OB Rag

New controversial law mandates dense housing near transit, overriding local zoning to address California’s housing crisis

By Steve Puterski / Substack / October 11, 2025

In a sweeping move to reshape housing near transit, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 79 on Friday, October 10, triggering major zoning changes and fierce backlash from cities across the state.

The bill, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), expands Transit-Oriented Districts (TODs) to every transit station and bus stop. The bill requires cities and counties to upzone land with significant density requirements, such as a minimum of five to six stories (55 to 65 feet), a minimum density of 80 to 120 units per acre (depending on the tier), prevailing wages, strict labor requirements and more.

Bianchi Pizza and Pasta
Bahia Hotel
998 West Mission Bay Drive
San Diego, CA 92109

By LK Bruce

As is often the case, there is good news and bad news. So it was when a foursome headed over to the Bahia Hotel to try out its relatively new restaurant, Bianchi Pizza and Pasta. (Not on the Peninsula but close enough for those who hate to leave “the Shire.”)

Located at the roadside/ front of the hotel, unlike the Bahia’s other restaurant, Dockside 1953 which is on the water, Bianchi is equal parts inside and outside with an enormous fireplace outside and enormous Neapolitan pizza oven inside. The vibe is casual,  comfortable and pretty. Given the Bahia owners’ passion for cars, the inside walls are adorned with posters of Bianchi autos and bicycles.

The menu doesn’t overwhelm. Offering six appetizers, four salads, six pasta dishes and nine pastas, you don’t need a half-hour to decide what to order.

A very cool special is the Italian Date Night on Wednesdays where you and your paramour can share a Caesar salad, 750ml of house wine – Line 39 Pinot Grigio or Cabernet Sauvignon – and one pizza for $44. That is a deal our friends were only too happy to seize.

In the fall of 1964, over 60 years ago, the young students on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley found themselves in an untenable situation. Campus activists had set up information tables in Sproul Plaza on campus and had solicited donations for causes connected to the Civil Rights Movement. Some of them had traveled with the Freedom Riders and had worked to register African American voters in Mississippi that previous summer.  At the time, however, existing rules for fundraising for political parties was limited exclusively to the Democratic and Republican school clubs.

In mid-September, a school dean announced that existing University regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes or candidates, outside political speakers, recruitment and fundraising by student organizations would be “strictly enforced.” Two weeks later, a graduate student sitting at one of the civil rights tables refused to show his identification to campus police and was immediately arrested and placed inside a campus police car on Sproul.

Suddenly and spontaneously hundreds of students who witnessed the arrest, surrounded the police car, sat down and refused to budge. While the graduate student sat in the backseat, student activist leaders mounted the car and began to give speeches on free speech and against political restrictions. Students remained around the car for 32 hours and at one point, there were an estimated 3,000 students blocking its movement. People used the car as a speaker’s podium and held a continuous public discussion on rights, free speech and student liberties. This continued until charges against the graduate student were dropped.

It was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s and was the birth of the Free Speech Movement.

Gloria, Elo-Rivera, La Cava Expected to be Subpoenaed

By Rag Staff

A Superior Court judge ruled Friday, October 10, that plaintiffs challenging the City of San Diego’s bait-and-switch trash fees can make their case in an expedited trial.

Under the decision handed down by Superior Court Judge James Mangione, the City can proceed with collecting the fees. But the three elected officials most responsible for the new fee collection – San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, and Council President Joe La Cava – are likely to be subpoenaed to explain under oath how they devised the program.

“We are going to have our day in court,” said plaintiff’s attorney Mike Aguirre.

“We’re ready to go to trial and ready to prove our case that the City is attempting to collect an unconstitutional fee by illegal means. And they are doing this to cover a hole in the budget because they didn’t get passage of the 1-cent sale tax increase ballot measure.”

By Geoff Page

On August 29, 2024, the people of OB came away with a rare victory, winning an appeal before the Planning Commission. The appeal involved a proposed, ridiculously dense, project on the southwest corner of Ebers Street and Point Loma Ave.

Because there appeared to be a legal conflict between the Complete Communities plan and the Municipal Code, the commissioners approved the appeal. However, here is what Vice Chair Matthew Boomhower, who was chairing the meeting, had to say in his closing remarks:

(to city staff) I hope you take this as an opportunity to change the Municipal code. I think it is a great project. Normally, I and the rest of this commission would have wholeheartedly supported it and denied the appeal.

There is clearly a world of difference between the people sitting on that commission and the rest of us.

Now, it appears that effort to “fix” this problem for the city is upon us. Here is the proposed change to the Land Development Code that would “fix” this for the city.

By Steven Mihailovich / Pt Loma- OB Monthly (SDU-T) / October 10, 2025 

The Ocean Beach Planning Board took the first of 17 steps required to install artwork on OB’s sole roundabout at the intersection of Bacon Street and West Point Loma Boulevard.

The board unanimously approved a letter Oct. 7 seeking the city of San Diego’s permission to beautify the roundabout, which in October 2022 was given a notorious Onion award from the San Diego Architectural Foundation as one of the region’s worst projects.

Awards judges said at the time that the roundabout “actually deters pedestrians from walking through here. … Roundabouts are supposed to improve flows of cars and people and bicyclists, and this particular roundabout just confuses everyone.”

“I guess they couldn’t bother to put anything in as far as landscaping and beautification,” said Tyler Martin, chairman of OBPB’s Transportation Committee. “It’s just pavement, and that’s exactly why we’re doing it.”

As the sponsoring organization, OBPB’s letter will be sent to the mayor’s office, City Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell, whose District 2 includes Ocean Beach, and the city Development Services Department for approval of the site in the formal placemaking permit process.

