OB Rag

Ocean Beach Now Has Up to 519 Whole-Home Vacation Rentals

By Kevin Hastings

The new short term vacation rental (STVR) proposal from the mayor’s office addresses whole-home vacation rentals. It would allow 1 full-time STVR per “person”, in addition to part-time STVR use of their primary residence.

The may sound restrictive at first glance, but the devil is in the details.

By Colleen Cochran

This past Father’s Day, many San Diegans celebrated their dads amidst the green, rolling hills of Mission Trails Regional Park. One group, holding colorful signs, gathered for more than celebration; they were there to protect this 7,000-acre wilderness area.

SDG&E and SoCalGas would like to install a new gas pipeline to run approximately 47 miles through San Diego County. These utility companies are considering several potential routes for this pipeline, one of which cuts through the park.

There are 3 projects up for review this Wednesday by Ocean Beach planners – and all three are proposed “granny flats” (you can bet ‘Granny’ will never live there) – 4629 Coronado, 4828 Long Branch, and 4741 Brighton.

It’s a meeting of the Project Review Committee, a subcommittee of the full board, which gives recommendations to the board on proposed projects. They meet at 6pm at the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue.

On June 20 then, the planners will review the following:

From Save San Diego Neighborhoods

On Thursday, June 14, without fanfare, Mayor Faulconer rolled out his proposal to change San Diego’s Municipal Code – residential zoning ordinances – to legalize the use of residential dwellings as Airbnb mini-hotels – short term vacation rentals.

There are over 10,000 homes in San Diego that have been turned into Airbnb mini-hotels for tourists. Faulconer wants to take even more San Diego houses and use them for tourist lodging.

What’s Behind That Green Curtain at the OB Fire Station?

Have you driven by OB’s Fire Station on Voltaire Street only to become curious of just what’s behind those green curtain fences? This reporter dropped by on Friday, June 15 to find out. Without the proper procedure being completed which can take days and maybe weeks, reporters cannot visit inside, and as this was just a peak over the fence, I bypassed that.

Is that a food truck? No, it’s a …..

Ocean Beach Plaza Begins Its Domination

Work has been progressing on this major construction project,

In the summer of 1967, the great Brazilian writer, Clarice Lispector, began a seven-year stint as a writer for Jornal de Brasil (The Brazilian News) not as a reporter but as a writer of “chronicles,” a genre peculiar to Brazil. As Giovanni Pontiero puts it in the preface to Selected Chrônicas, a chronicle, “allows poets and writers to address a wider readership on a vast range of topics and themes. The general tone is one of greater freedom and intimacy than one finds incomparable articles or columns in the European or U.S. Press.”

What Lispector left us with is an eccentric collection of “aphorisms, diary entries, reminiscences, travel notes, interviews, serialized stories, essays, loosely defined as chronicles.” As a novelist, Pontiero tells us, Lispector was anxious about her relationship with the genre, apprehensive of writing too much and too often, of, as she put it, “contaminating the word.” It was a genre alien to her introspective nature and one that challenged her to adapt.

More than forty years later, in Southern California—in San Diego no less—

Last night, Thursday, June 14, about 80 Point Lomans crowded into the meeting room at the local library and gave representatives from the San Diego Housing Commission a piece of their collective mind about the proposed 78 units on the table to be built.

It was a special meeting of the Peninsula Community Planning Board on the open space land at Famosa and Voltaire – and although the Board failed to manage a quorum – they really didn’t need one as it wasn’t a voting meeting for them. What it the meeting represented was another chance for the Housing Commission to explain their project and get feedback.

Apparently, the discussion became testy – as different sides were being heard

A San Diego Father’s Day weekend tradition

From website:

A San Diego Father’s Day weekend tradition, the San Diego Wooden Boat festival – held at Shelter Island – is the premier annual event for Southern California wooden boat enthusiasts and provides a rare opportunity for the general public to view some of the most beautiful and well maintained wooden crafts up close.

While this event features mostly well preserved vintage vessels there are also plenty of new crafts that have been hand crafted with skill and meticulous detail.

A young man had to be airlifted off the rocks at the bottom of Sunset Cliffs as he was so badly injured – on Thursday morning, June 14. The as-yet-to-be identified man was reportedly bleeding from his head from a 30 foot fall.

A woman collecting shells saw him around 6:15 a.m. and called 911. She told the press the man was breathing and moved a little when sirens were heard arriving.

Lifeguards, police and firefighters responded and he was eventually airlifted off the rocks near the foot of Hill Street in Point Loma

The OB Rag received the following message today from Marina, the OB Mermaid:

To the humans of Ocean Beach and all of San Diego

I want to thank you for the warm and wonderful reception you gave me upon my arrival. I came to OB upon the tides of the full moon in hopes of catching a glimpse of those who might still believe in the ancient legends.

A Point Loma man, Peter Bentz, went missing just before Thanksgiving last year. His family went to the police and reported that he didn’t show up for a planned family outing out of town, and it was unlike him to not contact friends and family members. Bentz, 68, was last seen at Dog Beach in Ocean Beach on November 19. Missing posters went up.

Somewhere along the line – and for as yet undisclosed reasons – developments in the case caused police investigators to believe they had a murder case on their hands and it was turned over to homicide detectives.

This reporter’s cousin, Mindy Elliot, reports on facebook that the OB Mermaid has been blown off “Bird Shit Rock”.