Without Community Input, City Rescinds and Approves Different Parking Agreements So Target Can Open in Ocean Beach

The City has paved the way for the new Target on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach to proceed – and proceed it has (see photos).

And the way the City did this was to approve a new Shared Parking Agreement that South Beach Bar & Grill developed with another business, thus allowing the mandatory parking agreement South Beach had with the former Antique Center – which followed the property and was binding on Target – to be rescinded.

The City did all of this – without the knowledge or input by the community, specifically the OB Planning Board – which has been trying to get the City to be transparent in such dealings.

According to Blake Herrschaft – former Chair, the OB Planning Board has been attempting to get more clarification on shared parking agreements from the San Diego Planning Department and Development Services Department for over a year – since last fall. This included Blake making multiple trips to the records department to try to sort out the policy.

What he found in his forays was disturbing.

New construction going on in earnest. All photos by Bob Edwards

He noticed that the shared parking agreement system is disorganized, is not transparent to the public and has little oversight. This disarray, he feared could result in an abuse of shared parking agreements by commercial property owners, including some on Newport Avenue, in Ocean Beach.

Then, at a minimum, Blake believes Ocean Beach deserves clarification on what shared parking spaces exist throughout the Newport Avenue Commercial District, and how they are being monitored and enforced.

In addition, the Planning Board requested to be consulted before new shared parking agreements are made.

At any rate, in his emails to City representatives, Herrschaft was told the City had approved Target’s improvements after rescinding the parking agreements it had with South Coast.

(There are actually two shared parking agreements attached to the former Antique site which allocated every parking space to South Beach – the two shared parking agreements are related to the two expansions which occurred at South Beach – including the second floor at the roof.)

Herrschaft was told by Philip Lizzi, a planner at DSD:

Both of these two shared parking agreements have been rescinded.  These were rescinded …  therefore no shared parking agreement exists on the Target site. 

Lizzi added:

A new shared parking agreement has been recorded for the South Beach Bar and Grill.  Transportation staff has been responsible for the parking agreements, both rescission of the old and recordation of the new. 

According to the City, South Beach has a new shared parking agreement with Union Bank, at the corner of Cable and Niagara.

Lizzi also stated, via email to Herrschaft:

In addition the previous Coastal Development Permit which was tied to this site, was because of that shared parking agreement.  It is no longer utilizing this site, therefore this project site no longer has a Coastal Development Permit.  The project came in for a Tenant Improvement and was approved by Zoning staff under Project Tracking System No. 602707.  Because all work is to be a tenant improvement Planning Staff has exempted this project from a Coastal Development Permit pursuant to San Diego Municipal Code Section 126.0704.

Parking, parking, parking!

It’s very important in OB’s main commercial district. Back in April of this year, the Development Services Department told the OB Rag:

“Target cannot operate during the hours that South Beach has the exclusive use of 33 parking spaces, per the Shared Parking Agreement.“

Here is part of our report from 4/23/18:

According to the city, Target will be required to operate in a manner that does not conflict with the Shared Parking Agreement with South Beach Bar & Grill, which requires the exclusive use of parking spaces for South Beach from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Their building plans indicate the Shared Parking Agreement restrictions. The existing 33 parking spaces on the property where Target plans to open are required to remain.

And the OB Rag predicted:

South Beach may find or acquire parking spaces elsewhere near its popular restaurant; it could arrange an exclusive parking arrangement with some other entity and if that occurred, then Target would have exclusive use of the spaces and open at 5pm. In other words, if the city was satisfied that South Beach had found replacement parking – and the city approved it – the Shared Parking Agreement could be torn up. That would free up Target to remain open past 5pm, traditionally Target’s busiest time.

We reported:

According to the city, South Beach is in the process of identifying an alternate location and will submit to Development Services-Transportation for a review of a new Shared Parking Agreement.  The California Coastal Commission does not require a review.

