Canadian condo king piles up cash for Faulconer

As GOP ex-mayor and San Diego chamber of commerce chief Jerry Sanders sets out to vanquish the city's so-called linkage fee on commercial building to subsidize so-called affordable housing here, a distinctly high-end residential developer from Canada has thrown another $10,000 into the cause of Sanders-backed mayoral hopeful, Republican city councilman Kevin Faulconer.

According to a campaign disclosure filing posted online by the California secretary of state's office, Bosa Development California II, Inc., made its contribution to Faulconer through the Republican Party of San Diego County yesterday, December 11.

The man behind the company, Canadian condo king Nat Bosa, who hails from Vancouver, British Columbia, recently told the Los Angeles Times that his spree of building posh downtown San Diego condo towers, interrupted by the great recession, is about to resume, this time with even more stratospheric prices.

"San Diego is definitely ripe," Bosa said, explaining that buyers have finally snatched up many of the empty condos that flooded the market several years ago. "It's time to move forward to the next phase."

The units, the most expensive ever built by the developer here, are expected to go from high six to high seven figures.

"For now, this is San Diego's Sydney Opera House," Bosa immodestly told U-T San Diego last year. Bosa has long been a backer of causes dear to the local GOP real estate lobby; during Republican Carl DeMaio's city-council tenure, Bosa's firm gave $12,500 to DeMaio's San Diegans for City Hall Reform. Last year the company sank $20,000 into DeMaio's unsuccessful mayoral bid.

Prior to yesterday's contribution, the outfit had given a total of $10,000 to Faulconer's November primary campaign.

At home in Canada, Bosa backs British Columbia's New Democratic Party, to which his company this summer gave $20,500 in Canadian dollars, according to an August 29 report in the Vancouver Sun. The New Democrats serve in loyal opposition to the B.C. Liberals.

Meanwhile, Faulconer's Democratic opponent, city councilman David Alvarez, who favors the linkage fee, continues to see campaign money for his cause from labor unions. Disclosure filings show the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 135, gave a pro-Alvarez independent expenditure committee run by the San Diego labor council $50,000 on December 9; the same day, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, contributed $10,000.