By Tim Redmond
Randy Shaw has a big detailed expose of why the waterfront ballot measure might not be legal and could be taken off the ballot. I read his piece twice, and went back and read the ballot measure, and it took me a while to figure it out, since he talks a lot about the Ballot Simplification Committee and the waterfront height limit measure says nothing at all about the particular panel. But here’s the gist:
The initiative in question states that future ballot measures seeking height increases on the waterfront have to tell people that the project will increase heights beyond the current zoning levels. In other words, you can’t put a project on the ballot and say, “shall the Warriors have the right to build an arena that’s ten stories high.” You have to say: “Shall the Warriors have the right to build an arena that’s 190 feet tall in a place where the height limits are now 40 feet?”
Randy’s problem is that the wording of ballot questions is done by the city attorney, with the advice and support of the Ballot Simplification Committee. So this would, in one instance, set different rules.
“We didn’t want another 8 Washington situation,” where the developer was pushing to have ballot language that only mentioned height limit increases, but didn’t say what they were, Jon Golinger, who is running the waterfront height limits measure, told me. (more after the jump)
