Blueprint SD

San Diego is currently home to 1.4 million residents. Due to a limited supply of homes, neighborhoods across the City experience higher housing costs, overcrowding, and sub-par housing conditions. In many areas, jobs have also been built far away from the places where we live. Increasing the number of homes and jobs by transit is important to create better connections and improve economic opportunity for each household.

The largest source of the harmful pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) entering our environment and worsening our air comes from our transportation network. Our transportation network accounts for over half (55%) of our emissions. Blueprint SD will identify opportunities to increase convenient and affordable transportation options – like walking, biking, and taking transit – for trips to work, school, grocery stores, and other daily needs, which would also lower the harmful pollutants entering our environment.

We experience the impacts of climate change through increased wildfires, extreme heat, sea level rise, drought, and extreme rainfall. Our most vulnerable communities also bear the largest burden of climate change and face significant financial and health risks from changing conditions. The City’s Climate Action Plan sets a goal of net zero emissions by 2035. To support this goal, 50 percent of all trips across the City will need to take place through walking, biking, or transit in the next 13 years. Blueprint SD is using the best data and modeling to create a framework to meet these targets.

Blueprint SD will amend the General Plan to focus growth in areas that demonstrate the greatest transit competitiveness (also known as “transit propensity”). The General Plan will also be amended to include supportive land use and transportation policies that improve transit competitiveness and overall transportation options. These updated policies will then guide future neighborhood-level planning activities, including community plan updates.

The impacts of the General Plan amendment will be analyzed in a Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) that is prepared according to the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Future community plan updates can then tier from the citywide PEIR and analyze community-specific issues through the preparation of the appropriate CEQA document (for example, a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report [SEIR]). This approach will create a streamlined environmental review process that focuses on analyzing issues of local importance.

Learn about Commenting on Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs)

By providing an updated citywide framework for growth and streamlined environmental review process, neighborhood-level planning efforts can better align with the goals of the Climate Action Plan. Future community plan updates could potentially be completed within two to three years (versus four to five years).