San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Columns / San Diego Commons at the Crossroads

San Diego Commons at the Crossroads: The Sell-Off of ‘Excess’ Properties

by

“Why didn’t you ask the neighbors and the community what they might think?”

This past week San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced as one of the key highlights of his State of the City that he is bringing forward “the first comprehensive vision for San Diego’s parks in more than 60 years” and promised that “ground would be broken on 50 new or upgraded parks during the next five years. “

Actual budgets are always a reality check on visionary pronouncements. By April we should know if and how this vision will be reflected in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2017 budget.

There is a need for yet another kind of reality check. The convergence of the promise of a new grand vision for parks by the Mayor while the city’s Real Estate Asset Department (READ) pushes ahead with the sale of city-owned properties brings us to an important crossroads for determining the future of the Commons for the City of San Diego.   [Read more…]

Overpassing the Value of Public Space

by

By Howard M. Blackson III / SanDiego.UrbDeZine.com

“Caltrans does not restrict the right of free speech with handheld banners, but attaching flags or banners is not allowed,” a Caltrans-Spokesman told the San Jose Mercury News. He added, “We are concerned that people waving handheld banners could cause driver distraction — putting their safety or that of the motoring public at risk.”

Today, we have prioritized the ‘motoring public’ over all other aspects of public life.

Our failure to cultivate the value and quality of our public spaces and public life is found in this picture of protesters and political advocates on a freeway overpass. Our cities are made up of public buildings, streets, squares and private lots, blocks and buildings. But when people want to be heard, seen, and get their message out to as many people as possible, they now gather on freeway bridge overpasses… for it’s on the freeways where everyone else can be found today, and not on our public street corners and squares.   [Read more…]

We Need a New Public Use of the Old Central Library

by

By Joe Flynn

“Planning? We don’t need no stinking planning!” No, I am not talking about The Treasure of Sierra Madre, I’m talking about the treasure of our old Central Library. One would think after decades of working to build a new central library, some thought would have been given to a new use for the old library.

And it is not just another old building; this one has a lot or treasured memories for many San Diegans, especially those who spent hours there doing school projects and term papers or just for the pure enjoyment of literature.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Old Central Library: Public Benefit or Profit Center?

by

A not-so-common idea for a building that belongs to us

For three years, 150,000 square feet of space in downtown, belonging to the citizens of San Diego, has stood vacant. Each night, for these past three years, impoverished human beings have spread their cardboard beds on the brass inlays of the terrazzo at the entrance of the old Central Library on E Street.

But any suggestion that this place could provide shelter for homeless people is dead on arrival, so I won’t be wasting words on that idea. But I do think we need to come up with a fair and just use of this building that retains the spirit of its original reason for being built. After all, it belongs to us, if we are willing to fight for it and put a little imagination into its transformation.   [Read more…]

Private Encroachments into Public Space: Ocean Beach Grows Wary

by

From Restaurants to the Beach, Private Interests Are Taking More Public Grounds

The recent uproar among OBceans over the intrusions into public sidewalks by two Ocean Beach restaurants illustrates a broader and growing wariness by the public of the larger issue of encroachment by private interests into public space.

Just several weeks ago, two OB restaurants, The Joint and the yet-to-open OB Brewery – both on Newport Avenue – have installed permanent fixtures outside their establishments that seriously curtail pedestrian traffic and block the public access to the public sidewalk immediately in front of the restaurants.

The Joint put in tables with a metal fence and gate, taking the encroachment trend in OB’s “outdoor cafes” to a new level. The OB Rag ran a poll where 42% of the respondents agreed that what The Joint did was an encroachment into public space and agreed that the fence and tables should be removed. The OB Brewery also installed exterior fencing that significantly narrows the public walkway.

The future of these intrusions into what many feel are the public’s right-of-way has yet to be ultimately decided, but the response by locals reflects a growing wariness among OBceans – and others who live up and down the coast or near parks – to what they perceive as an invasion into public space by people with private interests as their motivation.
  [Read more…]

Hide and Seek on the Commons: Selling More San Diego

by

The public is left out of the decision making, the City Council is not fully engaged

Today, Wednesday February 10, the City Council Smart Growth and Land Use (SG&LU) Committee will be asked to recommend approval to the full City Council of the marketing for sale of six City-owned properties that the Real Estate Asset Department (READ) has declared surplus and excess to the needs of the City.

Prior SDFP articles on the topic called into question the efficacy, advisability and propriety of how these properties have been declared surplus and why. We published the list of properties that was brought forward last summer as an “informational” item by READ.

Here is an update and status report with some editorializing.   [Read more…]

Preserving the San Diego Commons: Public Land, Policy and Process

by

Who decides and who gets to participate in decisions to sell City properties

The previous article in the San Diego Commons at the Crossroads series keyed on the Mayor’s State of City promise to break ground on “50 new or upgraded parks during the next five years” counterpoised against examples of designated open space and other city-owned lands that are in jeopardy of being sold by the City as “surplus properties”.

The proposal to sell one of the now controversial properties labeled “Truax House” adjacent to the Maple Canyon Open Space system has been continued to the February 10 Smart Growth &Land Use (SG&LU) City Council Committee along with some additional properties, not all as yet specified.

And therein lies one serious problem. If you are glued to the City Council website each and every working day of every week you might find out about meeting agenda items related to property sales when they are posted as actions for sale or authorization for sale.   [Read more…]

Where there’s Smoke, Is there a Fire Sale? How San Diego Sells Our Surplus Properties

by

When citizen input is eliminated, are the “real” customers brokers and developers?

Best keep a look out the backdoor. The City is apparently in a mood to sell land. How much and to whom and when is not too clear, but they are already making lists and lining up brokers. A few citizens were on hand for a presentation to the June 10 meeting of the City Council Smart Growth and Land Use Committee on “Potential Sale of 14 Surplus Properties owned by the City of San Diego”.

The “For Information Only” power point was entitled “Excess Property Sales for Action Before City Council in 2015”. There were actually 16 on one list for “Excess Sales Using Brokers” and another 11 on a list titled “Exclusively Negotiated/Direct Sales”. And then there was another “Direct Sale” listed all by itself for the Villa Montezuma historical museum building. So maybe it was 28 excess properties. And every Council District has at least one listing on one or the other of the lists.
  [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry