Category: San Diego

By Eric Law

I have written the following document that consolidates citable quotes countering the YIMBY discussion points with sourced reference material. I’ve assembled them into themes that can be used to emphasize specific points. (I have most of the reference materials soft copy as well.)

While most YIMBY shills can’t be persuaded to read and would likely melt down when confronted with a 50-page academic economic treatise, there is a slice of influential people who might be persuaded to consider a different policy track when confronted with actual data and analysis.

I hope that includes our legislators/ city council members. I continue to add to this information repository as I read and analyze more information.

By Donna Frye

I am still trying to make sense of the mayor’s proposal to declare three properties in Mission Bay Park “surplus land”.

I still think it is a terrible idea because it allows developers to propose building housing in our dedicated public parks.

Worse, I don’t even know if what we are being told is accurate information.

Why would the State of California convey tidelands trust property to the City of San Diego through a series of grants which restrict developing housing and then turn around and say, but if you want to use the property for the purposes agreed to in the trust, you must first declare your intention to offer up the property to housing developers for uses that are restricted by the trust?

It’s going to take some bigger brains than mine to explain that because I sure can’t do it. It’s not for the lack of trying, however. My former dining room table is now known as the document repository.

By Jeff McDonald / SD Union-Tribune / August 8, 2025

A Superior Court judge on Thursday, August 7, ordered attorneys for San Diego homeowners challenging the city’s recently imposed trash pickup fee to meet and confer with lawyers defending the city before he considers whether to expedite a trial.

Judge James A. Mangione issued the order after a 30-minute hearing at which the plaintiffs asked for their trial to begin in September, before the upcoming tax rolls are finalized. The parties will meet to discuss their differences and potential remedies over the next several days and present their positions to the judge at a hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

The plaintiffs argue that the trash fee adopted by the City Council in June violates the state constitution by exceeding the city’s costs of trash pickup and say officials plan to divert some of the new revenue to pay for other projects. They sued in May, weeks before the council voted 7-2 to impose the trash fee. Now they want a trial before the 2025-26 property tax rolls are finalized with the county treasurer-tax collector.

“The indirect evidence supports the reasonable inference that the city is doing this to plug financial holes,” said Michael Aguirre, the former elected San Diego city attorney who represents the 15 homeowner plaintiffs.

By Patty Ducey-Brooks

Elda Developments CEO, Ahmed Eldahmy, has made several recent statements to the press that community members “refuse to participate in the solution” for his proposed 14-story high-rise, located in the heart of a Middletown residential neighborhood. He has also characterized the opposition as “wealthy neighbors living up the hill” who “do not care about the housing crisis and instead appear only to care about protecting their net worth.” Furthermore, he recently paid for a KUSI informercial with Roy Roberts that aired on August 4th where he claims to be trying to work with residents.

The Stop Columbia High Rise effort is supported by over 1,000 residents, including renters, homeowners and local businesses. They are opposed to this high rise for the many harmful issues it creates, documented here  (www.StopColumbiaHighRise.org).  Eldahmy’s attempt to mischaracterize the opposition as wealthy landowners reveals the company’s disregard for the neighborhood and its tone-deafness to the growing resistance.

Editordude: On Thursday, August 7, local attorney Cory Briggs commented on the post “Mission Bay Park Committee Votes Against ‘Surplus Land’ Proposal” and we thought it was too important for a comment so here’s it is elevated to a full on ‘rant.’

By Cory Briggs

Yesterday [August 6] the mayor’s czar on this issue called me and tried to persuade me that both of them really want a hotel on the site but just can’t seem to figure out how to get around the Surplus Lands Act. This is gonna be their public-relations mantra — “we don’t want to build housing in Mission Bay Park (MBP) but the law forces us to give housing developers first dibs” — even though the mayor and city council are not following the Surplus Land Act (SLA) process for other city-owned property outside Mission Bay Park.

So it’s even more clear to me than it was before the call that the mayor is pushing to build high-end housing on the site. Yes, a minority fraction of it will have to be affordable” under the SLA, but the overwhelming majority will be high-end housing if the city goes down the SLA road.

At the meeting, Councilmember Joe La Cava tried to make it sound like the city could start down the SLA path but then take the city off the path after a 90-day period of trying to negotiate with a developer in good faith. He surely knew that was a lie when he said it because he has dealt with the SLA plenty during his pre-politician career.

The Rag is in the beginning of our annual summer fundraising campaign. And we have to express that keeping the Rag alive does take donations from our readers and supporters, for afterall, a free press is not “free.”

We do have expenses — our annual server bill is $900 alone; plus subscriptions, utilities — and we actually pay many of our writers and reporters for reporting on community meetings and on issues that no one else covers.

Here are 17 Reasons to Support the OB Rag:

1. Our Progressive Politics: we stand for the Constitution, liberty and democracy and for a woman’s right to choose. We are diametrically opposed to Trump’s banana republic and against his authoritarianism — which include plans for the end the Rule of Law. We’re for racial and gender equality.
2. We Oppose the Direction that San Diego Has Been Going: the current city leadership has been taking us down the wrong road in its imposition of un-democratically-forced rules that threaten our neighborhoods, like the Bonus ADU program and Complete Communities.
3. We have been at the forefront of forcing reforms to the ADU policies along with neighborhood groups and networks like the San Diego Community Coalition and Neighbors for a Better San Diego.
4. We stand for more affordable housing, renters’ rights and an end to the corporate ownership of our housing stock. We also find it unacceptable that large campaign donors can reap the award of public land and development projects.
5. We also focus on maintaining parks and the public common — such as Mission Bay Park. We broke the story of how the Mayor wants to break off sections of Mission Bay and make them “surplus lands” in order to lease them to commercial and private interests in order to bring a cash-strapped city with a few bucks.

by Madeline Nguyen / Times of San Diego / Aug. 5, 2025

Pacific Beach residents have sued a controversial San Diego developer to stop one of the biggest backyard apartment complexes the city has ever seen: over 100 units packed into two neighboring lots.

