OB Rag

San Diego River Estuary

By Steve Rodriguez

Can one easily tap the brakes,
slow down our ever accelerating pace
of life?  Filter the jarring noise?
Water down reliance on tech?

I offer the possibility of wandering west
through Mission Valley density.
Proceed forward under cement pillars
supporting trolley tracks and the I-5 freeway,
but this time do not press ahead
to the boisterous summer beaches lying ahead.

By Steffi Roche / CBS8 / September 7, 2025

The San Diego City Council is set to vote Tuesday on a plan proposing to save Sunset Cliffs and the coastline from sea-level rise and ongoing erosion.

The Sunset Cliffs Boulevard Project site runs from Adair Street to Ladera Street at the south end of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and is part of the “Coastal Resilience Master Plan,” led by the City Planning Department.

The proposal is to remove parking on the cliff’s edge and reconfigure Sunset Cliffs Boulevard from a two-lane, north-south road to a single southbound lane.

The plan also includes creating a protected walkway for pedestrians and cyclists.

Activists in the greater Golden Hill area mobilized on Sunday, Sept. 7, to bring attention to the horrendous threats of huge development projects alive in their community. There’s at least six projects in the process of construction right now, sitting in the middle of quiet residential and small business neighborhoods, telegraphing their disruption of those areas.  [Richard Santini wrote a great piece about the threats to the soul of Golden Hill on behalf of Preserve Greater Golden Hill just recently here at the Rag.]

Roughly 50 residents and supporters gathered at the children’s park at 28th and Cedar — and most of them took off for a “walk and roll” through that neighborhood of South Park with banners, signs and chants.

By Adam Milch

It was a lively day on Point Loma Avenue for the 3rd annual Sunset Cliffs Auto Show on Saturday, September 6. 118 cars of all shapes and sizes lined the street between Ebers St and Sunset Cliffs Blvd, along with several food trucks and other booths set up in the parking lot of St. Peter’s Church.

Live music was provided by the blues swing band Juke$, a local San Diego group that played throughout the morning. At noon, there was a 3 point basketball contest, along with a bounce house provided by the San Diego Gulls.

Next there was a Roller Derby Demo provided by the SoCal Roller Derby, a competitive WFTDA roller derby league based in San Diego. Wade Buchan spoke about three different SoCal Derby teams in the area, the Kraken, the Cuttlefish, and the Tentakills. Their next free event is a double header starting at 10:45am on Saturday, September 27 at 4S Ranch Hockey Rink against the Ventura County Derby Darlins.

The San Diego Prowlers Hot Rod Club also joined in on the action, bringing in several vehicles from Lakeside to beat the heat amongst other Hot Rod enthusiasts.

by Jim Newton / Cal-Matters / September 4, 2025

At least two things are true about SB 79, a bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener that would clear the way for construction of apartment buildings near transit stops in California, most pointedly including Los Angeles: It’s a bad idea, and Los Angeles has only itself to blame for it.

The fact that Wiener’s approach is both wrongheaded and entirely understandable has led to some strange reactions in California’s largest city, where unusual bedfellows have found themselves together either supporting or opposing it. A bare majority of a city council normally divided between liberals and democratic socialists came together to formally oppose the bill, the eight no votes drawing from both political camps. Supporters similarly crossed ideological lines.

Mayor Karen Bass also opposed Wiener’s bill, positing a brief statement. “While I support the intent to accelerate housing development statewide,” she said, “as written, this bill risks unintended consequences for LA.”

She was joined by her once and possibly future opponent, developer Rick Caruso, who echoed Bass’ ambivalence as well as her conclusion.

“The state is right to encourage more housing,” he said, “but it must be done with the full engagement and support of local officials and residents.”

By Kate Callen 

Why do San Diego’s political leaders keep pushing transit-oriented development in a city with a hopelessly inadequate transit system?

That question was at the heart of my August 29 post about commuting by bus and trolley around San Diego. Our YIMBY government claims that more people will use transit if they live closer to it. Judging by the responses to my post, proximity won’t make a bit of difference.

Simply put, the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) does not get people where they need to go when they need to be there. The Blue, Orange and Green trolley lines are efficient, but they are linear routes with narrow reach. Most of the city must depend on a sprawl of 97 bus lines that are neither timely nor user-friendly.

For a full picture of the hardships of transit commuting, and using the excellent online MTS Trip Planner, let’s map out how the residents of two “Complete Communities” housing projects would take buses and trolleys to regional employment centers for jobs that start at 8:30 a.m.

In Point Loma, a four-story, 56-unit apartment building is planned at the busy intersection of Rosecrans and Talbot Streets. In Lomita, 37 ADU units are slated for construction at 819 Jacumba Street. Neither project will have on-site parking for residents. Both are in congested neighborhoods where street parking is already scarce.

