By Lynne Miller
Three issues:
1. Please listen to your constituents. The people of Ocean Beach and Point Loma are opposed to the 4591 Pescadero overbuild. I am pretty sure you know the reasons already.
Drive around San Diego and see the horrific changes that the city has forced on the residents. Please stop this now. Stop enticing Big Builders to come to San Diego and destroy it. Stop waiving laws that protect our land, our safety, our life style.
Imagine for a moment a disaster in San Diego, say a fire or a tidal wave. There is no way out of many areas, including coastal cities. People will be trapped, just like they were in Maui and Paradise.
Stop cramming people into small places, taking away land needed for storm runoff, and pretending that this is a solution to affordable housing and homelessness. Run the numbers. How many actual affordable housing can you count? The city/state formula for qualifying as high density, low income housing tells the real story. Putting all these structures, high and dense, around the city without proper infrastructure is creating unsafe conditions.
2. Coastal Resilience Action Plan: Reach out to the OB /Point Loma /Sunset Cliffs community and hold another meeting that is announced fairly. (La Jolla was granted another community meeting, why not us?) There are many concerns.
The meeting I attended on Zoom allowed questions and provided no answers. What is the point of such a meeting? The Cliffs are eroding, and action must be taken. I do not want a one-way street on Sunset Cliffs Blvd. I hope there is an alternative solution. However, I know that action is required.
PLEASE, in fairness to local residents, DO NOT pave over our alleys. We have fought to keep at least a few alleys unpaved. Paving the alleys to accommodate ingress/egress will mean more cars going faster, more noise, and less safety. If you must make Sunset Cliffs Blvd partially one-way, please do not insist on paving the alleys. It is our one last piece of land that has dirt, and dips, drainage, and provides a sense of country roads in our paved-over paradise.
3. 1404 Point Loma Ave. Please insist that the current zoning laws, environmental laws, coastal zone laws, parking requirements are enforced. Insist that the City, Mayor, DSD, and Council follow the laws that were created to protect our environment. Waiving all these important laws is an insult to residents and a misuse of taxes.
Creating new laws that usurp CeQa and Coastal regulations lacks integrity and when challenged in court, will probably be found illegal. Theses decisions are literally destroying San Diego and her unique communities.
Lynne Miller is a resident of OB / Point Loma and a constituent of Councilmember Campbell.
Dear Fellow Readers:
I feel like I cannot keep up with what is being done in the City of San Diego. New policies. Changes to policy. Things used to be discussed at the planning board and town council. Seems like lots of things are happening covertly. Show up and provide public comment. Seems like that gets ignored sometimes. HELP.
Excellent points and I’m with you–even from Hillcrest (but former OB resident) the issues apply to all residents one way or another . My comment is about your comment about them not listening. A number of years ago when they were trying to destroy Balboa Park and put in an 800 car paid parking garage the city held and open hearing to let everyone have their say. First we saw the pro-develop/degrade people being escorted into the building through a private door. Then we–people who lived here–were herded through the metal detectors by law enforcement. Once inside the pro-develop people were allowed to present their cases almost as long as they wanted. We were dropped from 60 to 30 seconds each. At the end of the “hearing” the city council adjourned to another room to discuss and make a decision–well EXCEPT for Todd Gloria who sat smugly in his seat. When they came out and each gave his/her decision Gloria read his from a typed sheet he’d been holding. With today’s really serious issues of due process I think we can tell where he is…
How is 30 seconds even reasonable or possible?!!
Ms. Miller,
I say this with the utmost respect, no city politician cares what you think, unless you have given them campaign money, are a union elected official, or a influencer in city (chamber of commerce officer etc.), you are spitting into the wind.
That’s the problem. And we hope to RESIST this.
I don’t spit, literally. I get your point, corruption is that smell coming out of ‘City Hall’.
