Category: Economy

Email Letter to Mayor and San Diego City Council

By Lisa Mortensen

Good morning Councilmembers:

I wanted to congratulate you, Councilmember Moreno, for pushing forward legislation through the council to launch a $5 million fund to buy apartment complexes in order to preserve existing affordable structures.  While this is a good start, I want to pull back the lens and take a big picture view of some pitfalls that could hamstring your truly earnest efforts.

First off, will the city do its due-diligence when considering making an investment like this?  Because let’s face it, the city’s track record in buying real estate has been extremely costly and not profitable.  If the city continues their approach to real estate investing, it would be doubtful that $5 million dollars would go very far and we hope that the city will spare San Diegans any further taxpayer bailout.

This good intention of yours, Ms. Moreno, will be blindsided by the mayor’s upcoming push to pass the Preservation and Progress program that actually will eliminate any protections for properties more than 45 years old, properties designated as historical, and/or certified as Mills Act.

By Ben Christopher / CalMatters Times of San Diego / Sept. 13, 2025

California lawmakers just laid the groundwork for a highly targeted building boom.

Senate Bill 79, authored by San Francisco Democrat Sen. Scott Wiener, would “upzone” neighborhoods immediately surrounding train, light rail and subway stations in many of the state’s most populous metro areas. That means apartment developers will be able to construct residential buildings — some as tall as 75 feet — regardless of what local zoning maps, elected officials or density-averse neighbors say.

In a legislative year teeming with controversial housing bills designed to kick-start more construction in California, SB 79 has been among the most controversial. Because it would override the planning decisions of local governments, the bill had to overcome opposition from a host of city governments and their defenders in the Legislature, while fracturing the Capitol’s reigning Democratic Party over questions of affordability, labor standards and who ultimately has the final say over what gets built where.

The bill now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom – supporters expect he will sign it.

By Paul Krueger

Mayor Todd Gloria has rejected proposed discounts for paid parking in Balboa Park, setting up a contentious debate at the Monday, September 15th, city council meeting. The Mayor and a majority of council members have embraced new parking fees in and around Balboa Park to help close a huge deficit in the city’s 2025-26 general fund.

But Park users, volunteers, and employees harshly criticized a proposed fee system that would generate $10.3 million annually to help close the budget gap. At a raucous July 28 council meeting, residents urged the council to abandon the plan or significantly reduce the Mayor’s proposed fee schedule.

In response, council members discussed the following concessions:

• Reducing from $12 to $10 the daily rate for the Organ Pavilion and other lots in the park’s core, with a 50 percent discount for “verified” city residents.
• Reducing to $5 a day the cost of parking in outlying lots, with four hours of free parking at Inspiration Point.
• Additional free parking on the park’s “West Mesa” (west of the Cabrillo Bridge, bordering 6th Avenue)
• Free parking everywhere after 6 pm

By Ezra Klein / New York Times – Democratic Underground / September 7, 2025

In about three weeks, the government’s funding will run out. Democrats will face a choice: Join Republicans to fund a government that President Trump is turning into a tool of authoritarian takeover and vengeance or shut the government down.

Democrats faced a version of this choice back in March. DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, was chain-sawing its way through the government. Civil servants were being fired left and right. Government grants and payments were being choked off and reworked into tools of political power and punishment. Trump was signing executive orders demanding the investigation — I would say, the persecution — of his enemies. He had announced shocking tariffs on Mexico and Canada. We were in the muzzle velocity stage of this presidency. And Democrats seemed completely overwhelmed and outmatched.

I often heard people complain that Democrats lacked a message. What Democrats really lacked was power. They didn’t have the House or the Senate, but they did have one sliver of leverage: To fund the government, Senate Republicans needed Democratic votes. And not just one or two. They needed at least seven Democrats to reach that magic 60-vote threshold. House Democrats wanted a shutdown. But Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, didn’t. He voted for the funding bill and encouraged a crucial number of his colleagues to do the same. The bill passed.

To many Democrats, this seemed insane. Some began openly calling for Schumer to resign or face a primary challenge. This was Democrats’ first real opportunity to fight back against Trump, and they had folded. What were they good for?

By Steven Mihailovich / Point Loma – OB Monthly SDU-T / September 8, 2025 

Though upgrades at Ocean Beach’s Robb Field appear on track to get started in the foreseeable future — raising excitement among local residents who have long anticipated them — there are still funding obstacles to overcome and the work won’t be done all at once, a San Diego city engineer cautioned in an update to the Ocean Beach Planning Board at its meeting Sept. 2.

Juliana Grotzinger, a civil engineer and project manager, said Phase I of the plan is in the design process, which is 60% complete. It is expected to reach 90% completion by March, allowing project leaders to apply for permits.

However, it’s just one step of many, she said.

City spokesman Tyler Becker said previously that the project underwent a General Development Plan amendment process in 2023 that included three public meetings and concluded with Parks and Recreation Board approval in February 2024.

A GDP amendment for any park modification “is a lengthy process,” Grotzinger said. “We can’t go to the park and just add a new facility.”

By Calista Stocker / Mission Times Courier – Times of San Diego / Sept. 8, 2025

San Diego City Council’s accessory dwelling unit reforms went into effect on Aug. 22, but many residents of the College Area feel that the efforts are too little, too late.

The set of 25 reforms, which passed 5-4 on June 18, set new requirements and new maximums for the city’s Bonus ADU Program. Previously, the program was mostly unlimited, with the general requirement that half of the units built must be affordable. [Editordude: this is not true.]

