OB Rag

By Frank Gormlie

It so happens that despite everything else, San Diego’s coastal 30-foot height limit has been thrust back into the the public’s consciousness and into the minds of Mayor Gloria and the nine city councilmembers who all sit in City Hall.

Just this October, California’s 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that the City of San Diego violated California’s Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, when it put Measure C — the initiative that aimed to eliminate the height limit in the Midway District — before voters on the 2022 ballot because the city did not sufficiently study the environmental impacts of taller buildings. The three-judge panel decision ruled in favor of plaintiff Save Our Access, and directed the trial court to issue a writ of mandate to invalidate the ordinance and restore the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District.

While some environmental activists were popping champagne bottles in celebration of the ruling, local developers, city council members and Mayor Gloria were wringing their hands because they immediately knew this court decision could have devastating implications for the massive redevelopment project called Midway Rising and its plans for 86-foot tall buildings in the Midway District. Ultimately, these folks did more than wring their hands — they made plans.

One month after the city lost this court appeal case, City Council members voted 6 to 2 in closed session to authorize a petition for review of the case to the Supreme Court of California. (Councilmembers Vivian Moreno and Raul Campillo were the ‘no’ votes, while Henry Foster was absent.) These city leaders want the state’s highest court to keep intact the ballot measure — which passed by only 51% — and allow the Midway Rising project to continue its redevelopment of the 1,324-acre Midway District.

It’s in this context then, that we must revisit the origins of the 30 foot height limit — and the 50 plus year fight to preserve it.

Afterall, the 30-foot height limit has been blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the lack of affordability at the coast, to the homeless situation. A lot of myths surround the measure and law, and some treat it as just a passing fancy of the seventies or as just another political initiative to be tossed aside by the changing winds.

They ignore — out of ignorance — that it was a citizen-driven measure and scores of volunteers — repeat, volunteers — gathered signatures for months and months, and in the end, collected 36,000 to place it on the 1972 ballot as Measure D. And it then passed overwhelmingly and decisively with 64% of the vote — it was a landslide. Nearly two-thirds of city voters voted “yes”. And it wasn’t just the coastal communities that voted for it – it was across the board – many neighborhoods went for it with the attitude, ‘they’re our beaches, too’. Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach voted for it by 80%.

The winning vote was immediately contested by the building industry.

By Seth Hall / Op-Ed SD Union-Tribune / November 20, 2025 

In his recent newsletter and across his social media accounts, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has been writing about how pleased he is that our city uses Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology, which is a network of 500 cameras blanketing San Diego roads, unblinkingly converting nearly 3 million vehicle images into trackable data every month. Gloria claims that hundreds of arrests have resulted from the technology’s use and millions of dollars worth of property have been recovered.

That’s not the whole story, though. As someone who works as part of the TRUST SD Coalition to understand the surveillance technology being used in San Diego, I know some other facts about Flock ALPR that should interest San Diegans.

For example, San Diegans might be interested in the June 2025 memo from San Diego Police Department admitting that San Diego’s Flock ALPR database had been left open to access by agencies outside of San Diego, resulting in thousands of searches of our vehicle records for reasons entirely outside our knowledge or control.

Friday, November 21: Land Use & Housing Committee, 9:00 a.m.

Special Meeting agenda (not yet posted) will include Clairemont Community Plan Update and College Area Community Plan Update

To learn more about Clairemont Plan Update, see this.

To learn more about College Area Plan Update, see this.

In-person: Council, 202 C St.; Commission, 7650 Mission Valley Rd.

To participate via Zoom and submit written comments, click on the meeting agenda and look for the links.

By Kate Callen

City Hall fiascoes in San Diego follow the same playbook. Elected officials rush into decisions that benefit people important to them. They seem bewildered when their choices detonate. Then they shrug and start planning their next political campaign.

Six Councilmembers – Joseph LaCava, Jen Campbell, Marni von Wilpert, Kent Lee, Henry Foster III, and Sean Elo-Rivera – adhered to the playbook November 18 by voting “Yes” for the detested Balboa Park parking fees. In essence, they chose to inflict pain on their weary constituents so they could protect the jobs of their cherished staff.

