Category: San Diego

By Neighbors for a Better San Diego / July 22, 2025.

The City Council gave its final approval (second reading) of the revised ADU regulations. While the amendments could have gone further, they do provide meaningful reductions in the scale of Bonus ADU projects, as well as recognize and clarify that ADU developments have other legal constraints, such as limits on building on steep hillsides and in fire hazard zones.

The vote was 5 to 1 in favor**, with three Councilmembers not present.

For more details on the changes, click here.

What’s next?: The ordinance next goes to Mayor Gloria. Given that the Mayor highlighted the adopted regulations in his June 23 newsletter, we expect that he will sign them without undue delay.

By Kate Callen / July 22, 2025

An extraordinary case of seller’s remorse surfaced last weekend when French Gourmet owner Michel Malecot posted an anguished statement about a boycott of his Pacific Beach businesses.

Malecot did not seem sorry that he sold his property to Los Angeles developer Kalonymous for $6.5 million. He claims he was taken by surprise when the buyer announced plans to build a 23-story tower on the site. But he offered no apology to the Pacific Beach community for the blight the project could cause.

The restaurateur expressed one regret. Loyal customers who are furious about the sale no longer walk through the doors of his French Gourmet Restaurant and his Froggy’s Bar next door. That is costing him a ton of money.

In a July 19 social media post, “A Letter from Michel to our French Gourmet Community,” Malecot said he had planned to close the restaurant early this year, but “due to the love for my profession and responsibility to my longtime faithful employees, I chose to keep the French Gourmet open for another year.”

It never occurred to him that his devoted French Gourmet Community wouldn’t be on board with that.

By Nils Gilman / Cal Matters / July 15, 2025

California has finally made real progress on one of its most stubborn problems: the housing crisis. After decades of paralysis, the state has begun to unwind the bureaucratic thicket that made it almost impossible to build new homes in cities. This should be a moment for cautious optimism.

Yet a new and very different problem looms — one that threatens to undermine these hard-won reforms before a single unit is built: a growing national effort to crack down on the very workers California needs to build its future.

This summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed through a pair of bills — Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131 — that amount to the most significant overhaul of California’s development rules in more than 50 years. In particular, the reforms are massively curtailing the California Environmental Quality Act, which for decades has allowed opponents to block urban housing with endless lawsuits and reviews.

Urban infill projects near transit are now largely exempt from CEQA litigation. Developers are, for the first time in a generation, preparing to build at scale.

But just as California removes the red tape, it may find itself caught in another bind: a lack of construction workers. And this time, the cause isn’t homegrown.

By Francine Maxwell

The San Diego Human Relations Commission is supposed to represent all of us. That’s what the municipal code says. That’s what the mission says. But that’s not what’s happening.

Under its current chair— nicknamed by some as the “unofficial mayor of Hillcrest”—the Commission is quickly becoming a personal political platform rather than a public service body. Week after week, meeting after meeting, the agenda points in one direction: advocacy that centers almost exclusively on Jewish and LGBTQIA+ issues. Important communities, no doubt— but they’re not the only ones in this city. Not by a long shot.

Where is the Commission’s voice when it comes to anti-Blackness, anti-immigrant rhetoric, Islamophobia, or the rise in violence against Asian Americans? Where is the engagement with working-class families, seniors, veterans, refugees? It’s hard to find, if it exists at all.

Hundreds of Pacific Beach and La Jolla residents turned out to protest the 22-storoy skyscraper known as the Turquoise Tower on Saturday, July 19. Critics say that developers are using loop holes to build the monstrosity in North PB. They were joined by allies from across San Diego. 30 members of the San Diego Community Coalition and aligned groups turned up in support of the protest.

Hosted by the local group Neighbors for a Better California, founded by Marcella Bothwell who is also on the PB Planning Group, the event began with a short march from Dunn-Edwards Paint parking lot on Mission Blvd east to the 970 Turquoise Street site.

Eric L. reported that there were, “Lots of support from passers-by on Turquoise and merchants along the street. The only ‘issue’ of note was the police — already present to handle a traffic accident — asked our throng to move out of the road so cars could safely pass.” Eric also commented, “I was told that there were counter-protesters — I never saw them — but that they turned out to be “also” protesters: they weren’t in favor of the tower either.

Erik B said he saw “5 yimbys observing from behind the wall by the street.”

Fox5 reported that the high-rise “has sparked fresh demands from residents to shut it down for good, and that the “developer, Kalonymus, faces growing pressure to address the community’s concerns about its plans.”

From Neighbors for a Better San Diego

Third Time’s the Charm?

After being delayed two times, the final approval of the ADU regulations is on the City Council’s consent agenda for Tuesday, July 22, at 10 a.m.

