Responding to a letter from Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) complaining about apartment owners renting out off-street parking to non-tenants, a city official told residents that they need to band together and lodge formal complaints, as the city lacks staffing to proactively investigate such claims.
Noting city code enforcement has an easy-to-use online complaint form on the city website, senior land development investigator William Dauphin told the advisory group, “We are not a proactive entity. We don’t go out and look for code violations. We rely on citizen complaints to give to investigators.”
Noting that “our staffing levels are pretty low, which doesn’t allow us to be proactive,” Dauphin added, renting garages “unfortunately is a low priority.”
Highest-priority items for city code investigators, Dauphin said, includes such matters as “uninhabitable living conditions” and serious code violations such as electrical, plumbing or mechanical violations or oversize fences or walls blocking visibility.
“Our people respond to those pretty quickly,” Dauphin said, but he added that, if residents lodge formal complaints about lesser matters in the city system, “We (city) will investigate it.”
Dauphin suggested that a group of community volunteers could be formed to act as liaison with the city in assisting investigators by informing them of alleged code violations.
PCPB member Paul Webb suggested the board ought to consider forming its own subcommittee on code enforcement. Community plan
PCPB board member David Dick said he was “baffled” that Ocean Beach has had its community plan updated, when Point Loma’s community plan, which is 27 years old, also needs revising.
“Only because of politics do OB and Point Loma have different planning areas,” Dick said, adding, “You’d think they would have been done at the same time. It doesn’t make any sense.”
City planner Tony Kempton responded that a community plan update is a long process, noting OB’s recent plan update was 10 years in the making.
“They (city) have to identify funding for these updates,” replied Valerie Paz of the OB Planning Board. “When funds become available, staffing resources are provided to move plan updates forward.”
“We (city) are in the process of hiring more (planning) staff,” said Kempton. “Hopefully, we’ll then be able to identify more funding for community plan updates.” Pocket park Kempton warned Peninsulans that a recent successful cleanup of a city-owned parcel on Canon Street, which PCPB planners Jon Linney and Don Sevrens are campaigning to have upgraded to a pocket park, was inappropriate.
“I was told by park planners that any attempt to improve (proposed) Canon pocket park is not allowed, and that if it’s done again that park and rec would fence the property,” said Kempton, warning, “Do not do that anymore.” In other matters:
• Ellen Hoff complained that an apartment house at 2101 Chatsworth Blvd. near Point Loma Nazarene University has become problematic with students living there and displacing on-street parking used by single-family residents. “It has turned into a street that is not residential,” said Hoff, adding the university “is not telling us much about how many students are there or all the things we need to know.”
• The annual PCPB board election will take place 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday, March 19 in the foyer of the Point Loma Library, 3701 Voltaire St. Residents of the Peninsula (excluding Ocean Beach and Midway District) are eligible to vote in person by showing proof of residence.
PCPB Board meets every third Thursday from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Point Loma Library’s Community Meeting Room, 3701 Voltaire St.