Ocean Beach Club

“Public Hearing” on Ocean Beach Proposed Density Increase Falls Flat

The good citizens of Ocean Beach were supposed to have a “scoping pubic hearing” on the OB Precise Plan EIR update and its proposals for increasing the density in OB – by up to 1400 dwelling units.  They got much less.

Over 35 OB residents, property owners, and small business owners crowded into the meeting room at the OB Recreation Center Tuesday evening, the 9th of August, in expectation of some kind of presentation by the City.  What they got instead were two City officials sitting at a desk with a tape machine whirring. There was no presentation.  There were no handouts or literature on the proposed increases.  The City brought nothing to the “hearing” except the tape machine.

Attendees were invited to get up and speak by official Jeff Szymanski, who sat next to Tony Kempton, the City planner for OB, who said a few introductory words.  Jeff turned on his tape machine. So,  OBcians got up to expound on the undesirables created with the proposed increased density of an additional 1400 living units in Ocean Beach.  Szymanski told the crowd this would not be a “debate” on the merits of the proposal, and would not be a “question and answer” session.

Just a tiny handful of groups from OB had been given prior notice of the “public hearing”. They were given a 15-page packet – that was NOT available at the forum itself. Several speakers complained about this.

There was a general murmur in the crowd when the issue of who received notices of the hearing.  Someone got up and asked the assembly, “who found out about this meeting either through the OB Rag ?”  Most people in the room shot up their hands.   And the Rag had gotten our notice of the event through a small article in the Reader by Dorian Hargrove.

When OBcians did get up, they spoke of the negatives that accompany increased density: more residents, of course, in an already dense village, but also it would bring more cars and traffic, more smog, less parking, more congestion; it would tear at the very quality of life in the neighborhood.  One speaker, a member of the Planning Board, described how with the Precise Plan lowered density and lowered the FAR intentionally and consciously.  Other speakers complained that the EIR did not address a number of issues, like architectural styles.  “The EIR can’t be silent,” one speaker said, “on adjoining communities – how the OB density affects their density,” and vice-versa.