Editordude: This is an excellent summary of the very current trends in California and San Diego housing and a must-read.
By Michael Smolens / Columnist – San Diego Union-Tribune / May 3, 2024
In recent years, the Legislature has passed several laws to increase housing density across the state.
But a ruling by a Los Angeles County judge and pushback from the California Coastal Commission may slow that momentum.
Both developments highlight perhaps the most disputed notion in the politics of housing — that producing more market-rate housing will lower sale prices and rents.
That has been a key argument by many housing advocates over the years as home prices in California have soared and affordability has shrunk. But the contention that simply more supply will substantially change that has been challenged constantly.
Affordable housing was central to a ruling last week by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Curtis Kin, who declared a law that could increase housing density in most neighborhoods was unconstitutional. The law approved in 2021 under Senate Bill 9 by state Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, allows lots zoned for single-family homes to be split, with duplexes on each parcel.
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COST TO BUILD??? COST TO MAINTAIN??? WTF???
By Geoff Page
For anyone who may not be aware, the City is conducting a fourth survey of opinions about a new OB pier. This survey followed the last public workshop the city held on Saturday, April 6 at Liberty Station.
So, imagine going to a car dealer who brings you out three cars to look at: a VW Bug, a Ford RAV, and a full sized, four-door, black BMW sedan, with no pricing on them, and being asked, which one you “preferred.” The BMW would be the winner for sure.
Then, the dealer shows you a list of fancy options and asks which ones you ‘prefer” and you go for heated seats of fine leather and other unnecessary niceties, with no pricing.
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Public Service Announcement
Ridership is surging on a free airport shuttle from the Old Town Transit Center, showing growing local demand for the more direct airport-transit connection that regional planners have been studying for years.
Despite no marketing campaign and minimal promotion, annual ridership rose by 73 percent on the shuttle from 2022 to 2023 — 75,680 passenger trips in 2022 versus 130,912 passenger trips in 2023.
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Last week, U-T writer Lori Weisberg did a lengthy piece about the new “overhaul” for Belmont Park that “could bring new rides and reinvented beachfront restaurant” to the hundred year old amusement park in Mission Beach. She recounted in glowing terms the new rides, new restaurants and attractions Belmont Park is –or will be getting once Coastal Com’ish authority is obtained.
It’s always been a challenge to lure those “sunbathers and passersby strolling the boardwalk to venture inside.” And every decade or so, owners of the park engage in a new overhaul with new upgrades, rides, bars and eateries.
Why it was just a decade ago — that Weisberg did another glowing report on the “new” Belmont Park back in September 2014
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by Joaquin Antique
After years of planning and one year of construction, a new hiking trail has opened at Cabrillo National Monument. Named “the Oceanside Trail”, it is an approximately 0.7 mile (one way) dirt and gravel pathway that leads from the whale watching overlook near the Old Lighthouse down a series of switchbacks and stairs to the start of the Coastal Trail near the Monument’s tidepools.
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1300 Arrests and Calls for National Guard to Deal with Palestinian Protests Echo May 1970 Rebellion and Kent State Murders
Whether I submit to it or not, because I’ve just finished writing a book about the height of the anti-Vietnam war movement over 50 years ago, I am now an expert on the era that brought us the Kent State massacre and the first national student strike of May of 1970.
The reports of up to 1300 arrests nation-wide of pro-Palestinian protesters, up to 2 dozen college campuses undergoing protests, numerous building take-overs and encampments, clashes between police and students, threats to bring in the National Guard and now claims of “outside agitators” — all echo what happened during the high-water mark of the decade long movement against the US wars in Southeast Asia. Now, our country is back at the doorstep of our own history.
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