Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Is Assembly Leader Toni Atkins Cashing in on Homelessness?
HM, thank goodness there is no Redev Zone in South Park! There are a few architect/developers in the area who really wish there was RA money here, for sure. Not me! There are a few vacant lots around SP, and I'm sure if we were in a Redevelopment Zone we would see 2- or 3-story multi units crammed in, right up to the curb line. The push is already on by certain of these architect/developers/builders/business people (as happy little puppets of the City) to change the single-family residential density code, and that will happen, sadly.— March 9, 2011 7:18 p.m.
Fox Canyon Neighborhood Protests Governor’s Move to Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies
Thanks HM. You know, when companies earn all of their company money by taking public money, the public record docs are out there on the Internet and everyone can read all about it. Which I do. This project does house low-income people. Good. But,... and this is a big BUT: Fox Canyon Neighborhood Association president Jose Lopez did NOT fight tooth and nail to get the 69 units into development: the City of San Diego fell all over itself to hand over an exclusive negotiating right to Community Collective (Hitzke)and lots of Redevelopment money and open space land. Nor is it likely that Mr. Lopez wrote this (note the boldface email address at the bottom of the page): http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/Fox_Canyon/pages/…— March 9, 2011 6:06 p.m.
Is Assembly Leader Toni Atkins Cashing in on Homelessness?
Yes, Atkins benefits from a lot of things that she champions. She is the Redevelopment supporters' hero. In fact, she was just visited in Sacramento by the a developer mentioned in another Reader article, in the capitol to protest against cutting off the Redevelopment dollars. Small world, the Reader! (See the article by by Elizabeth Salaam, on the pro-Redevelopment contingent protesting in City Heights.) http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2011/mar/06/fo…— March 9, 2011 4:10 p.m.
Fox Canyon Neighborhood Protests Governor’s Move to Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies
Addendum: The one-half-acre Auburn Park mentioned in this article is largely landscaping on the entire 2-acre parcel with 69 rental units built by Hitzke. The landscaped area is privately owned, by Hitzke's development company. It's open to public access as long as they say so. It had been hoped in the early 2000s that the entire 2-acre parcel, at that time a completely open plot on the SW corner of University and 52nd, would be used to build a Chollas Creek Visitor and Educational Center. Five other parcels along Auburn Creek, which runs through Fox Canyon from Euclid to University/52nd, would have been set aside as parkland/open space, about which the proposed visitor center would have educated the public. Some of those parcels, like the one discussed in this Reader article, have also been lost to developers.— March 9, 2011 11:07 a.m.
Fox Canyon Neighborhood Protests Governor’s Move to Eliminate Redevelopment Agencies
Funny how some people just pop up everywhere. Hitzke leaves Temecula, often, ranging all over the county to follow the money: nothing wrong with that, but surprised she didn't brag on her track record as a DEVELOPER through her companies (Community Collective, Hitzke Development Corp., Affirmed Housing Group). She can proudly claim to be the local queen of infill. She could have mentioned obtaining, for Community Collective, more than $30,500,000 in Redevelopment Agency financing, $122,000,000 in housing tax credits, $32,000,000 in tax-exempt bonds, and $11,000,000 in multiunit housing funds from the State of California. At Affirmed Housing Group, she arranged to get more than $238,000,000 in public funds, low-income housing tax credits, tax-exempt housing revenue bonds, low/ moderate redevelopment tax increment funds, and federal housing program funds. The money to be made doing this is good, especially good when you and your company excel at sniffing out City-owned land and parking lots, and then getting the City to give your company entitlement to the land (or sell it to you very cheaply). Then you get the City to loan you the money to develop the plans to turn the lot into curb-to-curb stucco, metal, and concrete housing, packing in as many bodies side-to side and up as high as possible. Usually you can get profit-making exemptions from the parking, height, density, and FAR restrictions, so that your masterpiece will loom over the neighborhood like a big (but oh-so retro and hip-looking) monster.— March 9, 2011 7:48 a.m.
San Diego Fire Department Alarms
There is another financial parameter to consider: insurance costs to homeowners in areas where fire staff and equipment are reduced. Insurance companies monitor such reductions continuously and will raise homeowners' insurance in neighborhoods served, on the premise that response times may increase and thus homeowners' losses will be greater. Insurance companies also closely watch reductions in police staff/equipment and changes in zoning. Less police means longer response times for burglary reports and potential higher loss claims. Upzoning via code changes (allowing more infill and greater building density) means denser populations and greater likelihood of home and vehicle break-ins and car theft.— February 22, 2011 11:42 a.m.
Tree Height Measuring Ideal Today
Wow, cool info. I'm doing it at noon!— February 18, 2011 8:24 a.m.
All in Favor of Balboa Park Preservation...
You know, nostalgic, I think you've got it...no matter how hard I try, when I compare the before and after drawings of the plaza with and without parked cars, I just can't see how 'no cars' improves anything. It just seems like a big so-what. It is a small plaza. Really small. The city can close it off from parking for special events, if it wants. There are just a few parking spaces, important to disabled placard holders. There is a big pedestrian-only stretch all the way up toward the fountain. What is going on? PAID PARKING!— February 17, 2011 5:44 p.m.
All in Favor of Balboa Park Preservation...
It doesn't seem that the Bankers Hill/Park West group's approach was at all counter-intuitive. They are concerned about the impact on their neighborhood if free parking in Balboa Park is eliminated. That's about as intuitively obvious a concern as is possible. I do not want paid parking in Balboa Park and think a garage behind the organ pavilion is a terrible idea, no matter how a garage might be formed, designed, constructed, or sold as some great architectural/environmentally friendly deal...however, I am not reading in JudiO's comment that alternatives to SOHO's position were presented at the NP meeting. Were they? And on the subject of one-sidedness, in the nearby community of Greater Golden Hill, the Planning Group had no less than City salesman Gerry Braun and consultants (you are paying their salaries!) on hand to inform the committee. From the minutes at http://gghpc.blogspot.com/ "Gerry Braun from City of San Diego spoke about the plan to take parking out of the center of Balboa Park, and maybe even traffic. Dr. Irwin Jacobs (Qualcomm) has made a recommendation about how to accomplish this. Gordon Kovton of KCM Group and Scott Jordan of Civitas were present and described the project with a PowerPoint presentation." PowerPoint! Whew! There is some good PR $$ being thrown at this. And Braun answered questions like a true bureaucrat: When concern was expressed about public safety for pedestrians, "Braun said they are aware of the issue." Yes! Great answer. Braun was well-schooled at the U-T.— February 16, 2011 4:59 p.m.
Jerry Brown Wants to Rein in Redevelopment Scams
Agree. Gloria led the way on the anti-Walmart thing, so maybe his pro-Redevelopment thing will go south too. He could be cursed! (And not just by me.)— January 29, 2011 5:01 p.m.