Shores building rules ready for revise

The Planned District Ordinance prescribing allowable uses for commercial and residential development in La Jolla Shores is broken and needs fixing.

That’s the growing sentiment in the community as a move to overhaul La Jolla Shores’ 34-year-old document - which is also called the PDO - gains traction.

“The only thing we can do is to change the La Jolla Shores PDO,” said La Jolla Shores Association Chairman Jim Heaton at the group’s meeting last week.

He was responding to two discussion items - the Gatto residence at 8368 Paseo Del Ocaso and the Whitney mixed-use project at 2202 and 2206 Avenida de la Playa next to Piatti’s in the Shores business district. Both propose large-scale redevelopments that residents fear will negatively alter the community’s small-town character.

“The PDO is clearly out of date,” agreed board member Tim Lucas, who is spearheading the creation of a new committee to update the Shores’ development blueprint, which he noted has been in place and unchanged since 1975.

The committee was set to meet on Wednesday to get oriented to their task.

During public comment, Realtor Peggy Davis of 8387 Paseo Del Ocaso implored the advisory group to oppose the Gattos’ plans to rebuild their Paseo Del Ocaso home.

“La Jolla Shores Advisory Board voted 6-0 to deny this project due to massive bulk and scale,” she said.

The Gattos want to demolish an existing single-family residence with construction of a two-story, 4,159-square-foot structure over a basement with an attached garage, a lap pool and a spa on a 0.12-acre site.

“It would be a monster home towering over others,” Davis said, adding that the plan was scheduled to be heard by a city hearing officer on Wednesday.

In other matters, Shores resident Anitra Wirtz presented a counterproposal to an item raised in July by board member Mary Coakley to reconfigure a traffic triangle near the Kellogg Park parking lot to improve public safety.

“We as a group oppose all components of this proposal,” Wirtz said. “The beach is well over carrying capacity. We see no reason to overload the beach more than it already is.”

Wirtz added that neighbors oppose large tour buses, which she claims “park illegally and cause carbon monoxide pollution” at Kellogg Park.

Wirtz also added neighbors feel that the drop-off area at the Kellogg parking lot has been working adequately except on holidays.

She said neighbors “would like there to be a triangular park that would be of smaller dimensions than the already striped triangle,” she said. “We recommend a change to the exit which would consist of two exit lanes marked right- and left-turn only.”

Heaton said the next step for neighbors would be to consult city engineers to come up with a working drawing for what they would like to see happen with the traffic triangle before returning to the association.