We’ll start by commuting from Rosecrans and Talbot to Qualcomm in Sorrento Valley. You would leave at 7:00, walk to Rosecrans and Canon to catch the #28 bus to the Old Town Transit Center, take the Coaster to the Sorrento Valley station, then take the 472 Coaster connection bus to Qualcomm Building Q.

State Assembly: COMPLETE FORM HERE

State Senate: COMPLETE FORM HERE

WATCH HERE for Statewide rallies recap

To:  San Diego City Council Members and Mayor

From:  Coastal Caretakers /Lynne Miller

Item 331: Coastal Resilience Master Plan and Programmatic Environmental Impact Report.  (SEPT 9, 2025)

This Agenda has been on your calendar and cancelled several times.  Now it is the last item on the agenda.  People who live in the Ocean Beach, Sunset Cliffs, and Point Loma area have tried unsuccessfully to communicate with the ‘board’ and designers of this plan.  Requests to set up a new meeting to answer local concerns have been denied.  This behavior is consistent with unbridled building that is justified by the high-density affordable housing philosophy and new laws.

We are asking City Council Members and Staff, and the Mayor, to listen to and respond to the concerns of local neighborhoods and San Diego residents.  San Diego citizens have voiced their concerns about mandated changes through meetings, emails, letters, slideshow presentations, bound documents, appeals, and protests. Private organizations around the city are combining forces to challenge the city’s power structure, which has stripped local San Diegans of their rights. The ministerial law is clearly the government’s strategy to exclude people from making decisions about their immediate community.  Years of city planning have been systematically destroyed.  New laws provide developers with a permitting process that streamlines building and ensures a profit.

By Richard Bailey

How much will the new paid parking at Balboa Park, the Zoo, and the increased meters rates actually generate for the City? More importantly, will it even make a dent in the city’s structural deficit?

San Diego just raised parking rates on two fronts: (1) higher rates and longer hours at existing meters including $10/hour “special event” pricing around Petco Park, and (2) the start of paid parking in Balboa Park, including the zoo lot under a pending lease amendment.

City budget documents and the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA) say the meter changes are expected to add $18.4 million in FY26 (about $9.6M from doubling the base rate, $6.3M from special-event pricing, and $2.6M from extended hours/Sundays). The mayor’s FY26 budget message also plugs about $11.0 million more from launching paid parking in Balboa Park.

Together, that’s $29.4 million in new revenue for FY26.

By Paul Krueger / Special to the OB Rag

The more we learn about the new parking fees at downtown meters and in and around Balboa Park, the angrier we get.

It’s bad enough that Mayor Todd Gloria is balancing the city budget on the backs of families and working people. But it’s worse that the Mayor deliberately distorts how those new revenues will be spent.

And his exploitation of the public’s love of Balboa Park is especially craven.

In a July 28th news release the Mayor misleadingly states that parking revenue “will go far toward much-needed upgrades to further beautify and preserve the park.” Those words created the false impression that revenue from new parking fees in and around the Park would fund deferred Park improvements over and above what’s already allocated in the general fund.

That’s patently false. But the Mayor’s purposely misleading comments were amplified by local reporters whose coverage of the Mayor is consistently uncritical.

Coastal Resiliency Master Plan
SEPTEMBER 9TH AGENDA ITEM
SAN DIEGO CITY COUNCIL

Pop Quiz?  “What do you do if the City plans a big change in your neighborhood?”
Answer: Follow the instructions below

While we have been researching, learning, teaching, and agonizing over the changing landscape in our beach community, our city has been planning! Many of us attended the CRMP meetings, one in person, one virtual. Many times the Coastal Resiliency Master Plan, CRMP, has been served up as an item on the City Council agenda, only to be cancelled without explanation.  On Sept 9th the San Diego City Council lists it as the last item on a heavy agenda day.  Just try to talk to someone about the plan, and your concerns.  Good Luck.

I encourage you all to write and submit your concerns.  You could read the 91 page plan that was released recently. It is long and tedious, like all of the plans.  Are there 50 citywide plans?  I heard there are!  The committee that put together this plan has convinced organizations to support it, partially because it is a real issue that needs a good action plan. I am going to submit a letter to voice my concerns and I will try to attend the meeting.

by Geoffrey Hueter / Times of San Diego / Sept. 6, 2025

Despite recent revisions, Senate Bill 79 should not be approved without further meaningful changes.

SB 79 is a solution in search of a problem. Its goal is supposedly to enable transit-oriented development, but most California cities — especially those with significant transit investments — have already zoned for this.

In addition to adding housing capacity through general plan and community plan updates, regional transportation planning agencies and municipalities, including SANDAG and cities throughout the San Diego region, have maximized their transit investments by creating and funding specific plans for transit-oriented development — by increasing densities, eliminating parking, and streamlining permitting.

That these cities have housing plans that have been certified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development is proof that cities have already “made it legal to build housing near transit” as proponents of the bill are fond of saying.

SB 79 is too expansive to be transit-oriented. The bill’s one-half and one-quarter mile tiers should be defined by walking distance, not straight line (“as the crow flies”) distance,