The Planning Commission voted unanimously to support the City’s DeAnza Natural Plan. ReWild did not get any of the concessions that they advocated for. The Commission did not improve the plan’s misleading SLR analysis, commit the city to stronger regulatory review, didn’t safeguard public access to shared spaces, nor add more wetland acreage to start. The ReWild Coalition did prevent the Commission from weakening the plan. The Commission did not:
1) Lower wetland acreage
2) Weaken the plan to use flexible responsive infrastructure on the DeAnza Peninsula
3) Tie progress to other long range plans.
The Commission chair admitted that adaptive management of the area will provide more wetland acreage as sea level rises.
San Diego Audubon has a grant to help ReWild strategic planning and communications. In February, ReWild will start a month to month partnership with Evolution Affairs (lead by Cody Verhooven and Rita De La Fuente). ReWild is hopeful they will improve their advocacy goals in the next few months as they wait for the DeAnza Natural Plan to come up on the Environmental Committee agenda. Evolution Affairs has been asked to speak at the ReWild Coalition’s February meeting.