Michael Mills Buys Complex of Studios on Voltaire – Notifies Tenants of 20% Rent Raise

By Frank Gormlie / OB Rag

The largest landowner – landlord in Ocean Beach, Michael Mills, just purchased a complex of 10 studios on Voltaire Street – and immediately notified the tenants of a rent raise.

Mills can now add this property to his OB empire – an empire that the OB Rag has been chronicling – which we calculate at 241 units within Ocean Beach – not including this most recent purchase.

The 2-story, cream-colored older complex at 4876 Voltaire, has 10 units – all studios. All the tenants were notified of a rent raise by fliers – a rent raise that is a 20% increase. The studios were being rented for $870, and the new rent will be $1,050.

A reliable witness informed the OB Rag that he had seen and read the flier handed out to the tenants, a person familiar with the status of the complex development.

On September 27, 2016, we published this in our research summary of Mills’ properties in OB:

Mills’ properties in the War Zone, northwest OB. Each red star represents a separate property.

Mills’ properties in the War Zone, northwest OB. Each red star represents a separate property.

What we came up with is astounding. We put together a long list of his properties in OB and surrounding neighborhoods. We tallied them up and found he and his trusts own 241 units. They are scattered all over OB and parts of Point Loma, but Mills has focused on the old “war zone” area of northwest OB.

Here’s the list – which, again, does not include the recent Voltaire property:

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Frank Gormlie

A lawyer and grassroots activist, I was finally convinced by Patty Jones to start the OB Rag, a blog of citizen journalists, after she got tired of listening to my rants about the news. Way back during the Dinosaurs in 1970, I founded the original Ocean Beach People’s Rag - OB’s famous underground newspaper -, and then later during the early Eighties, published The Whole Damn Pie Shop, a progressive alternative to the Reader.

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