We need to remind each other that this is our community, our city, our state.When a government at any level stops listening listening to constituents and makes up new laws that don’t serve the community that government needs to be challenged. Yes, it’s too late to save our beautiful city. But don’t stop fighting!!. I don’t think giving up is an option. The truth is if we want anything to change in our city, we have to get five of the nine council members to support us! Even if one or two or even three council members support us and their vote reflects that support we will still lose the battle. Truth is – we voted people in and either we made a mistake or they lied to us. Either way they need to be voted out. No we can’t turn the clock back, but we can join these coalitions that are forming throughout the city. We can show up at town council meetings, and planning board meetings. We can write letters to the mayor and city counsel. We can combine our energy and efforts, and show up at council meetings and make our voices heard. We need to do our homework and we need to vote new people into office. I encourage everyone to write to the entire council city and to the mayor. We don’t have to speak as one voice, many voices with many ideas are fine. I encourage you to write articles to the OB rag because it seems to be our sounding board and an effective way to share. A final thought – a few years ago if you lived in Ocean Beach your point Loma and you wanted to add an ADU to your property you had to go through the city, pay money to apply for permits, which were often denied. You know the reasons they/you were denied. Not enough set back, too much percentage of land with a structure,etc. Now the new laws made by city officials encourage people with lots and lots of money to come to our city and build quickly by getting waivers on zoning, CEQA, and COASTAL zoning laws.
I consider these actions reckless endangerment by the Mayor and City Council. What is the emergency evacuation plan in case of fire, earthquake, and tsunami? Several weeks ago, we had a plane crash very close to the Navy fuel storage area – how long would it take to evacuate the peninsula in case of emergency? It takes almost an hour to get down Rosecrans during rush hour traffic – can you imagine how long it would take in an evacuation?
And don’t forget: https://obrag.org/2024/07/at-council-committee-hearing-jen-campbell-refuses-to-acknowledge-gaping-loop-holes-in-short-term-rental-ordinance/
If Jen Campbell can’t do her job, she should get out of office.
Was it Edmund Burke who said “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (sic) to do nothing.
The Turquoise Tower in PB would be sailing through under the radar if the community hadn’t stood up.
BRAVO PB!!!!! An exemplary example for all.
Lynne, thank you for your letter and for the comment about what we can do. I have written to Jen Campbell in the past, called her office, and asked for a chance to voice my concerns about particular things. I did not make a pest of myself; I was contacting her infrequently about real issues. I NEVER heard back from anyone in her office. Friends told me they never heard from her or her staff when they tried to contact her. I browse her email newsletters and find pap. I do not hear the voice of my community in those emails. So thank you for giving voice to our communities.
I also want to raise another issue you pointed out. All of this over-densification is being done in the name of affordable housing. But the deficit of affordable housing keeps on growing, while the amount of market-rate housing exceeds local needs. We have investors plundering our coastal communities and even our inland communities. One thing I wish we as a community would do: I wish we would offer reasonable ideas for how we can include in our communities actual affordable housing for very-low income and low-income households — the very people who staff so many occupations this community and other communities — occupations we rely upon. These folks make good neighbors, good friends, and great neighborhoods. We could become an example to other high-income neighborhoods that have become expert at excluding folks whom they trust enough to clean their houses, care for their children and elderly, and keep up their landscape, but who are excluded from the very neighborhoods in which they work in such intimate capacities. We could show other high-income communities how to do this if we really cared to.
yes, I think we need to come together as a community, all of San Diego. I think it will require lawyers, because the City has an endless supply of tax money to plan, and create new laws, and evade public concerns. I did get responses to two recent emails to Jen, from her admin assistant. I will not share the emails since there is a legal blurb on each one that basically says “for my eyes only” there might be some sensitive information included.
All changes have to go through the mayor and council vote. So any great ideas you have would be stopped or promoted through them. I love new ideas. Since we have already lost the communities we once knew, the city may back off a little. Truth is you cannot build affordable housing on lands that are million plus dollar lots. Not possible, but there is a formula that allows builders from all over the world to come and build and profit, as long as a very small percentage of the building is affordable. (Our county supervisor is ACTUALLY building affordable housing in the East and South counties I think). The land is affordable, hence the apartments are high density and affordable. There is a May 1 meeting that I am trying to prepare for. Hard to get the info though.
Lynne, a new SD Community Coalition is working to unite activists from across the city, see link below. Leaders from 15 communities so far have joined forces with the Rag serving as a communication platform. We will soon post useful information about the May 1 Planning Commission meeting: time, location, how to get there, where to park (at reasonable costs), what to expect, how to speak or cede time. The Commission has not yet posted its agenda. but they can’t wait much longer. Hope to see you there.
https://obrag.org/2025/04/new-san-diego-coalition-residents-of-14-communities-unite/