Category: San Diego

By Francine Maxwell

San Diego’s push to add density through ADU incentives has landed hardest in Encanto — and the consequences are becoming concrete. A private developer-driven proposal to place 24 ADUs on the basketball court site in front of the Boys & Girls Club on Imperial Avenue (branded online as “Lisbon Vista Village”) is the latest example. That proposal arrives in a neighborhood already reporting serious infrastructure and parking stress, and without a public plan to add basic retail like a grocery store to serve new residents.

Facts on the table:

• Multiple news reports and community meetings show that Encanto has become a focal point for large bonus-ADU projects — scores of units proposed on a small number of parcels across the neighborhood.
• The City has been actively reconsidering the ADU Bonus Program and “Footnote 7” (the code provision that changed lot-size rules for southeastern neighborhoods), with council action and planning reports in 2025.
• Local residents have raised consistent concerns about traffic, parking capacity, stormwater/ infrastructure impacts, and loss of open recreational space — including the potential loss of the basketball court used by youth at the Boys & Girls Club.

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By Donna Frye / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / August 15, 2025 

Mission Bay Park is one of the most magical and wonderful places in our city. I remember in the late ‘50s asking my dad what the boats were doing in Mission Bay and he said they were dredging it to make parkland for all of us.

In 1962, when Mission Bay Park was dedicated as public parkland in perpetuity, I asked my mom what the word “perpetuity” meant and she told me it means “forever”.

So imagine my reaction after reading a story in the OB Rag last month that said the city wanted to declare parts of Mission Bay Park as “surplus” land. Let’s just say the words coming out of my mouth reminded me of a recent sticker that read, “Mermaid Soul, Pirate Mouth, Always Salty”.

I could not understand how or why anyone with any common sense would want to declare any portion of Mission Bay Park as “surplus” land so I started doing a bunch of research.

Plaintiffs of a lawsuit and residents of the City of San Diego will hold a rally downtown San Diego to continue to express their strong opposition to trash fee at 10 a.m., Monday, August 18 in front of 101 Ash Street.

This past week the plaintiffs dropped a quick trial request and instead asked for an injunction to delay San Diego billing plan. They will file their motion supporting the request on Thursday, August 22, and the city has until September 19 to respond. The lawyers representing San Diego homeowners will get 10 more days to respond to the city’s opposition filing.

On October 10, the judge will convene a hearing to review the various arguments before making a decision on whether to temporarily block the trash fee.

The matter involves a trash collection fee being imposed on residents, many who are elderly and without sufficient funds, billed by the County Tax Assessor such that they will be made to pay before the matter is heard unless the case is specially set for trial or hearing.

By Patty Ducey-Brooks / Presidio Sentinel /  July 9, 2025 

In US History, tenement housing referred to multi-family dwellings, often poorly constructed and overcrowded, that housed working-class families, particularly immigrants, in late 19th and early 20th century urban areas. These buildings were characterized by cramped living conditions, inadequate ventilation, and contributing to urban poverty.

Though the “affordable housing” structures that are being built today in San Diego may have a larger footprint, they do not provide adequate outdoor recreation facilities, parking and the infrastructure to make them desirable or beneficial to families and children. They are also not affordable, renting at $2,878 (including utilities) for a one-bedroom unit.

We have recently learned that there is a trio operating in San Diego who are driven to build big and tight and have taken advantage of the elderly who are one of their primary targets for home sales.

By Ben Folk, SDRPF Intern

What do a healthy atmosphere, endangered wildlife, and coastal infrastructure all have in common? You might drive by it without a second thought, but the San Diego River Estuary in Ocean Beach works around the clock to protect all these features and more!

Estuaries, where freshwater rivers mix with the ocean, are known to bring a plethora of benefits to nearby communities. They absorb excess floodwater, serve as habitats for animal life, and even filter out dangerous pollutants. As Coastal Blue Carbon reports, estuaries store away nearly 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the continental US alone!

Even compared to other estuaries, however, the preservation of San Diego’s wetlands is of the utmost importance. The biome acts as home for a whopping 137 documented species of birds – many of which, such as the California least tern and western snowy plover, are endangered or otherwise threatened. The San Diego River Estuary also represents a significant portion of our community’s only remaining wetlands.

A report by Rewilding Mission Bay found that only 1% of Mission Bay’s estuaries remain, and that the state of California has lost 91% of these crucial environments over the years. Despite its scarcity, the estuary is at a continuous risk of damage every single day. Trash and pollution endanger local wildlife, toxicate the water, and present a public health hazard. Likewise, off-trail hiking and dog-walking can trample plants and bird nests, causing additional harm to the precious ecosystem.

By Frank Gormlie
Roughly a week and half ago, on Monday, August 4, dozens of Pacific Beach residents crowded onto a patch of sidewalk in a northeast portion of their community, holding signs and banners — all condemning a huge, mega-ADU project called Chalcifica — that called for over 100 units packed into two neighboring residential lots.

The PB residents and their supporters were there as their lawyer proclaimed a lawsuit against Chalcific’s developer, a man named Christian Spicer, and his firm SDRE.

SDRE wants to build six three-story apartment buildings with only 70 parking spaces for 116 units.The protesters — and the sponsoring group called Neighbors for a Better Pacific Beach – have a multitude of concerns; that the mega-project will pack street parking, endanger the environment and sit on the site of a culturally significant Kumeyaay village.

