There was so much interest in Geoff Page’s report on the OB Planning Board’s review of the proposed deck at the Inn at Sunset Cliffs, that we decided to post its detailed drawings. The images were presented during the OBPB meeting. (More details about the images and drawings may be forthcoming …)

By Geoff Page

The Inn At Sunset Cliffs dominated the discussion during the Ocean Beach Planning Board’s regular monthly meeting, Wednesday, July 7. A cycling issue was listed on the consent agenda but it was pulled by the board’s vice chair, Kevin Hastings. It was placed at the end of the agenda but the meeting went on for three hours and the board did not get to it. It will be discussed at the next meeting.

Ocean Front Project Approved Without Discussion

There was a second consent agenda item that was passed:

By Geoff Page

The Navy’s plans for the old SPAWAR site, a developer’s plan to add 4,300 residential units and a 93-acre park in Mission Valley, and a “Bicycle Boulevard” were the highlights of the Peninsula Community Planning Board’s regular monthly meeting, Thursday, July 17.

The Navy

The Navy has been shopping its Environmental Impact Statement for the plans to redevelop the old SPAWAR site- renamed NAVWAR – for weeks. The first public presentation was at the Midway-Pacific Community Planning Group’s meeting in May and it was described in detail in The OB Rag’s May 24 account of that meeting.

By Geoff Page

The Ocean Beach Town Council held a meeting Wednesday, May 26 to talk about a single issue, the OB Fishing Pier. There was an informative presentation and a long public discussion. One surprise for many others was a public opinion that one option to dealing with the pier problem would be to remove it. Period.

The removal opinion was not just one person, although this was a small minority. But, this is why public forums are so important. Most folks were looking at the three proposals in the 2019 engineering report on the pier that The OB Rag revealed to the public for the first time. The three were: temporary repairs, a major rehabilitation, or remove and replace.

No one had considered just “remove,” and those who were of that opinion were looking at money spent on the pier,

By Geoff Page

The subject of Peninsula parks came up twice during the Peninsula Community Planning Board’s regular monthly meeting Thursday, May 20. Two parks were discussed, Collier Park and the Canon Street “pocket” park. There were, however, problems with both.

Collier Park

Collier Park is all that is left of the Collier land grant legacy that is still just open park land. Bill Cleator park is laid out into Little League fields. Collier Park is bordered by Greene and Soto Streets and is adjacent to the Point Loma Native Plant Reserve.

There is a video of what San Diego Police say is the vehicle involved in a fatal hit-and-run of San Diego resident Frank Thomas Neal, who was found unresponsive in an OB alley late Friday night. Neal passed away at the scene.

Police are seeking help in identifying the suspected hit-and-run driver whose SUV ran over and killed 60-year-old Neal who had fallen earlier and was lying on the pavement in the north alley off Niagara Avenue and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard.

The involved vehicle is believed to be an early 2000s-model Chevrolet Suburban or GMC Yukon with a sunroof, a raised suspension, shiny silver rims and side molding.

By Geoff Page

The Navy gave its very first public presentation of its potential plans for redeveloping the old SPAWAR site on Pacific Highway to the Midway-Pacific Highway Planning Group, Wednesday, May 19.

The details of the Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, were recently made public and reactions have been intense because of the density and building heights in some of the alternates the Navy’s EIS contains.

The Navy has five possible alternate plans for the site, some of which include buildings 240 feet tall and others with buildings 350 feet tall.

By Geoff Page

While the rest of the news media was doing nothing more than reporting what The OB Rag had already reported on the sad state of the OB Pier, The Rag kept digging. The news stories focused on several things, the major one being that the western end of the pier will be closed to the public indefinitely.

In fact, the engineering firm’s April 23, 2021, recommendation on vehicle traffic at the west end of the pier was almost the same as the recommendation Moffatt & Nichol gave the city five years ago in September 21, 2016. These recommendations were detailed in a memo from the city’s Director of Public Works.

The OB Mainstream Association is coordinating the committee’s formation.