Dozens of neighbors and tribal members rang in the lawsuit with a protest Monday against the complex’s developer, Christian Spicer of the firm SDRE, outside the PB properties where he plans to build his Chalcifica project.

Wielding signs reading, “No predatory development,” the protesters shared concerns that echoed many outlined in the lawsuit: that the mega-project will pack street parking, endanger the environment and sit on the site of a culturally significant Kumeyaay village.

SDRE plans to put six three-story apartment buildings and 70 parking spaces across the two lots. The project is slated for an east Pacific Beach neighborhood dominated by military housing and single-family homes.

The brewing legal battle represents the latest twist in the broader fight over what officials call unexpected, “outlier” accessory dwelling unit projects.

by Ernie McCray

That shit ICE pulled in my old neighborhood
still sits with me,
all that rushing into town,
spraying gasses
and snatching people around,
ridiculously and literally laying siege on
a community,
fueled by a sick man’s
hatefulness and insanity.

And I can’t help but take it personally
because I spent 30 of the most wonderful years of my life
on the very block
this incredibly wicked abuse
took place –
a neighborhood as good as any to be found
any place.

By Geoff  Page

After listening to the city’s presentation and unanimous, one-sided public comment, the Mission Bay Park Committee voted a resounding no on the city’s surplus lands proposal. The city’s plan, as detailed here in The Rag, involves declaring three land parcels in Mission Bay as surplus lands. Like the city did with 46 acres in the Midway area.

From the city’s website:

The Mission Bay Park Committee advises the Park and Recreation Board on the development, utilization, and policies regarding Mission Bay Park.

The committee meeting was held at the Paradise Point Resort on Ingraham Street in Mission Bay, August 5, starting at 6:00 p.m.

The Surplus Lands agenda item:

202. Recommendation to City Council to Declare City-Owned Real Property within Mission Bay Park as Surplus Land

The objective of the city’s presentation was to obtain the parks committee support for two things. The city first wanted the committee’s support for the surplus lands proposal.

It’s that time of year again — the OB Rag’s annual summer fundraising campaign during the first weeks of August.

We only do this once a year, so help us reach our goal of $3,000 over the next two weeks. We do have bills — just our annual server bill is $900. We do pay some of our reporters and writers a small amount, usually $35 to $50 an article, plus we have subscription bills and utilities to pay.

Over this last 2 years, the Rag has become the online platform for dissatisfied residents of many neighborhoods besides Ocean Beach and Point Loma – disgruntled and frustrated fellow citizens upset with the leadership of the city, the mayor’s Bonus ADU program, the so-called Complete Communities plan  – that people from University City, Encanto, Middletown, Hillcrest, Talmadge, Pacific Beach, Linda Vista, Clairemont — the list keeps growing – are increasingly using the Rag to sound off.

For some reason, locals are having trouble gaining traction about their travails from the mainstream or other online media and press. So, increasingly, they look to the Rag for support.

As the Rag is a platform of and for citizen journalists, we are often there for them.

So, help us keep it going.

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By Donna Frye

Below are  my comments to the Mission Bay Park Committee for the August 5 Meeting.

RE:  Oppose Item 202, Recommendation to City Council to Declare City-Owned Real Property within Mission Bay Park as Surplus Land

Dear Chair Johnson and Honorable Committee Members,

I am writing to ask this committee to oppose the mayor’s recommendation to declare City-Owned Real Property within Mission Bay Park as Surplus Land.

Last month, when I first learned that the mayor was asking the city council to declare three properties in Mission Bay Park “surplus land” I could not believe what I was reading. After lots of research, it became clear that a “surplus land” declaration would allow developers to submit proposals to the city to build affordable housing in Mission Bay Park.

How could state-granted Tidelands on dedicated public parkland (that was codified by the voters as parkland in perpetuity by San Diego City Charter Section 55 ) be declared “surplus” and made available for developers to submit proposals to build affordable housing?

It made no sense to me then and it still doesn’t.

August 4, 2025

PRESS ADVISORY

City Council Attempts To Give Away Mission Bay Park Land  – Committee Meeting Tuesday, 6 pm., at Paradise Point.

The Mission Bay Park Committee (MBPC) will meet at 6:00 p.m., on Tuesday, August 5, 2025. The meeting will be at Paradise Point (Mission Bay Room)
It is reported that multiple City Councilmembers will be appearing in an effort to explain why the City is trying to sell parklands (potentially for upscale condominiums). The meeting will be held in Paradise Point’s Mission Bay Room.

Without input from the MBPC or San Diego Park Board, the Council attempted to move forward to declare three separate parcels in Mission Bay Park as “surplus land,” under State law, in order to put them out to bid. Under State law, once land becomes surplus, priority has to be given to low income housing projects. Most likely, any “low income” project would simply put expensive condominiums in Mission Bay Park, with the developer building low income housing elsewhere as a credit to get the long-
term lease.

This would be first time that the City of San Diego has sold off park land for residential development.