The lawyer filing the suit, Josh Chatten-Brown, spoke to the crowd. “Make no mistake: These are not simple granny flats. They are large investor apartment complexes masquerading as accessory units designed to exploit the ADU laws for profit and to sidestep the public oversight that such a development demands.”

So, just why were dozens of neighbors and Kumeyaay tribal members at that protest Monday and just who is the complex’s developer, Christian Spicer?

First of all, the neighbors’ chief concern is that the complex is too large for a residential neighborhood’s infrastructure, plus they’re worried the mega-project will overwhelm the neighborhood’s streets and fire evacuation routes, leading to traffic, packed parking and increased risk in an area designated as a very high fire hazard zone.

SDRE plans to build parking spaces for only about half of Chalcifica’s proposed units, for under current city law, developers aren’t required to build extra parking for backyard projects if they’re located within a half-mile of public transit, which includes Chalcifica. The area is already plagued by bottlenecks, congestion and few entrances — all things Chalcifica will worsen when it adds over 100 more residents.

Tribal members were there that day at the protest because they believe Spicer will develop Chalcifica upon untouched, sacred tribal lands. Jesse Pinto, an elder with the Jamul Indian Village, called for the land to be preserved so Kumeyaay people can perform ceremonies and preserve any human remains there. “The city’s approval process is an insult to history and gravely offensive to Kumeyaay descendants,” said tribal law attorney Courtney Ann Coyle.

Secondly, Christian Spicer has made a name for himself recently in San Diego: “the King of ADUs”. Spicer and his investors are responsible for scores of large-scale projects that defy common understandings of what an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, is supposed to be. His development team has spearheaded two separate projects that each put more than 100 ADUs on a single site, plus they’re responsible for several others with more than 20 ADUs each.

COME INSIDE FOR VIDEO AND LINKS

By Cesar F Hernandez / Op-Ed – San Diego Union-Tribune / August 14, 2025 

When my family was separated by U.S immigration policy in the late 1990s, we were overtaken by unimaginable grief and unrelenting pain. This experience grounds me as the organizing director at the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, working alongside others to build collective strength in the face of injustice. Lately, this pain has surged back, rekindled by the Trump administration’s cruel attacks on immigrant communities.

Politicians are pushing to end birthright citizenship and gut asylum protections. Due process, the cornerstone of justice, is cast aside. ICE storms workplaces and homes. It arrests parents outside courthouses, hospitals, even schools. Then there’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” an ICE detention center built in the Florida Everglades to dehumanize. Even the name carries the weight of lurking danger, a constant reminder that immigrants are being hunted.

I saw the reality of these vicious, inhumane policies and practices play out as I watched an interview of two Oceanside teenagers. At 6 a.m. on June 18, masked, heavily armed ICE agents shattered their windows, threw flashbangs into their home and pushed their way inside. The U.S.-born siblings were handcuffed. Both parents were arrested.

The trauma on the siblings’ faces was unmistakable. The 14-year-old daughter’s tears could have been mine. I felt her pain. It’s a pain that steals your voice and breaks your body.

By Jeff McDonald / SD Union-Tribune / August 13, 2025

— A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 10 on a request from a group of San Diego homeowners for an injunction that would postpone the city’s implementation of the monthly trash fee for single-family homes.

Judge James A. Mangione approved the schedule Tuesday at a hearing held over from last week, when the plaintiffs initially asked for an expedited September trial. Instead, both parties agreed that the plaintiffs would pursue an injunction.

“We have worked out an arrangement with your honor’s permission,” said attorney Michael Aguirre, who co-represents the plaintiffs. “We came to a mutual agreement that we would file a week from this Friday for a preliminary injunction.”

The city argued last week that it could not properly prepare for a trial starting as soon as next month.

By Donna Frye

On August 11, I received notice from the city that records were available for public review for Mission Bay Park, specifically the documents related to declaring three properties surplus lands and the communications between the city and the state.

Here is the link to the City of San Diego’s Next Request for Request 25-5691. [ https://sandiego.nextrequest.com/requests/25-5691 ]

Many of the documents were not shared with the public at the Land Use and Housing Committee Special meeting on July 2, 2025, the City Council meeting on July 29 or the Mission Bay Park Committee meeting on August 5.

While some are duplicative of one another, they do provide a partial timeline and some answers as to how the decision was made to declare all three properties in Mission Bay Park “surplus land”. There are some time gaps in the emails.

I have reviewed the documents briefly but focused on the emails for now. I have not gone through all the attachments and the following are just my initial observations.

The documents show that the city made a request to the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD)  seeking an exemption to the Surplus Land Act (SLA ) on April 8, 2025, through HCD’s online portal.

By Abbie Black / CBS8 / August 11, 2025

Two deteriorating buildings at San Diego’s Liberty Station stand as stark reminders of delayed redevelopment plans, plagued by fires, vandalism and illegal encampments while city officials work to secure demolition contracts.

The abandoned structures, part of the former Naval Training Center that the city acquired in 2000, present a sharp contrast to the upscale retail, dining and cultural attractions that have transformed much of the 361-acre Liberty Station development into a premier destination.

One building, a former Marine barracks, drew public attention to its deteriorating condition. City records show multiple “Get It Done” reports about homeless encampments on the property.