It Will Never Work

By Michael Barnes / 48 Hills (San Francisco) / September 22, 2025
 
State Sen. Scott Wiener’s latest upzoning bill, Senate Bill 79, is bizarrely incompetent. The bill upzones huge areas around BART, Muni and other rail transit stops in a way that is impractical. In the coming decades, there will not be enough population growth to come close to filling these new transit-oriented development zones.

The bill is a good example of how we face the confluence of powerful landowners, sympathetic pro-growth newspapers publishers, and sycophantic legislators. SB 79 is billed as a measure to help keep public transit solvent, but in reality, it’s a land grab.

The bill only applies to seven counties in California, the four Bay Area counties of San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara, plus Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento. Three Bay Area counties, Contra Costa, Sonoma and Marin, were carved out of the bill by an added requirement that a county contain more than 15 rail transit stops. Orange County will most likely be included once it finishes its streetcar plan. These eight counties contain 59 percent of the state population.

By Andrew Bowen / KPBS / October 8, 2025

San Diego is preparing to update its rules on historic preservation, aiming to balance it with the need to build more housing.

Staffers with the City Planning Department held a virtual workshop Wednesday detailing the proposed reforms, which are part of Mayor Todd Gloria’s “Preservation and Progress” initiative.

Critics of the city’s preservation rules have argued they are easily weaponized by wealthy neighborhoods to block affordable and lower-cost housing. Supporters argue they are necessary to preserve architectural gems that might otherwise be lost to the pressures of redevelopment.

Some proposed changes were relatively noncontroversial, such as allowing more flexibility in which types of experts can be appointed to the Historical Resources Board (HRB). The city often struggles to fill vacancies on the all-volunteer board, which has the authority to designate properties and neighborhoods as historic resources.

A more controversial change would give the City Council more authority to overturn decisions made by the HRB. Currently, the council can only consider appeals on narrow grounds, such as factual errors or a violation of the HRB’s bylaws.

Low and Moderate-Income Housing Lags

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / October 10, 2025

A new report shows that the city OK’d 8,782 new homes for construction last year, well above its annual average of 5,100 new home approvals between 2014
and 2022.

The total fell short of the 9,693 homes approved in 2023, which was the highest total in a single year since at least 2005. Officials say they don’t believe the city
has approved that many in any single other year since the 1980s.

Despite the two-year surge, San Diego remains far below pace to approve a state-mandated 108,036 new units between 2021 and 2029.

The new numbers bring the city’s four-year total to 34,240, which is 73,796 short of the 2029 goal. That means the city would have to approve an average of
14,760 new homes every year over the next five years to meet it.

“It’s positive, but also a good reminder that there’s a ton of work still to do,” Councilmember Kent Lee said of the new report, which was presented Thursday
to the council’s Land Use and Housing Committee.

Councilmember Vivian Moreno was more discouraged.

“This report is sobering,” said Moreno, adding that the numbers would have been far worse without the city’s aggressive incentives. “More people are finding it difficult to find a home to live in that meets their needs.”

by Dave Schwab / Times of San Diego / Oct. 8, 2025

Many residents strongly oppose the city’s plan to eliminate community parking districts like the one in Pacific Beach.

The City Council was recently set to act on a proposal to abolish community parking districts. However, Council President Joe LaCava announced a delay to give staff a chance to gather more information.

The city proposed eliminating the parking districts, taking the 2026 budget year allocation of $1.8 million back, and, in future years, keeping all the revenue collected in the districts.

Under the current policy, the proceeds are split between the city and the parking districts.

By Danna Givot

The College Area community showed up in force on October 9 to support the 7 Visions Plan the community has worked on since 2016. But, despite the factual arguments raised by all presenters, six Planning Commissioners voted unanimously to support the City’s 2 nd Draft College Area Community Plan Update without recommending any amendments. Arguments regarding excessive density, lack of supportive infrastructure, fire safety concerns, inequity, and violation of affirmatively further fair housing goals fell on deaf ears.

People came from across San Diego (including from Encanto, Jamacha, Linda Vista, Clairemont, Kensington, Talmadge, Uptown, Pacific Beach, North Park, and
Scripps Ranch) to support the College Area and cede time to speakers opposing the City’s proposed 2nd Draft College Area Community Plan Update. Nate Wilson, an
SDSU student, even called in to oppose the City’s proposed plan.

Backing up the presentations opposing the City’s massive upzoning of the College Area were official letters from the College Area Community Planning Board, the College Area Community Council, the San Diego Community Planners Committee and the San Diego Parks and Recreation Board. The primary concerns raised by
all included the excessive upzoning versus other recent community plans that is unaccompanied by realistic commitments for supportive infrastructure, especially parks and fire protection.

The College Area is essentially a “park desert” with only one existing public 1.6 acre park that is only partially usable (part is a drainage swale). It has no playground or dog park. There is no recreation center in this community. The only public building is the library, which has only 28 dedicated parking spaces when it should have 80. (This was the only point the Commissioners were sympathetic to.)

By Austin Grabish / 10News / Oct 06, 2025

Some business owners are speaking out to warn others after being threatened with lawsuits over the type of receipt paper their stores use.

“We feel strong about taking a stand,” said Adam Zack, owner of Jensen’s grocery store in Point Loma, who was served with a Prop 65 violation notice in May.

The notice, signed by attorney Noam Glick of Entorno Law, is on behalf of Environmental Health Advocates, which alleges a Jensen’s receipt had BPS, a chemical California has linked to cancer and listed as a reproductive toxin.

BPS is almost like an invisible ink that’s used to make words appear on thermal receipt paper.

Thermal receipt paper can contain a chemical called BPS that is linked to reproductive harm and cancer.