Looks like they made an arrangement with Union Bank. So says the City. Blake says he called Union Bank to verify and was told they didn’t know of any agreement, plus the bank has paid parking in its lot.

But still, the community wasn’t informed of any new shared parking agreements, much less have input. No notice was given – but owners of the Antique Center did lobby a number of city officials about getting out from under the agreement with South Coast.

Andrea Schlageter, the current Chair of the Ocean Beach Planning Board, said she was astonished by the lack of consideration given to residents of Ocean Beach in the negotiations of these parking agreements.

She said:

We effectively were not given a seat at the table.

Andrea stressed the point in an email that Ocean Beach is an extremely impacted parking district for a multitude of reasons; including:

• Many residents west of Sunset Cliffs Blvd. do not have off street parking;
• Units that do have parking spots tend to have above ground parking which renders whole blocks untenable for street parking;
• Many of the main streets in shopping and business districts have time limits on the parking; with the amount of beach goers as well as restaurant goers staying longer than two hours they tend to take up residents spots.

She is disturbed by the possibility the City continues to push an agenda of taking away parking while still underfunding and poorly planning public transportation. Along with the other issues, she said, they have caused Ocean Beach and many other communities to become severely parking and traffic impacted.

Meanwhile, Blake Herrschaft has reviewed the shared parking agreement between South Beach and Union Bank. This is the agreement that the City has used to void the existing agreement between South Beach and Antique Center, allowing Target to retain the existing site parking. This parking issue is central to Target operating on Newport Avenue, which is why the owner at that site has been lobbying City officials.

Herrschaft says there are a few glaring issues:

Union Bank is still in operation. At 5,100 sqft of retail space, Union Bank needs 13 spaces for their customers. Since there are only 33 spaces on-site, 13 + 28 (for South Beach) = 41. The parking spaces are over-committed and this parking agreement does not meet the municipal code. This is especially true on Fridays from 5-6pm. Note that on the shared parking agreement, those spaces are for South Beach, but Union Bank is open until 6pm on Fridays. This is also a time when both Union Bank and South Beach are at their busiest times, requiring the most parking. This is likely to cash paychecks for those scraping by to make ends meet, who work until 5pm.

Union Bank appears to be unaware of the agreement. When I called them today (1:36pm PST 12/3/2018,) I was told “we have a parking lot behind the bank. A big parking lot behind there. Park anywhere, it is our parking area.”

Union Bank rents these spaces as paid public parking, in effect triple counting said spaces. This has been true for many years, including since the 2013 BBQ House Parking Agreement. The City has done nothing to fix this issue, resulting in taxpayers being required to foot the bill for the parking.

Lastly, am I to believe that South Beach is not busy before 5pm on Saturdays or Sundays? Apparently the City is okay with the establishment lacking parking at those times. From personal experience, it is so busy you cannot get a table there at in the day on the weekends, and this is validated by Google. Customers usually park in the public lot meant for beachgoers, which is not the intent of the parking requirements of the Municipal Code.

I have analyzed the actual parking on-site versus the known parking agreements related to this site on file with the City of San Diego. While it appears there are 33 spaces on-site, the City is counting as though there are 77  spaces being shared among Ocean Beach businesses at the same time. This is not in line with the original intent of the City of San Diego’s Shared Parking Agreement parking requirement waiver (Sec 142.0535 and 142.0545.) Note that in the summer, Ocean Beach is very parking constrained on all afternoons and evenings, especially Fridays.

Questions arise whether these issues are due to special privileges for Target, or oversight by multiple departments at the City. For Blake, the existing shared parking agreement with Antique Center is still in effect. He summarizes:

For what its worth, there simply are no extra available parking spaces within Ocean Beach’s main commercial district, which is why decades of commercial horse-trading came to a head for this project. Had the City coordinated with the Ocean Beach Planning Board for a simple review of the attached, prior to the attempt at covert project approval, we would not be here today. Note that the chance for review was requested by the Ocean Beach Planning Board many times in 2018.