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
South Park's Granny Flats — City Says Yea, Some Citizens Say Nay
Also, thanks to The Reader for bringing this story to the public eye. Nothing has been written about this in any of the other news media, at least in the past few years. What do you bet that the U-T soon does a story, and gets interviews with DSD and Planning, the Association of Builders and Realtors, Friends of San Diego Architecture...who will all describe what a good thing this is. With the real estate downturn (which included gross overbuilding over the past few years) we have a hungry group of investors, realtors, brokers, builders, architects, and developers. They have all got the city's ear and want free rein. Do the single-family property owners have the city's ear? In July 2003, the U-T did report on the rental-unit restrictions imposed by the Dick Murphy city council (copy and paste this link: www.americanhomesource.us/files/San_diego.pdf Then in 2007, Ann Jarmusch wrote a bit of fluff for the building industry: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050130/… Jarmusch promoted the idea that, as long as the rental units look swell, well, then no problem! The reality is, it's not about aesthetics. It IS about higher density of renters, more people, more cars, more noise, more traffic. A single-family neighborhood becomes multi-family, without even changing the zoning. Voila! Note: increasing density increases something else: the price of homeowner insurance. The insurance companies will be all over it and will have another justification for raising your insurance rate. Is that OK?— October 29, 2010 10:42 a.m.
South Park's Granny Flats — City Says Yea, Some Citizens Say Nay
This will apply to the entire city, in all neighborhoods zoned single-family. For seven years, single-family zones have been protected from owners adding rental units on a single average-size lot. If Development Services and their top boss, Bill Anderson at City Planning, are determined to open up our single-family neighborhoods to infill, density, and development, can we stop it? It is a major, major change to the Land Use regulations. Why haven't the changes to Section 141.0302 been discussed at the many community plan update meetings? Why? All of the consultants and city staff at these meetings have known about this all along. In all of the discussions about infill and development, why didn't they mention this? If you want to have some input, contact your developer-friendly Councilperson, and good luck; also contact Amanda Lee, Senior Planner, at Development Services, [email protected]. The full set of documents showing the planned Land Use changes is available at the bottom of the page at http://www.sandiego.gov/development-services/indu…— October 29, 2010 10:01 a.m.
North Park vs South Park
#47 Great poem!— July 27, 2010 3:03 p.m.
Streetlights in the dark
#4 I think all of the lights that burn all day along 30th and in areas with those special-assessment-paid acorn lights make up for the lights that never burn at night. It all evens out. I'd say, No, private businesses wouldn't be more responsive. probably about the same. It would just be harder to track them down and to know who was supposedly responsible. And yes, the lobbyists of the "government without government" fans at City Hall do get around. And. Around.— July 27, 2010 12:11 p.m.
North Park vs South Park
You are very, very good! Totally, totally cool. Cool fact: My neighbor who bought in SP in the 1980s showed me where her older neighbors said that their kids' horses grazed the grass on the easement in the 1950s, and where her husband would come home form work at the StarKist tuna cannery and go up to Snippy's for a snort of beer.. We all need this kind of continuity of history to keep us grounded. The same neighbor said she wished Snippy's would be shut down, ...and I say, no more bars!— July 23, 2010 7:35 p.m.
North Park vs South Park
wow, a poet laureate! cool!— July 23, 2010 4:56 p.m.
North Park vs South Park
I'd like to speak to labels - "hippies," "yuppies," "old people." I've made friends with neighbors who bought houses here in South Park in the 1980s, when they were in their 30s. They say they embraced and really enjoyed the older people who then were their new neighbors in the 80s, people in their 60s and 70s. Those people had been in South Park since after WW II, and they had many stories to tell. Now in their 60s, my neighbors talk of how most of the new 30-somethings buying here just seem to think that the "old" people should get out, if the ideas of the 30-somethings aren't pleasing. It's ugly. There is a lot to learn from people who have been here for a long time, and I enjoy it and appreciate the long-time owners. Some of the development-type boosters here are the 30-somethings who just want their property values to escalate. They resent the lower property taxes paid by long-time owners. It's mean. I'd say, drop the labels. Oh, and one of my older neighbors asks, since back in the 80s they were labeled "yuppies," how come they are now being labeled "hippies"?— July 23, 2010 2:25 p.m.
Spread the Wealth
area51: You have authority and control over the public right of way in front of your property, if you are the owner. Only you and the city can do things to any part of that area. If the city wants to plant a tree in front of your PROW, for example, they will contact you and work out a contractual agreement. If anyone else messes with your property's PROW, you can run them off and you can remove or undo anything they install. You are right about the ill-thought-out river rock projects, which you and all of us paid for, without anyone asking permission. I saw a bunch of torn pieces of black paper laying in some tree wells, for weeks, with weeds and trash collecting in and around the paper. I finally realized that that was what was below the rocks I saw heaped up around other trees. Not only does that paper make great ant hideouts and nests, but it stops normal penetration of what little rain we get. Also, because it is installed in parts and pieces with many breaches, and isn't perfectly sealed along the well edges, bermuda grass and weeds will grow just fine in every opening, up through the rocks. It's a formula for UGLY, and impossible to maintain, without spending a fortune on tedious labor, weeding by hand. Oh. I get it. That's the goal. What a bunch of morons at the CDC! I would love to be a fly on the wall when they are brainstorming on ways to waste our tax money. I can't imagine what ideas get rejected. None?— May 3, 2010 11:10 a.m.
Spread the Wealth
We moved into South Park 7 months ago and started learning about the assessment on our property tax bill. Our realtor promoted that it was a good thing but was vague and didn't explain what it was used for or that it wasn't a government tax. It turns out that it's a private tax! We were thinking that the tax went for something like a recreational facility or pool or tennis courts. Man, that sure wasn't true! We've since learned that the money goes partly to a private corporation and partly to the city. The city levys and collects the tax but gives it to a private corporation and keeps some of the money to cover the cost of doing this! The money that goes to pay administrative costs for the corporation and the city equals about half of the collected tax. The guy who works for the corporation who is the spokesperson, a man named Pedro, said it covers part of his office costs and phone bills and travel expenses and food and health insurance for him and all of the other corporation staff. Oh yeah, they put up banners with slogans and put ashtrays on the street..WTF? Why are we paying for this crunk?— May 2, 2010 10:09 a.m.