Cost overruns on Fairmont fire station help opponents

On Wednesday, June 14 the city of San Diego's audit committee will have discussed a new 54-page report on infrastructure projects that affirms what some have said all along about the proposed Fairmount Fire Station.

It was a project in need of a plan.

The audit's main finding about the approval process for capital improvement projects is that the city has often waved them through prematurely, "which likely contributed to significant project cost overruns and much longer project timelines."

All of that applies to the plan to build a 14,273 square foot fire station in City Heights on the corner of 47th Street and Fairmount Avenue, opponents say.

It's the poster child of "poor vetting, cost overruns, and mismanagement of the CIP processes," states a letter to the audit committee from City Heights resident John Stump, who says it may become the most expensive fire station in San Diego history.

The 1.28-acre site at 1950 47th Street is a steep slope above and adjacent to the already imperiled Chollas Creek and its wetlands. Environmental advocates say the parcel, which lies within a multi-habitat planning area, should be classified as open space.

At the time the city bought the land in 2017, no studies had been done to find out if it was even suitable to build a fire station there. The city said it was essential to meet the fire department's operational needs and response times for the growing Mid-city /City Heights community.

Flash back to 2014, when a new $12 million fire station was proposed on Home Avenue, another area of City Heights with a fire services gap. But in 2018, plans shifted to the current site, acquired by the city in 2017. The project was renamed Fairmount Fire Station - a misnomer, critics said, because the brushy parcel on 47th Street is a world away from bustling Fairmount Avenue.

Two years later, an environmental consultant's report identified numerous "sensitive receptors" on the site. According to city records, the station would infringe on designated, multi-habitat planning area and multiple species conservation plan lands.

The high cost to build on 47th Street was climbing. By then, it was projected to be at least $16 million. Opponents said the site at this point should have been dismissed in favor of one of those originally proposed like Home Avenue. Capital improvement projects don't always require a full environmental impact report, and the city chose a less stringent review known as a mitigated negative declaration.

A letter to the city from the Sierra Club calls the proposal an "in-house, self-serving Capital Improvement Project with a preordained Mitigated Negative Declaration decision.”

Advocates, who included Chollas Creek Coalition, Audubon, San Diego Canyonlands and others fought for a full environmental impact report. In 2021 the city agreed, later providing a timeline of 18-24 months to complete.

In the city's FY23 budget adopted last June, the Fire-Rescue portion states the initiation of the EIR for the Fairmount station is one of the Fire-Rescue Department’s Capital Improvement Project goals for FY2023. The projected cost was over $23 million.

Today, its total cost is estimated to be over $25 million. Only partially funded, the design phase isn't expected to be finished until 2026. Currently, planning, design and construction are on hold "pending the identification of a funding source and approval of an Environmental Impact Report."

According to the audit, projects that were poorly planned when first approved, on average, cost 233 percent more than their initial estimates and took four years longer to complete. But the average difference for fire facilities is $8,334,851 and the difference in years to completion is almost a decade.

In the end, watershed advocates believe the long-awaited report will prove the fire station should be relocated.