Author: Staff

By Geoff Page

The Peninsula Community Planning Board’s regularly monthly meeting, Thursday, January 19, was relatively unremarkable until a certain piece of very remarkable information popped up, almost routinely.  It appears the evisceration of the planning board system has begun.

About one hour into the meeting, the PCPB reached the point in its agenda called “Applicant-Initiated Action Items.” Board chair, Fred Kosmo, pointed out that there were no projects on the agenda and explained why. Kosmo said that the PCPB’s Project Review subcommittee chair, Joe Holasek, informed him of a change at the city.

The planning boards will no longer be reviewing projects involving accessory dwelling units or ADUs. So, how does removing projects – the most common and of numerous projects these days – from planning board review square with the following?

As the San Diego Union-Tribune reported today, “The long-awaited return of Sunday public library hours in San Diego could come this spring as library officials say they’ve made significant progress filling a rash of 275 employee vacancies spurred by the pandemic.”

Some branches will reopen on Sunday over the next two months. But not the Ocean Beach Library.

As the U-T stated: “San Diego was also relatively slow to reopen its branches on days other than Sundays, with four branches remaining fully or partially closed until last year and with Ocean Beach still not fully re-opened.”

This weekend, beginning on Friday, Jan. 20, there will be Women’s Marches across the country.

Here in San Diego, there’s a march on Sunday, Jan. 22, from 12noon to 2pm at Waterfront Park, 1600 Pacific Hwy, San Diego 92101.

Let’s have this discussion. San Diego needs to have it.

Bill Walton — probably San Diego’s most famous personage — and George Mullen, the CEO of Sunrise Ranch, have just penned an opinion showcasing their vision of a solution to San Diego’s unhoused.

They offer up something called Sunrise Ranch to be built as a camp for unhoused people on 2,000 acres of empty land at the Miramar Marine Corps Station, the former Camp Elliot weapons range.

They write:

According to researchers at UCSD, 12,167 California elders — people over the of 65 — made trips to emergency rooms in 2019 for cannabis-related issues.

Reporter Eric Page at 7SanDiego cited the study conducted by the University of California San Diego School of Medicine that “just 366 Californians over the age of 65 visited ERs in 2005 for cannabis-related concerns. By 2019, that figure had skyrocketed nearly 3200%, when 12,167 seniors made trips to emergency rooms for that reason.”

The Sidewalk Vendor Ordinance goes into effect in Ocean Beach and other beach and shoreline neighborhoods today, Friday the 13th.

Beginning today, Jan. 13, 2023, vendor permits are required throughout San Diego. There will be about a two-week grace period as permit enforcement will not begin until February 1.

Details on Voting and Being a Candidate for Planning Board

Next week the Ocean Beach Planning Board’s Election Committee will be holding a Zoom meeting to decide the rules of their upcoming board election held from February 22, 2023 through March 1, 2023 at 9:00 pm. (See details below.) The meeting is on Monday, January 16th at 5 pm. You can register for the meeting here.

Anyone interested in running is encouraged to attend this meeting or the next regular meeting of the board on February 1st (Attendance however is not required).

For some of those who’ve recently walked or driven by Wild Things Pizza & Beer at 2163 Abbott Street have noticed that the business has vacated the property. Commenters to the Rag noted in early December that the pizza place had been closed since December 1 (without giving the employees — many of whom were local OBceans — any notice).

SanDiegoVille in a Jan. 10 article has confirmed that Wild Things “has suddenly ended its short run in San Diego’s Ocean Beach neighborhood …”

The online local eatery guide also announced that a specialty dessert shop named SugaLab has already taken over the space with plans to open in February.

It has been confirmed that the City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee will discuss the proposed “Sustainability Development Areas” zoning change at its Thursday, January 12, 2023 meeting.

This ill-conceived proposal would allow high-density, high rise, and multi-unit ADU projects within one mile of an existing or planned bus or trolley stop. The planning department claims — without any evidence and in the face of contradictory facts — one mile is a reasonable “walking, riding, rolling” distance from a residence to a transit stop. (The widely accepted definition of “transit-friendly” development is one-half mile from a major transit stop.)

San Diegans have organized a rally today, January 6, to demand accountability and to mark two years since the January 6th attack on our Capitol.

It’s from 2 to 4 PM at Balboa Park’s Bea Evenson Fountain (between the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center and the Natural History)

It’s part of events nationwide that will raise our voices for accountability and broad democracy reforms.

The City has just announced that an application has been filed to create 3 brand new ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units – or “granny flats”) at 4954 West Point Loma Boulevard in northwest Ocean Beach.

The application filed by “ADU Geeks” is for a Coastal Development Permit to convert the existing attached garage of a single-family residence into a new 480 square foot ADU and the creation of a new two story detached structure containing two 414 square feet ADU’s. The application was filed on December 6, 2022 with the city.

Michael McConnell, who has helped and advocated for the homeless for more than a decade, has set up a GoFundMe page in order to help unhoused individuals that lost their belongings from the rising levels of the San Diego River and the recent rain.

The continuous rain has flooded several areas in the San Diego Riverbed, which has impacted an estimated 400 people who call the San Diego Riverbed their home.