OB Rag

By Neighbors for a Better San Diego / June 18, 2025

The City Council has amended the ADU regulations. Here’s what that means.

While the changes didn’t address all resident concerns, the Council’s action represents the first meaningful revision of the Bonus ADU program since the program went into effect in 2021.

Given the interest in potentially pushing San Diego’s regulations statewide, Monday’s outcome will hopefully send a message to the City Council and the California Legislature to stop using the “housing crisis” as cover for deregulatory policies that benefit developers at the expense of San Diego’s families.

The changes to the ADU regulations are summarized below. The Council will need to do a second reading in two weeks before the regulations are officially adopted.

By David Garrick / SD Union-Tribune / June 18, 2025

San Diego’s most turbulent budget season in at least a decade took another turn Tuesday when Mayor Todd Gloria vetoed some last-minute cuts and expenditures the City Council added to the budget a week ago.

Employing a controversial and rarely used tool known as a line-item veto, Gloria rejected millions in council cuts — including $1.4 million in middle-management layoffs — and canceled nearly $5 million in new council spending.

The nine-member council now has until June 26 to accept or possibly override Gloria’s package of vetoes, with an override requiring a supermajority of six council members

By Pamela Begeal / June 17, 2025

Final 5-4 Decision
Yes Votes: Joe LaCava, Jennifer Campbell, Henry L Foster III, Marni von Wilpert
Raul Campillo
No Votes: Stephen Whitburn, Kent Lee, Vivian Moreno, Sean Elo-Rivera

Number of ADUs permissible by lot size:
Lots under 8,000 sq. ft. – 4 ADUs
Lots 8,001 to 10,000 sq. ft. – 5 ADUs
Lots 10,001 sq. ft. or larger – 6 ADUs

Maximum size: ADUs are limited to 1,200 sq. ft. or less

By Kate Callen / June 16, 2025

Good afternoon.

As you know, community leaders in every district are fighting the City’s efforts to cram more housing into our neighborhoods – housing that is excessive in scale and expensive in price.

We’ve gotten to know one another at meetings like this, and we’ve talked about joining forces. Massive public outrage over monstrous Bonus ADUs has finally united us as
members of the new San Diego Community Coalition.

It is sad but true that local politicians only seem to care about three groups: the Chamber of Commerce, the building industry, and certain labor unions.

Going forward, the Community Coalition will expect your equal time and attention. This citywide alliance is three months old. It includes 26 communities, and it is growing.
Neighbors for a Better San Diego helped launch us. Save Our Heritage Organization has joined us.

Our geographic reach extends from Encanto in the south to University City in the north, from El Cerrito in the east to Ocean Beach in the west.

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / June 16, 2025

San Diego capped the number of backyard apartments that can be built on single-family lots Monday, a long-awaited effort to prevent developers from building dozens of backyard apartments on relatively small lots.

The cap, which the City Council approved 5-4 after a long and contentious public hearing, attempts to close a loophole in the city’s backyard apartment incentive — the most aggressive of its kind in California.

The council also approved a series of additional rollbacks to its policies governing backyard apartments, which are formally called accessory dwelling units, or ADUs.

Those rollbacks include forcing developers to pay infrastructure fees, mandating parking spots for ADUs that aren’t near transit and requiring ADUs to be farther away from property lines.

Other changes include limiting ADUs to two stories, prohibiting them on cul-de-sacs in areas with high wildfire risk, setting a maximum size of 1,200 square feet and allowing the homes to be sold, not just rented.

The vote came in the face of warnings from state officials that rolling back the program could threaten San Diego’s official status as a pro-housing city, and possibly put the city out of compliance with state law.

City officials made adjustments Monday in response to the state warnings. But they also expressed confidence that the city’s status as a pro-housing city is well-established and won’t be jeopardized by changes in ADU policy.

Council members said a cap on the number of units and the other policy changes are crucial to prevent more situations where more than a dozen ADUs get built on single-family lots.

By Colleen O’Connor

Every day this past week, there were wild, unbelievable, sometimes fascinating and often horrific news stories. Wars. Assassinations. Random violence. Politically motivated murders.