We’re confident the item will be approved, so we won’t be making any lengthy public comments.

Although there’s still room for improvement, these regulations will put meaningful constraints on the Bonus ADU program.

We ask that you take the time to submit a simple statement of support to the City Council.

By Martha Abraham

It’s hardly a coincidence that Council Member Henry Foster appeared jubilant immediately after the vote to approve the Klauber Project. His two close allies, Vivin Moreno and Sean Elo-Riviera, were the ones who proposed and seconded the motion to move the Klauber Project forward, Henry did not object. When it was Henry’s turn to speak, he didn’t plea to stop the project, nor did he call for a new motion.

Instead, he merely expressed a vague hope that, next time, the developer would engage more meaningfully with the community.

Henry Foster himself has been largely unengaged, attempting to govern District 4 as if he’s the ruler rather than a representative. His approach has been dismissive, consistently limiting access for his constituents and ignoring our voices. If Foster truly supported our community’s interests, his social media posts and public comments following Tuesday’s meeting would have echoed disappointment or frustration with the council’s decision. Instead, we’ve heard nothing. His silence speaks for itself.

by Ernie McCray

I came across a picture of me
rehearsing a scene
from August Wilson’s
“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”
with two other actors,
back in the late 80’s,
if I remember correctly.

We were portraying characters
in a boarding house
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
in the early 1900’s,
grappling with their pasts
and who they are,
reaching for love
and promising futures,
up against a world

By Dana Williams / 7SanDiego / July 16, 2025

For the past several months, there has been little movement on a 23-story tower proposed for Turquoise Street in Pacific Beach, but that doesn’t mean the project isn’t moving forward, according to the developer, Kalonymus.

Marcella Bothwell, the chair of the Pacific Beach Planning Group and Neighbors for a Better California, talked to NBC 7 about the tower.

“It’s very easy for a community to get all riled up and think, ‘We’re gonna fight this,’ and then the developer goes quiet and there’s nothing to do,” Bothwell said. “Then, because we don’t get notice on stuff because everything is ‘ministerial,’ all of a sudden, construction is going to start.”

In December 2024, NBC 7 reported that the project quickly gained the attention of community members, like Bothwell, with its intent to burst the nearby 30-foot Coastal Height Limit in the area. It also stoked curiosity among San Diego City Council representatives to understand the limits to their power when it came to the State Density Bonus Law.

“The initial reaction was a little bit of disbelief,” San Diego Council President Joe LaCava told NBC 7 in December. “I just found it so unbelievable that somebody would propose something like this [in Pacific Beach].”

By JW August

It took some doing, but a bill that would increase penalties for people who buy sex from a minor has cleared its last hurdle in Sacramento and is now awaiting the signature of Gov. Gavin Newsom. The new law would make it a felony for older adults to buy 16-17 year olds for sex. And it would make it a crime again to loiter with the intent to purchase anyone for sex.

Newsom supported the bill early as it began a long and torturous journey to Senate approval.The governor is joined by numerous advocacy groups who oppose selling humans for sex — they collectively pushed long and hard on Assembly Bill 379 through a field of political landmines.

Dr.Stephany Powell, a retired LAPD Sergeant who ran the vice unit for the department, shared a message with hundreds of activists who were part of the effort to support the bill.

“I have tears of joy as I write this, AB 379 just passed 33 to 2. Huge applause for the warriors who stayed in the fight.”

One such warrior is Marjorie Saylor, with the California Survivor Coalition. A San Diego resident, she is a survivor of trafficking and a leader in the anit-trafficking movement locally and across the state and is an advocate for survivors.

by: Brooke Miller, Barbara Machado of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP / National Law Review / July 1, 2025

On June 16, 2025, the San Diego City Council voted 5-4 to cap the number of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) that can be built on single-family lots. The decision reverses the City’s 2020 implementation of a program allowing developers to build a nearly unlimited number of ADUs—a robust incentive previously heralded as a solution to the City’s burgeoning housing affordability crisis. This program rollback reflects local jurisdiction’s struggles in addressing the lack of affordable housing supply and meeting Housing Element requirements while facing stark community opposition to high-density development.

Background
On October 30, 2020, the San Diego City Council unanimously approved amendments to the San Diego Municipal Code regarding ADU and Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit (JADU) development.[1] Several key provisions were included in the amendments, including allowing the construction of one bonus ADU for every deed-restricted affordable ADU, with no limit on the number of bonus ADUs in a transit priority area (within a half-mile radius of a transit station);[2] no minimum ADU/JADU lot size;[3] no ADU/JADU density limitations;[4] and no parking requirements for ADUs in a transit priority area.[5]