Two Councilmembers, Vivian Moreno and Stephen Whitburn, voted “No” to side with the public. And a third, Raul Campillo, voted “No” with a blistering takedown of how the city government has breached its fiduciary duty by refusing to curb its spending.

Campillo also echoed the concerns of two dozen public speakers: What if the new fees reduce park attendance, drive down park revenues, and generate less-then-projected funding?

After toying with higher fees, the Council settled on charging residents $100 and non-residents $300 for yearly permits. The original estimated revenue of $12.5 million this fiscal year would have helped shrink the $350-million budget deficit. The revised estimated revenue of $2.9 million to $4 million won’t make a dent.

On Tuesday this week, the Rag reported on yet another pedestrian death in the Midway District.

An unidentified male pedestrian was killed late Friday night, Nov. 14, when he ran across a street in the Midway District and was struck by a SUV. …The man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Yes, the unfortunate pedestrian had run across the street against his light just before he was struck. He dearly paid for his mistake.

When we reported on the story, I cynically added:

So many pedestrians have been injured or killed in the Midway District over the last few years, there ought to be a chapter in the Book of Dead just on the Midway.

After publishing this, I got to thinking, that ‘yes, it does seem like there’s been a rash of pedestrian deaths and injuries from cars in the Midway of late.’ So I set out to investigate and rifled through OB Rag files and postings. The tragic following is what I found:

From SOHO Newsletter / Nov.-Dec. 2025

The rallying cry “Yes in My Backyard” sounds positive on the surface. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a movement that claims to champion housing, inclusion, and opportunity? But behind the slogan lies a harder truth. In practice, many in the YIMBY movement, which is primarily run by corporate and political players, are speaking in code, really saying: “Yes in Your Backyard.” This, in fact, is the unspoken rallying cry of developer- and investor-funded interests that push density, demolitions, and deregulation into other people’s neighborhoods while protecting their own assets, investments, and privilege.

The modern YIMBY movement may or may not have begun with good intentions, but in cities like San Diego it has been co-opted by the for-profit housing industry and developer/investor-funded nonprofits. These groups have learned that “YIMBY” makes an excellent disguise, one that cloaks profit-driven lobbying in the language of social good.

Under this banner, policies are being hyped that remove community voices, weaken environmental and historic protections, and fast-track demolition over rehabilitation. The result? The loss of our most walkable, sustainable, and affordable neighborhoods, the very communities that embody the kind of living urbanists support.

By Savannah Smith / The Point – LomaBeat / Nov 17, 2025

Point Loma Nazarene University’s Surf Team anticipates a strong season after taking first place in their opener at Black’s Beach last month.

The annual season opener, hosted by the University of California, San Diego’s Surf Team, took place from Oct. 25-26 and marked an exciting start to the year for the team. They competed against 31 collegiate teams and scored a total of 211 points, 63 points higher than any other team.

Sydney Ott, a third-year marketing major and returning team member, said it felt great to start the season with a win, especially after the team’s ninth national championship title win in June.

“Everyone was surfing super well, so it was awesome seeing us win as a team,” Ott said.

Leading up to the opener, the team held group practices at Mission Beach to prepare and get into the competition mindset.

“For me personally, I made sure to surf consistently leading up to the event and made sure that I had my board dialed in,” Ott said.

This preparation proved to be valuable once the contest began, as competitors were met with difficult conditions throughout the weekend.

Hundreds of Feet of Copper Wire Are Missing, for Example

By Geoff Page

The OB Pier is being surreptitiously cannibalized. The city knows about it. The city is unconcerned. The utter stupidity of city hall continues to amaze.

Recently, long time OB resident, Charles Landon, noticed something odd about the pier and investigated. He took some pictures that showed piping along the north side of the pier was missing. Two different diameter pipes that run along the outside of the north rail were cut and much of the large pipe was missing.

Landon took the pictures that appear in this story.

The smaller diameter pipe had carried electrical cables that ran out to the restaurant and powered the lights on the pier. The cables ran from the roof of the small building under the pier. The cables were cut at the roof and also at a small junction box under the pier, above the boardwalk.

