensure a well balanced city including San Diego live work lofts, low income housing, parks, recreation, commercial and retail developments.

Thank you to all of the residents of San Diego that showed up and supported these to key objectives at the city council meeting.  Together we will prosper in creating America’s Finest City.