Now, single-family homes are only permitted to add one converted ADU, one detached ADU and one junior ADU, or JADU. Other maximums include four units for lots smaller than 8,000 square feet, five units for lots between 8,001 and 10,000 square feet and six units for lots bigger than 10,000 square feet.

[Go to original for links]

Other key changes include structure distance minimums for fire safety, sidewalk requirements for Sustainable Development Areas and the allowance of ADUs to be sold separately as condominiums.

Not mentioned in the list of reforms, residents say, are their concerns about community betterment and equivalent infrastructure developments.

Activists in the greater Golden Hill area mobilized on Sunday, Sept. 7, to bring attention to the horrendous threats of huge development projects alive in their community. There’s at least six projects in the process of construction right now, sitting in the middle of quiet residential and small business neighborhoods, telegraphing their disruption of those areas.  [Richard Santini wrote a great piece about the threats to the soul of Golden Hill on behalf of Preserve Greater Golden Hill just recently here at the Rag.]

Roughly 50 residents and supporters gathered at the children’s park at 28th and Cedar — and most of them took off for a “walk and roll” through that neighborhood of South Park with banners, signs and chants.

by Jim Newton / Cal-Matters / September 4, 2025

At least two things are true about SB 79, a bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener that would clear the way for construction of apartment buildings near transit stops in California, most pointedly including Los Angeles: It’s a bad idea, and Los Angeles has only itself to blame for it.

The fact that Wiener’s approach is both wrongheaded and entirely understandable has led to some strange reactions in California’s largest city, where unusual bedfellows have found themselves together either supporting or opposing it. A bare majority of a city council normally divided between liberals and democratic socialists came together to formally oppose the bill, the eight no votes drawing from both political camps. Supporters similarly crossed ideological lines.

Mayor Karen Bass also opposed Wiener’s bill, positing a brief statement. “While I support the intent to accelerate housing development statewide,” she said, “as written, this bill risks unintended consequences for LA.”

She was joined by her once and possibly future opponent, developer Rick Caruso, who echoed Bass’ ambivalence as well as her conclusion.

“The state is right to encourage more housing,” he said, “but it must be done with the full engagement and support of local officials and residents.”

By Richard Bailey

How much will the new paid parking at Balboa Park, the Zoo, and the increased meters rates actually generate for the City? More importantly, will it even make a dent in the city’s structural deficit?

San Diego just raised parking rates on two fronts: (1) higher rates and longer hours at existing meters including $10/hour “special event” pricing around Petco Park, and (2) the start of paid parking in Balboa Park, including the zoo lot under a pending lease amendment.

City budget documents and the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA) say the meter changes are expected to add $18.4 million in FY26 (about $9.6M from doubling the base rate, $6.3M from special-event pricing, and $2.6M from extended hours/Sundays). The mayor’s FY26 budget message also plugs about $11.0 million more from launching paid parking in Balboa Park.

Together, that’s $29.4 million in new revenue for FY26.

By Paul Krueger / Special to the OB Rag

The more we learn about the new parking fees at downtown meters and in and around Balboa Park, the angrier we get.

It’s bad enough that Mayor Todd Gloria is balancing the city budget on the backs of families and working people. But it’s worse that the Mayor deliberately distorts how those new revenues will be spent.

And his exploitation of the public’s love of Balboa Park is especially craven.

In a July 28th news release the Mayor misleadingly states that parking revenue “will go far toward much-needed upgrades to further beautify and preserve the park.” Those words created the false impression that revenue from new parking fees in and around the Park would fund deferred Park improvements over and above what’s already allocated in the general fund.

That’s patently false. But the Mayor’s purposely misleading comments were amplified by local reporters whose coverage of the Mayor is consistently uncritical.

by Geoffrey Hueter / Times of San Diego / Sept. 6, 2025

Despite recent revisions, Senate Bill 79 should not be approved without further meaningful changes.

SB 79 is a solution in search of a problem. Its goal is supposedly to enable transit-oriented development, but most California cities — especially those with significant transit investments — have already zoned for this.

In addition to adding housing capacity through general plan and community plan updates, regional transportation planning agencies and municipalities, including SANDAG and cities throughout the San Diego region, have maximized their transit investments by creating and funding specific plans for transit-oriented development — by increasing densities, eliminating parking, and streamlining permitting.

That these cities have housing plans that have been certified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development is proof that cities have already “made it legal to build housing near transit” as proponents of the bill are fond of saying.

SB 79 is too expansive to be transit-oriented. The bill’s one-half and one-quarter mile tiers should be defined by walking distance, not straight line (“as the crow flies”) distance,

One of the most important networks of San Diego residents to emerge over the last 6 months is holding its general public monthly meeting tomorrow, Saturday, September 6. It’s the San Diego Community Coalition – a network of over two dozen communities and their leaders and activists.

As they state on their facebook page:

A network of San Diego community activists and leaders from 25 neighborhoods riled up about over-development and its consequences plus the disrespect shown to residents by City Hall.

The Coalition is having its meeting in Clairemont, at the Northminister Presbyterian Church at 4324 Clairemont Mesa Blvd (92117) and it starts at 10am and runs to noon.

Cutting its teeth on pushing the City Council to enact reforms to the disastrous so-called Bonus ADU program, the Coalition works to share knowledge, give support to and help to coordinate all the myriad different neighborhood groups that have formed recently explicitly to push back on City Hall’s housing policies.

There is so much going on right now across the city’s neighborhoods, that one needs a program to keep track of everything.

For example, check all these out: