By Lynne Miller
Get your OB Mind primed for action! Show up with your friends this
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29 AT 9:00 am.
COUNCIL CHAMBERS: City Admin Building
12th Floor, 202 C Street San Diego 92101.
Bring your beach smiles and personal power to stand up for OB, Point Loma, and Sunset Cliffs. We are a peninsula with a beach lifestyle, and a landscape of cottages and four-plexes that reveal our history.
OB local’s activism has saved many quaint characteristics and continues to voice environmental and coastal concerns. Across the Pacific, on Kauai, Islanders have battled to protect their paradise. Sadly,the battles have been against state and local governments that want to control land use and real estate.
Why is this first attempt at Complete Communities so important?
If they build this without listening to the locals, and they intend to, it is just the beginning. I would love to tell you that once this battle is over, we are done. Sorry, not until we get rid of the horrendous land grabbing for profit schemes that have been created, mandated and approved.
Why the expedited program? Because the city wants to build fast and furious until they are stopped by the courts. That is where we come in. First the Appeal, then the Hearing, and after the decision the next steps. The City could listen to our concerns, it is their job to serve us. If they don’t we will get together to talk about our action plan.
Executive orders that negate decades of laws based on scientific research must be challenged. The City of San Diego’s elected officials should be the leaders who support these laws instead of being officials who exempt and waive decades of laws.
Hiding behind the virtues of words like housing crisis and high density solutions, the state and local governments put together two packages that benefit wealthy developers and investors. One package allows apartment style ADUs to be built in single family zones, and the other package allows larger apartments to be built without coastal, environmental,parking,zoning or climate considerations.
This for profit scheme is about money, not housing solutions. We who have researched are convinced that now is the time to stop this land grab and building frenzy before we lose our charming beach community forever.
I personally support the 8-unit building with parking that the city already approved in 2022. I do not support the CCHS 20-unit building, which is exempt from all environmental, coastal, parking, and zoning laws. If the appeal is not approved, or if discussions in search of a compromise are not initiated by DSD we are prepared to go to the next level.
We can take heart from Kauai locals who for decades have fought height limits and gifted us with a magical island. Kauai is not Waikiki or Maui, it is a small island paradise with rainforests, old school cottages, and clean air and water.
OB, let’s preserve our beach town. Let’s begin by attending the Hearing on Thursday morning. Bring friends, uber or car pool. Let’s do this!!!!
FOR DETAILS ABOUT HEARING GO TO obsandiego92107.com
“We can’t just rely on the ideas of the past, we need to chart a new way forward to meet the challenges of today — and Kamala understands this,” Barack Obama said at the DNC. “She knows, for example, that if we want to make it easier for young people to buy a home, we need to build more units and clear away some of the outdated laws and regulations that made it harder to build homes for working people in this country.”
What do Rag readers think about what the former president said last week?
We have an affordable housing crisis, not a housing crisis. The Calif Coastal Commission, the Coastal Act and the 30-foot height limit are not outdated and were put in place by the working people of California and San Diego. There yo go, Carol Ann.
These 20 units are not “homes” and they are not for sale either.
Why are they not “homes”?
OB Sam: A 457 sq. ft. studio for $2,700 a month is not a “home”. It’s also not “affordable” for the majority of OB residents.
Why isn’t it a home? Won’t someone live there, the literal definition of a home?
Well, let’s see … look at all those tents along the streets — people live in them – are they homes also?
Well this is a very silly argument, of course they’re not. In fact, from an article I read recently, the Mayor is mad that the people in safe camping sites are considered by the government to be unsheltered (because they’re in a tent) unlike people staying at a shelter. What point are you trying to make here Frank? There’s obviously a different between moving into an apartment and living on the literal street.
People living in those tents consider them home. That’s one of the points people are making. The other is that these so-called ADUs are so small and inadequate that you can’t hardly call them “homes.” ADUs are tiny apartments without parking, living on top of your neighbors and paying a staff price to do it.
The reality is that we are up against ideologues at the City, County, and State level and until the supermajorities are replaced with more moderate voices, expect this to continue or accelerate. The original idea of a rental granny flat is a good one, the building codes always recognized SFRs or aduplex as R3 dwellings. Return to just that.
“Carol Anne”, a one bedroom rental apartment with 652 sq ft of living space, renting for $3,285.00 a month (and an extra $200 a month if you want a parking space) is not “affordable housing”, and it certainly is not a “home” for young working people to buy.
Well, yup, we have some “new” trolls now that the push-back against ADUs is gaining momentum. In fact, “Carol Ann” (if that is their name) vows to keep coming back under different handles and spreading more of their love-of-developers spite.
Don’t know if it’s related, but somebody just tried to hack the Rag via our email.
Whoa!
If you live in OB and love OB, this is not just about us, it is about you. Any small business is a target for developers. They make it look so easy, so profitable. And it is always true – for them and perhaps or perhaps not for their investors. By that time the units with no parking and the size of a hotel room are with us forever. Please, log in, support the appeal. This is tricky – a NO vote on the appeal is a YES vote for project approval. It is all in how the Commissioners word their motion. It is a tricky DSD world out there.
Please show up for the hearing in the City Council Chambers on August 29 at 9 AM. We have a lot of good points to make at the hearing, but need to pack the room, as the Planning Commission only allows 1 minute of comment per speaker, and speakers MUST be present in order to cede time.
Sam: I get the “generational divide” thing you are pushing, so I have to ask two questions for context. 1. How old are you? 2. How long have you, or your family lived in OB? I ask these questions not to troll or embarass you, but to point out that if a person has only been in OB for a short time, they don’t know the history of OB, or why this community fought so hard for so long, to maintain a small town community feel. Those of us either born here or having lived here a long time remember how OB used to be, and don’t want to see it turned into a bunch of high rise apartment blocks. If that is what you want, why don’t you consider moving to somewhere like Oceanside or Newport Beach that have already been ruined by greed, developers and urban densification. Because if OB gets turned into one of those places, it won’t be OB anymore.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention! I was able to follow the website instructions to submit a public comment to the planning commission board. For the form submission, this is agenda item #1, and if you agree with Lynne, you’re in support of the appeal.
This is important; please submit a comment and note – Add to your comment: We support the Appeal; we are in opposition to the project. Although this will be clear to what you say, there is a box to check which isn’t quite clear when the item is an Appeal. Not everybody who has commented has used the same approach. You can post another comment if you think yours needs clarification.
This can get confusing. As this is an appeal, please include in your comment: This is to support the Appeal and in Opposition to the Project, no matter which box you select when you fill out the form. This is an Appeal; I marked Support, and Added Support the Appeal. You can always add another comment if you feel you need to clarify your position. This is the first of many projects like this, so we are all getting experience for the next one.
We need more housing lots of homeless because of very little housing. Need housing not more regulation even no planning commission
Eliminate STVRs… there’s the needed housing. It exists already. Magic!