Yet, San Diego was different. It exuded a life of meaning, purpose, and even goodness.

The week started with the 110-year-old Festa celebration in the Portuguese community of Point Loma.

By Lisa Mortensen / June 16, 2025

San Diego Council President Joe LaCava does a valiant job of maintaining order at very heated meetings, like the one that will take place today when the Council votes on Bonus ADU program amendments.

But LaCava only does half the job. While he insists that members of the public respect the proceedings, he does not require the same respect from his Council colleagues.

At the June 9th meeting on the Solid Waste Disposal program, LaCava displayed a keen sense of understanding of the public’s passion for this issue. And the audience complied with his requests for order and moderation.

He needs to impose those same standards on the eight people sitting next to him. He should issue warnings to Councilmembers who display anger or disappear for long stretches.

San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board / June 14, 2025

This week, San Diego’s elected leaders completed a three-year con job targeting the bank accounts of a huge chunk of their constituents. On a 6-3 vote, the City Council approved Mayor Todd Gloria’s plan to begin assessing a $43.60 monthly trash collection fee on more than 200,000 single-family homes — a standard fee that is far higher than the $23 to $29 estimate given to voters when they narrowly approved Measure B in 2022. In July 2027, after the initial rate has gone up by an additional 26%, the fee will be $55.

By OB Rag Staff / June 15, 2025

The long-awaited San Diego City Council showdown over the catastrophic Bonus ADU program is in 24 hours. But you can (and should) send in a comment electronically to start the opposition drumbeat.

We know Todd Gloria still wants to cram as many as 10 units on single-family lots. That is unacceptable. Let’s unleash a tsunami of opposition messages on the Council.

Submit a comment on the City Council’s Agenda Comment Form.  After you fill in your personal information, the comment type is “City Council Comment,” the agenda item is “202,” and we “Oppose” the item. Here is a message you can copy and paste into the “Comments” box:

By Neighbors for a Better San Diego / June 15, 2023

Capping the total number of dwelling units is a win/win for everyone. Here’s why FOUR is the right number:

THE BREAKDOWN:

— Existing home
— A converted ADU, such as a garage (State law)
— A detached ADU (State law)
— An Affordable deed-restricted Bonus ADU (San Diego incentive)

By capping the total units on all San Diego residential parcels to 4 TOTAL units (including the main home), San Diego would be

— Complying with State law
— Protecting neighborhoods and homeownership, and
— Fulfilling the Bonus ADU commitment it made to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) as part of the 2021-2029 Housing Element Cycle.

It is official, according to the San Diego Police Department and the Union-Tribune: 60,000 plus people demonstrated in downtown San Diego Saturday, June 14, for “No Kings Day!” Times of San Diego and KPBS also repeated this number. Organizers claimed 80,000. Also, police reported there were no arrests.

Meanwhile, literally millions of Americans took to the streets in opposition to Trump and his policies in at least 2,000 actions.

There were also 10 other “No Kings Day” protests across San Diego County, including events in Carlsbad, Del Mar, Chula Vista, Escondido, El Cajon, Mira Mesa, Rancho Bernardo, Civita Park, Ramona and San Marcos. Times of San Diego reported “about 1,000” in Mira Mesa and organizers estimated 3,000 in Escondido.

By Paige Austin and Fernando Haro / Patch / June 14, 2025

Police in downtown Los Angeles declared the massive “No Kings” protest an unlawful assembly and aggressively cleared the remaining protesters. They fired rubber bullets into the crowd as well as tear gas and beat protesters with sticks. Some smaller protests such as an afternoon demonstration in Anaheim were also declared unlawful.

In Los Angeles, the violence erupted suddenly, marking a dramatic shift from what had been a peaceful “No Kings” demonstration with more than 30,000 people [very conservative estimate —  more like 100,000] converging on downtown Los Angeles along with thousands more from San Diego to San Francisco.

Patch witnessed officers knocking demonstrators to the ground, charging into the crowd on horseback, shooting them with rubber bullets and beating them with long sticks. One officer fired rubber bullets into a cluster of journalists at close range, hitting at least one. One elderly man was charged and shoved to the ground by a Los Angeles Police Department officer.