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Land Use Planning in a ‘Post-Fact’ World? Looking Back on Measures B and C in Our Recent Election

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By Lawrence A. Herzog

One of the disturbing trends in this turbulent season of national electoral politics was the explosion of uncertainty about information and truth in reporting. The talking points and tweets often wandered so far from actual facts, they left behind an exhausted citizenry. We are still recovering.

This “post-fact” world has brought the nation to an odd juncture. Fake news stories, Internet hacking, and websites that pump out false information remain a point of contention.

Has this “post-fact” epidemic trickled down to our local elections?   [Read more…]

What’s in Our Mailbag?

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Welcome to the San Diego Free Press’ newest column! We don’t make a habit of publishing press releases and, because we are all-volunteer run, we simply don’t have the resources to cover every event or topic of interest. What’s in our Mailbag? is a consolidation of information we’ve been sent from organizations or individuals we think is important to share.

Inside:

Police Presence in School Has Negative Effect on Students

Vote No on Measure B, a letter to the editor from the League of Women Voters

Legislative Hearing on Progress of Law Allowing Community Colleges to Offer B.A. Degrees

  [Read more…]

Barrio Logan vs the Stadium: Why it Matters

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By Mario Torero, Brent Beltrán, and Bill Adams / UrbDeZine

Barrio Logan is little known to most San Diegans – beyond being a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood near downtown. Yet it is one of San Diego’s most historically significant and culturally important neighborhoods.

In particular, it has national prominence for its role in the Chicano / Mexican-American civil rights movement. However, more than a Chicano historic asset, the neighborhood and it’s history stands as a monument to the resilience and survival of the nation’s minority and working class populations in the face of assaults and exploitation by the overwhelming power of the state and business interests.

In particular, many ethnic working-class urban neighborhoods across the country were destroyed or severely damaged by en masse relocation of their residents to build freeways and other neighborhood-destroying and suburb serving facilities. Barrio Logan repeatedly faced such assaults, and not only survived but like putting a bouquet of flowers in a tank cannon, sometimes made beauty and purpose out of injury. Nevertheless, once the second largest Mexican-American enclave in the U.S., it has shrunk to less than 5,000 people as a result of the loss of land to the freeways and industrial uses. It may not survive another such assault.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Parking Schizophrenia: More for Balboa Park, Less for Neighborhoods

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Even as San Diego rolled out proposals reducing residential parking spaces, a City Council committee is set to approve up to $50 million in lease revenue bonds for construction of a 797 space parking garage in Balboa Park.

Just hours before the City Council was set to consider updated community plans for Golden Hill and North Park City, staff unveiled a plan aimed at encouraging commuters to curb their driving, including eliminating parking spaces, along with getting businesses to offer incentives for employees to walk, bike and take mass transit.

The driving disincentives were aimed at blunting opposition from environmental groups, who believe the community plans are at variance with the City’s plans to reduce its carbon footprint.   [Read more…]

A Closer Look at the Ebers and Greene Project and the Correction Notice Issued by the City

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In Order to Keep Project, Owner May Be Creating “Guest Quarters”

Editor: The OB Rag asked local Geoff Page – former chair of the Peninsula Community Planning Board and occasional writer for us – to look at the Ebers and Greene project from a technical standpoint, to review the Correction Notice issued by the city and see what it meant, and any other issues that grabbed his attention. 

By Geoff Page / Special to the OB Rag

After reviewing the Correction Notice and a few other things as well, it appears to me that the developer – Curtis Nelson of Nelco Properties – and the City of San Diego are changing this development in reaction to public attention. This means that what they may be doing needs scrutiny.

It looks like they plan to designate one of the buildings a guest quarters and only one of the two buildings could possibly qualify – and that would be the existing house.   [Read more…]

Vote No on Measures A and B for a Sustainable Future for San Diego

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Much of the reporting on the early campaign surrounding Measure A is falling victim to the proponents’ attempts to greenwash their deeply flawed measure by representing a few astroturf “environmental” organizations in league with big money from corporate interests and a handful of unions doing the bidding of downtown insiders as a “split” in progressive circles. This is unfortunate as the fact of the matter is that the opposition to Measure A by the Quality of Life Coalition represents a historically significant new alliance between progressive labor and nearly all of the local environmental organizations doing serious work around climate.