Since the pier is closed and since the city decided to no longer light the pier at night, it might be logical for the city to cut the power source. It did not seem logical, however, that the city would remove all of the old copper wire.

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / November 18, 2025

A sharply divided San Diego City Council voted 6-3 Tuesday to approve annual parking passes for Balboa Park that are intended to allow frequent park users to avoid daily and hourly parking fees coming in January.

The council’s approval of the permits, which will cost $100 a year for city residents and $300 a year for nonresidents, comes after city officials retreated last week from much higher prices proposed initially.

Council members who voted in favor called the lower rates a good compromise and stressed that Mayor Todd Gloria and his staff had made many concessions this year to the council and frequent park users.

Council members who voted against the permit fees — Stephen Whitburn, Raul Campillo and Vivian Moreno — criticized the entire idea of parking fees in Balboa Park.

Their comments echoed complaints from three dozen clubs and other organizations in the park focused on dance, gardening, beekeeping, model railroading, playing bridge and other activities.

During the city council hearing Tuesday afternoon, November 18, a discussion was held about charging residents and non-residents for parking at San Diego beaches and at Mission Bay Park. Former city council member Donna Frye observed the hearing and participated by phone. She filed this exclusive report for the Rag this morning, the 19th.

Non-Resident Paid Parking at Our Beaches and Mission Bay Park Does Not Move Forward as a Revenue Option- For Now

By Donna Frye

On November 18, the city council did not include the proposal for non-residents to pay a fee to park at our beaches and Mission Bay Park as a revenue option. Therefore, it was not part of the council resolution being sent to the mayor’s office for consideration in preparing the FY 2027 budget.

Oddly, there was almost no discussion at the council meeting about the paid parking proposal or the decision by the mayor to enact a revenue audit moratorium on the Mission Bay Park leases for nine months.

Councilmember Campillo was the only one who spoke at any length about the paid parking and made it very clear that he would not support charging residents or non-residents to park at Mission Bay Park or our beaches.

By John Ziebarth / Op-Ed SD Union-Tribune / November 18, 2025 

The progress of Midway Rising, the massive Sports Arena redevelopment project with a potential price tag of $3.9 billion, has been a history of bait-and-switch tactics.

[Please go to original here for any and all links.]

On July 15, 2022, the San Diego City Council cleared the way for Proposition C to allow voters to remove the 30-foot height limit in the Midway/Pacific Highway Community Plan. Members approved the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report analyzing the effects of a 65-foot-high development. A judge had required the additional analysis to address deficiencies in the original environmental documents. At the hearing, a council member stated that the 65-foot height limit in the zoning code/community plan would be the cap if Proposition C passed.

Two months later, on Sept. 13, at Mayor Todd Gloria’s behest, the council selected Midway Rising with a proposed 86-foot height limit (not 65 feet) for the mixed-use portion of the Sports Arena project. Prior to the Proposition C vote, Midway Rising was asked at the Point Loma Association if it would go above 86 feet if offered several million dollars for an ocean-view unit on the 20th floor. A representative responded that its proposal was for 86 feet in height.

by Kevin Sullivan / Times of San Diego / Nov. 3, 2025

San Diego City Council Resolution 280194 of June 1992 declared the city would not develop Montgomery-Gibbs airport for the full range of general aviation aircraft nor pursue a strategy leading to commercial or passenger services. The city’s Airports Advisory Committee is now proposing projects that may nullify this resolution.

The cleverly worded Airport Master Plan proposal to “remove the displaced threshold on runway 28R” will expand the airport so more, larger, heavier and noisier planes can operate from there. The proposal’s wording disguises the actual meaning which is to relocate the runway’s landing area 1,077 feet farther East.

This is what the council stopped in 1992 — building a longer runway. The neighborhoods of Navajo, Allied Gardens and Grantville are under the flight path.

Moving the landing area farther east may also mean passenger planes on approach are in closer proximity to the power lines that caused the tragic May 2025 crash in Murphy Canyon that killed six people.