Surfing Madonna artist Mark Patterson has reportedly died

At Encinitas Votes.

Mark Patterson was a great Leucadian and a great Encinitan. His Surfing Madonna will live on forever.

The wonderful story of the Surfing Madonna can be found in the archives here.

Nobody wants apartments with no parking

One of the fantasies pushed by California politicians is that if you put high-density development near public transit and amenities, people won't need cars.

The reality? Not so much.

Union-Trib:

North Park's newest apartment complex, Casa Verde, did everything a modern developer is encouraged to do.

Close to the 30th Street Bikeway and walking distance from just about everything, it has microunits designed to maximize space and almost no parking in the 94-unit structure -- encouraging San Diegans to give up their cars.

Yet developer George Champion said as soon as they started leasing in August, renters shied away from the project upon hearing about the parking situation. A few weeks ago, he changed course and bought more than 80 spots at the nearby North Park Parking Garage to renters will have free parking.

Elimination of adequate parking requirements is one of the hallmarks of Encinitas's recent high-density development approvals.

9/20/23 City Council meeting open thread

Please use the comments to record your observations.

City reducing Vulcan parking even as it adds big new apartment complexes

CBS 8:

Several people in Encinitas are frustrated that parking will go from parking your car head-in to parallel parking which they say will create 300 less parking spots next to the beach and restaurants. Construction zone signs are posted for a mile from Leucadia Blvd along North Vulcan Avenue to La Costa.

Encinitas residents Sara Mertz and her husband Mike Brawner said they are disappointed they weren't able to provide public input before city officials started to reconfigure parking spaces.

"I would say don’t eliminate 300 parking spaces along Vulcan Avenue. It's ridiculous," Mertz said. "There is no parking spaces at all in southern California! People want to go to the beach! It’s going to hurt restaurants owners and people who live on this street."

Border Patrol sending immigrants to North County

Coast News:

As U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents continue to drop off hundreds of migrants at transit centers throughout San Diego County today, local politicians are speaking out against the policy.

The cited cause of the drop-offs is an attempt to clear a space between two U.S.-Mexico border fences where more than 700 migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees had been camping, a CBP statement read.

9/13/23 City Council meeting open thread

Please use the comments to record your observations.

Neptune spec house in Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal:

A rare waterfront spec home in Encinitas, Calif., is coming on the market for $28.75 million, far more than the priciest sale to date in this affluent city north of San Diego, according to Ernie Carswell of Douglas Elliman, who has the listing with colleague James Likens.

The current record was set last month, when Crescent House sold for $16.25 million, Carswell said. In Del Mar, a city about 5 miles south, homes have sold for over $40 million.

Spec homes on the coast in the area are rare, said Carswell, due to restrictions and an often-lengthy approval process. Building the four-bedroom, roughly 7,100-square-foot blufftop home has been a decadeslong saga for developer Peter Keserovich, who said he purchased the lot for roughly $600,000 around 1997. It took him until about 2008 to get approval from the city, he said, and the recession at the time delayed financing for the project, so he waited until 2014 to begin construction. He spent about $20 million building the house, which was completed last year, said Keserovich.

It looks like they're talking about 1230 Neptune.

Blakespear apologizes for censoring and blocking critics on social media

 Coast News:

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear issued a public apology today for previously “blocking and censoring” critics on social media, a concession signaling the end of a 15-month legal dispute between the first-term California lawmaker and several of her constituents.