City Council Gives Initial Approval for Permanent Outdoor Dining Spaces

OB restaurateurs must be happy. On Tuesday, October 26, the San Diego City Council tentatively approved a program that will permanently allow outdoor dining previously envisioned as temporary during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Called “Spaces as Places”, proponents claim it will allow for outdoor areas for dining, walking, biking and other activities, and provides ways for temporary outdoor structures to become permanent installations.

The council’s vote was 6-2 in favor the program, with Sean Elo-Rivera and Joe LaCava opposed; Chris Cate was absent.

The program will take effect 30 days after the City Council’s second reading of the ordinance, which is expected in November. Before taking effect in Ocean Beach and other seaside communities, the program needs state Coastal Commission approval.

According to an NBC7 report:

Earlier this year, city staffers began collecting feedback from community members and business owners on the benefits of the program. Staff members then crafted locational, design and permit requirements to continue the use of outdoor areas. They also designed a manual for streetaries, active sidewalks, promenades and outdoor dining on private property. …

On Aug. 4, 2020, the council approved an emergency ordinance allowing temporary outdoor business operations as an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This allowed businesses to conduct outdoor dining within the public right-of-way to allow dining establishments to continue to operate when indoor operations were limited due to public health orders.

In May, the City Council extended the effort through July 13, 2022. Spaces as Places was designed by the city’s Planning Department and intended to transition temporary spaces from an emergency response to a permanent program with established design and safety standards.

It looks certain the Council will approve this program.

Lori Weisberg over at the SD U-T had this to say:

A first-of-its-kind program for San Diego, the new outdoor dining regulations will allow restaurant owners to extend their outdoor seating onto sidewalks, and in metered and unmetered parking spaces in front of their venues as long as they pay a fee, a requirement that up until now has not been imposed.

Spaces as Places, as the program is known, will go into effect next July when the current program expires. It will include a number of design and safety regulations that will permit restaurants to install platforms for seating along unpainted, yellow or green curbs as long as they are at least 20 feet away from an intersection, street corner, alley or driveway.

Such outdoor dining areas, however, will not be allowed along red, blue or white curbs or within an alley. They will also be limited to streets with speed limits of no greater than 30 miles per hour, an aspect of the new ordinance that elicited some differences of opinion among members of the council.

When this program was announced, the OB Rag opposed it as a give-away to private businesses of our public commons, sidewalks, roadways and public space. No considerations of this nature were made by council members in their rush to create an outdoor dining experience for patrons and visitors.

Last July, we raised the alarm about the program:

It’s not being touted as a “sell-off”, but that’s really what it is. The City of San Diego is preparing to sell the public spaces, the sidewalks and parking spaces that restaurants used during the pandemic – to those businesses. It’s called a “fee” but it’s more like a sale or lease.

We continued:

Sure, on the surface, this all seems chill. Those struggling restaurants need a break – they provide jobs and food for locals and tourists.

But, why is the city considering making the expansions “permanent”? The original permits for the expansions have already been extended for a year just recently. So, why can’t they be extended each year with applications?  Why do they have to be permanent?

As a platform for Ocean Beach and beyond, the OB Rag has consistently and historically guarded our public space, our commons over the years. The commons are for the people, the public – it’s space that everyone is allowed to be in, by law, by tradition, it’s a civic right. Private encroachment into that space deserves our attention and review.

The Rag has criticized local OB businesses when they’ve encroached into public space, and we were able to have one restaurant cut back its dangerous encroachment.

Then came the pandemic – and most of us applauded when restaurants were allowed to expand in order to survive. We watched understandably when structures, awnings, plastic – even surfboards – went up and over space that used to belong to the public. In many cases, private enclosures were created where once we were invited without having to pay for a meal and drink.

Yet, what do the residents of the community and the other businesses who aren’t restaurants feel about the take-away of space? Parking issues were real during the pre-pandemic days, and businesses relied on customers finding nearby parking. As did customers.

Sure, there is the concept that has been popularized during the pandemic of making business areas like Newport Avenue free of cars altogether – but that still does not have to include the loss of public space.

If the extensions for outdoor dining are made “permanent” for a lease, or fee, or even “tax”, or whatever you want to call it, this is really a sale of our public space. It’s called privatization, the use for private interests and profit of what was public.

The people already knew spaces were places and have for years been pressuring the city to upgrade and improve those public spaces. More trees, more benches, more street lights that worked and didn’t spy on you. Now the city wants to sell off all that space for the people so it can finally make those improvements people have been clamoring for.

Now that it looks like it will be “law”, residents and other business owners will have to adjust. Our concerns are still valid, but the tide is against them.