LEMON GROVE
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Lemon Grove residents are hungry for something better in the city's business districts, according to a $15,000 survey released this week.
The survey showed an overwhelming number of the residents polled support revitalizing the city's business districts, including the downtown core, which is slated for redevelopment in the coming years.
“What is really missing is any negative comments about redevelopment,” Councilman Tom Clabby said of the survey.
Not everyone was pleased, however.
One business owner presented the council with findings of her own: signatures of hundreds of people she said favor preserving the businesses that exist on her block of downtown.
Redevelopment
by the numbers
More than 350 Lemon Grove residents were polled about their thoughts on redevelopment.
 89 percent shop at least once a week in Lemon Grove.
89 percent support the Lemon Grove Community Development Agency's efforts to revitalize the city's business districts.
88 percent support efforts to revitalize the city's downtown core business district near Broadway and Lemon Grove Avenue.
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The city's survey was based on responses from 351 residents taken during a 30-day period in November by San Diego public relations firm Southwest Strategies. The survey gauged residents' attitudes toward redevelopment, as the city's community development agency plugs away on plans to improve a 40-acre swath of downtown.
City Council members, acting as agency board members, applauded the findings at a meeting Tuesday night and voted unanimously to draft a proposal for an outreach program to educate residents on redevelopment. Southwest Strategies could be hired to help with that program.
Of The Heart rubber-stamp store co-owner Gretchen Scott said the survey didn't provide enough information on the agency's specific plans. Using the word “revitalization” to describe what the agency wants to do is misleading, she said. Scott presented the board with what she said were 400 signatures in favor of preserving the businesses along Broadway and Pacific Avenue between Main and Olive streets, which is in the 7-acre area that would be redeveloped first under the agency's plans.
But Mitchell said revitalization is, in fact, an accurate way of describing what the agency plans. He said the goal of the survey was to test residents' general attitudes, rather than any specific proposal in the works.
If the agency is going to be criticized for using the word revitalize, Mitchell said, the language used in Scott's materials should be held to the same standard of objectivity.
A flier that accompanied Scott's petition described the city's proposal as a “clean sweep approach,” including “tear down” of 7 acres of downtown, which runs along Main Street from North Avenue to south of Pacific Avenue. It also said the city would allow a private developer to build 500 to 800 condominium or apartment units, which Mitchell said is not accurate. He said only 250 condominiums are being considered.
The city, which has struggled financially in recent years, sees redevelopment as key to a more secure future. The changes could take six to eight years and will depend on market conditions, Mitchell said.
Michele Clock: (619) 593-4964; michele.clock@uniontrib.com