Two weeks ago in this space I was pleased to co-sign a column as Chair of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council Environmental Caucus along with Nicole Capretz, the Executive Director of the Climate Action Campaign, and Nick Segura, Business Manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 569, explaining why progressives should say No Way to Measure A. In that same spirit, this week I am happy to cede my usual spot to Jana Clark, a board member of both the Cleveland National Forest Foundation and Save Our Forest and Ranchlands to explain why both Measures A and B are bad for San Diego.   [Read more…]

Vista’s Mixed Use Zone: A Developer’s Dream

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Imagine a city where developers are able to choose from among 57 different business enterprises for a downtown site, either for a single use or any combination thereof.

Welcome to Vista, California, where the purpose of its Mixed Use Zone is “…to allow for a mix of residential and commercial, or just residential, or just commercial (standalone) land uses.”

It’s a developer’s wet dream.
  [Read more…]

ReWild Mission Bay Unveils Options for Wetland Restoration

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8 Restoration Options for Mission Bay Evaluated by More than 100 Community Members

Based on News Release from ReWild via OBRag

On September 27th, ReWild Mission Bay – a project of San Diego Audubon and its partners – unveiled eight possible options to enhance and restore up to 170 acres of wetlands in the North East corner of Mission Bay.

Based on community suggestions from two public workshops earlier this year, the draft plans were presented to more than 135 community members to collect input. To view the potential alternatives, click through to the full article.   [Read more…]

The Ocean Beach Empire of Michael Mills

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Slumlord Owns 241 Housing Units in OB

Many OBceans struggle long and hard to earn the financial resources to purchase their one house, condo or apartment. Many never obtain enough to make the plunge into buying property in Ocean Beach. It is so expensive to buy a home here at the coast, that it’s prohibitive for most.

Not Michael Mills, the notorious slumlord of Ocean Beach. Mills has a virtual empire in OB. He and his trusts own 241 homes, condos and apartments in the Ocean Beach area.

Imagine that. Two-hundred and forty-one units. And many of these units are within multi-unit apartments.   [Read more…]

Peninsula Planners Juggle Minutes, Agendas and 30-Foot Height Limit

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By Geoff Page / OB Rag

The Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) held its regular monthly meeting Thursday, September 15, 2016, at the Point Loma/Hervey Branch Library. There was a crowded agenda and one of the topics having to do with the 30-foot Coastal Height Limit generated a great deal of interest.

With 14 of the fifteen board members present, the meeting began and ended at the normal times, and initially meeting seemed to be well attended – but as the night proceeded, it appeared that most in the audience were there to represent the projects being voted on.   [Read more…]

Measure B – Ballot Box Planning at its Worst

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Lilac Hills Ranch Developer Goes for an End Run Around Community Groups

If you’re buying the arguments proponents of Measure B are peddling, I have a bridge to sell you.

Measure B is a clear cut case of a developer doing an end-run around years of community input into planning. Voters in El Cajon and Chula Vista are being asked to decide on a North County project they only know of through ads with fallacious arguments. (Ask the people in Barrio Logan how they feel about that concept.)

For starters, there is no low-income housing in this plan. Unless a starting purchase price of $300,000 is considered low-income friendly. And the greenest thing about this development is the cash being passed around to support it.   [Read more…]

Keeping San Diego Seafood Local

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Sustainable Seafood / Slow Food Urban San Diego

The Port of San Diego envisions redeveloping the “Central Embarcadero” an area that includes Tuna Harbor, where the majority of San Diego’s active commercial fishermen dock their boats. “Tuna Harbor is central to San Diego’s cultural history as a fishing community,” says Pete Halmay, San Diego sea urchin fisherman. “It was the hub of San Diego fishing for a 100 years and is central to our local industry today.”

Today, San Diegans have little access to locally-caught seafood, even though we are a waterfront city. The U.S. imports over 90% of its seafood and San Diego fishermen are hard pressed to sell their catch locally. The redevelopment represents an opportunity to invest in our local fisheries and reconnect with our local seafood system. It’s up to the San Diego to commit to this.   [Read more…]

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