Editordude: Back in the mid-Seventies, San Diego Magazine — known today as a slick mag beset with stories of the flashy high-living pleasures of San Diego’s rich and near-rich — was a local hard-hitting and muck racking journal in a GOP-controlled city with a monopoly press (the San Diego Union). Now, all of a sudden with the following article about Ocean Beach and its distaste for ADUs, the media project appears like it want to take up its former mantle.
We applaud that and we applaud SDM writer Maya Srikrishnan’s attempt to do just that – be relevant again. This metropolis needs all the help it can get.
Back in the mid-Seventies, one writer for the magazine created its reputation of muck-raking: long-time San Diego newscaster and journalist Harold Keen. Back then, Keen left the glass-walled offices of downtown, came out to Ocean Beach and actually interviewed some of the then-activists trying to “save Ocean Beach” against the challenges of unbridled overdevelopment. I recall several pieces Keen wrote – and still probably have the cut-out articles somewhere in my files. And now, the following article wants to follow in Keen’s footsteps (although he is not mentioned in Srikrishnan’s piece) by exposing just why OBceans are upset with the ADUs coming into the community and several locals are interviewed. Here is a sampling near the end:
The battle isn’t new. The first community planning board in the city began in Ocean Beach in the 1970s in response to the 1960s Precise Plan. Endorsed by the City Planning Department, this plan aimed to increase density along the coast and intensify commercial activity on Newport Avenue, according to a San Diego Magazine article from 1974.
“It all devolves down to densities—how many should live in Ocean Beach and who they should be—what economic strata,” one city planner told SDM at the time.
Back then, the tension stemmed from fears of so-called radicals moving in and impacting the quiet livability of OB. Today, it comes from worries that backyard apartment buildings will impact OB’s quirky spirit. Density means change for those lucky enough to own homes in the neighborhood, but also it brings opportunity for those who hope to call it home.
In some ways the problem remains the same as they did in the ’70s, but the language has changed. Today, those opposed to development face criticism that they’re “NIMBYs,” meaning “Not In My Backyard.”
“I think it’s much more complicated than that,” [OB Planning Board chair Andrea] Schlageter says. “Everyone wants their neighborhood to be nice … but it’s not going to be nicer if you just pray and spray development everywhere.”
But Schlageter isn’t worried about OB becoming overly dense just yet.
“There’s still enough of the old guard walking around barefoot who will fight every project like hell,” she says. “I think we have a few more decades before we’ll see a mass sell-off of properties to developers in OB.”
Here is the introduction and link:
New Housing Developments, Same Old OB Blues
By Maya Srikrishnan / San Diego Magazine / August 12, 2024
Recently, Jerry Ruiz received a notice that a three-story, eight-unit Accessory Dwelling Unit—also called an ADU or granny flat—is going up near the corner of Froude Street and Pescadero Avenue, across the street from Ruiz’s house in Ocean Beach, where he and his family have lived for more than 10 years.
“We are pretty upset,” Ruiz says. “It’s just going to make OB more of this vacation, tourist spot, when OB always had more local flavor.”
Ruiz chose to live in Ocean Beach because it felt more family-friendly than other coastal neighborhoods, like Mission Beach. But he’s concerned that the ADU will be “inconsistent with what was zoned as a family, residential neighborhood.”
In 2020, the city passed the Complete Communities program, allowing developers to increase density near public transit in exchange for including subsidized units in their buildings. The city also passed the ADU Bonus Program, which allows owners to build an extra unit for each one reserved for renters earning below a certain income.
These initiatives have yielded some results, though they’ve had less impact than policies in other cities that did away with single-family home zoning, opening the door to multi-unit buildings on lots that once held standalone houses. Last year, San Diego issued a record number of housing permits—9,691—though that amount still falls far short of the city’s annual need of roughly 13,500 units, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. Permits for ADUs almost tripled last year, making up nearly 20 percent of the total number of housing permits.
For the balance of this article, please go here.
Here is one of the writer’s sentences that either is a typo or reverses what was going on in the early and mid-Seventies:
“Back then, the tension stemmed from fears of so-called radicals moving in and impacting the quiet livability of OB.”
It’s true — the radicals did have fears — of extreme overdevelopment, and it was the radicals in coalitions with moderates that led the fight against it and established the OB Planning Board. A huge community election was organized and thousands of residents, property owners and businessowners voted for the first board.
There was a slight fear among some of the businessowners and propertyowners about the radicals, sure — there was a huge anti-hippie bias going on.
The first election had competing slates of candidates. The grassroots coalition was called the OB Community Planning Group (CPG) (not to be confused with the OB Planning Board) and ran one slate; some businesses and conservatives organized another slate. On election day, there were “district” elections and the CPG candidates swept the election, taking a huge majority. They then elected a woman for the first chair: Maryann Zounes.
I don’t think that was a typo. I think you read it right. What I assume the author is trying to say is that – per the title, “same old OB blues,” it’s an ironic narrative that OG hippie progressives who were previously fighting for access have now calcified into the landed class trying to erect barriers to entry to their quiet beach town. Very similar stories in other coastal enclaves (e.g. Santa Monica).
The narrative even though “ironic” is not accurate (which actually cancels out any irony). It’s such BS — check out some of the posts we’ve put up about the history of making urban planning in OB democratic.
I saw this article on a news feed and read it before it appeared in the Rag. I thought it was pretty right on as we used to say. My recollection from the time I lived in OB 1971 to 1972 was fears from the indigenous population over the influx of hippies and political activists (they were often both) and scores of run-away kids from all over.
Now those same hippies are fighting against housing for the next generation of progressives. The people willing to pay $2M for a home are likely establishment Republicans.
Bullpucky Michael – this is not true at all. That’s your own deception.