“Wall of Gentrification” in Ocean Beach Halted on West Pt Loma?

With the near completion of the fourth house in OB’s “Wall of Gentrification” on the 5100 block of West Point Loma Boulevard, we can readily get a sense of what that area of the community would look like if more such 3-story McMansions were allowed to be built along that street.

Try to imagine duplicating these four across the face of the parking lot at Dog Beach – so that the entire length becomes a 30-foot wall of stucco, concrete and wood, blocking off views, the breeze and the atmosphere at the beach just over the wall.

It is very possible that this wall has been halted by the implementation of the new OB community plan. Time will tell.

The owners of these four were able to receive improper variances from a City planning department that had a strong tendency to yield to developers’ wishes. Since then, a revolt against the loose use of these variances by OB planners and other residents resulted in language in the most current Ocean Beach Community Plan, recently updated and heading for the Coastal Commission for final approval in August, that re-enforces the legal limits on variances.

But the fact of gentrification here is real. The owner of one of these houses, after promising to live in it, was found to be advertising a weekly rental rate of $2500 to $3600.

From Merriam-Webster, we get a rather mild definition of GENTRIFICATION :

the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer resident.

We get more from the Urban Dictionary:

 Gentrification

When “urban renewal” of lower class neighborhoods with condos attracts yuppie tenants, driving up rents and driving out long time, lower income residents. It often begins with influxes of local artists looking for a cheap place to live, giving the neighborhood a bohemian flair. This hip reputation attracts yuppies who want to live in such an atmosphere, driving out the lower income artists and lower income residents, often ethnic/racial minorities, changing the social character of the neighborhood.

It also involves the “yuppification” of local businesses; shops catering to yuppie tastes like sushi restaurants, Starbucks, etc… come to replace local businesses displaced by higher rents.

The term was coined by sociologist Ruth Glass, who is quoted below.

“One by one, many of the working class quarters of London have been invaded by the middle-classes—upper and lower. Shabby, modest mews and cottages—two rooms up and two down—have been taken over, when their leases have expired, and have become elegant, expensive residences …. Once this process of ‘gentrification’ starts in a district it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed.”
-Ruth Glass (1964)

This sounds a lot like what the future of OB could be. It’s what Mission Beach is today, and what places like Venice up in LA have become. OB has historically been a working class community – one of the last next to the ocean in Southern California.

Here is what we wrote on this nearly a year ago (Cox, Stebbins and Burk are the owners’ names of the first three built):

This kind of development is EXACTLY what the OB Planning Board feared when they opposed the variances for Cox, that Cox, as well as the other property owners in that immediate area who were granted improper variances, would simply turn their McMansions over a la Mission Beach into expensive, vacation rentals, out of reach of ordinary OBceans or working people. Who can afford that kind of vacation?

This is exactly why the improper granting of variances by city planners – variances upheld by the Planning Commission – has led Ocean Beach to this moment, where the planning tool that OB has used for the past 38 years – the low floor-area-ratio (FAR) for coastal residential areas of the village – is being fought for by OBceans and their planners.

It was the variances granted to Cox, to Stebbins, to Burk that has forced the OB Planning Board to fight so hard to keep the 0.70 FAR for most of OB, and to force a showdown against the Planning Commission’s recommendations to be brought up at the City Council hearing on July 29 on the OB Community Plan.

And this is exactly the type of development that will lead OB – or parts of OB – to be like the Boardwalk in Mission Beach where you find wall to wall, 3 story mansions that are either time shares, very expensive vacation rentals going for $2,000 to $4,000 a week, or empty buildings that no one can afford – but the very wealthy.