There’s one thing nearly everyone in the room was agreed upon with planning for De Anza Cove’s revitalization: It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The room was the Mission Bay High School cafeteria. The occasion was the first ad-hoc subcommitee meeting Dec. 9 on the De Anza Revitalization Plan.
The revitalization plan is a long-term effort to “reimagine” what Mission Bay Park (MBP) is — and could be.
MBP is one of San Diego’s premier tourist and recreation destinations, containing 4,000 acres of beaches, parklands, picnic areas, marinas, resort hotels and SeaWorld. The regional park has faced dramatic increases in recreational demand and mounting civil and aquatic engineering problems. An existing master plan for MBP seeks to protect and expand the park’s natural resources while mitigating negative impacts on adjacent residential neighborhoods.
“This is going to be a long but fruitful process,” promised land-use attorney Paul Robinson, chair of the 11-member Ad-Hoc Committee, whose task is to work with the city and consultants on developing a vision and guiding principles for a De Anza Revitalization Plan to amend the existing Mission Bay Park Master Plan.
“We’re so excited to be kicking off this project, which has so many important resources for the entire city,” said Joan Isaacson of Katz & Associates, consultants acting as a liaison between the city and Pacific Beach.
“The project area is 120 acres, including a special study area in the Mission Bay Master Plan plus the surrounding area to the north and east including ballfields, the (Mission Bay) golf course and portions of De Anza Cove,” said Brooke Peterson of PlaceWorks, another project consultant. “We envision this to be about a three-year process broken down into phases.”
The effort to redevelop the regional park was delayed by a decadelong court battle between the city and residents of the 500-unit De Anza Cove Resort mobile-home park, a 75-acre park on prime real estate jutting into the water in Mission Bay Park west of I-5. Ultimately, the city reached a $3.6 million settlement agreement on one of three lawsuits involving current and former mobile home park residents allowing them to relocate.
Consultants conducted a mini-workshop on Dec. 9, breaking ad hoc committee members into two small groups to brainstorm ideas on recreation, the environment and land use and activity in the park.
Suggestions committee members came up with included the need to balance park uses with available open space; consider creating an info/interpretive center; the need to do a hydrology (water) study; encourage ecologically oriented recreation; find ways to protect and enhance the natural environment; create more pedestrian and nonmotorized vehicle connectivity within the park; allow coastal marshland to grow back naturally; and re-establish a connection between the park area and Rose Creek.
The public voiced its views on park redevelopment at the end of the ad-hoc subcommittee meeting.
Community activist Billy Paul felt “everything should be on the table,” singling out Mission Bay Golf Course and the baseball fields as “things we need to have on the table.
“What’s the goal here?” asked Paul, who answered, “Create an iconic recreational destination maximizing waterfront amenities. We don’t have a need for a hotel or a golf course or ballfields near the ocean. We do need a campground and more wetlands areas, as well as a children’s pool, and to make the park clean and safe for everybody.”
“We need to understand the linkages between what’s going on with the Balboa Avenue Trolley Station (under development) and nonmotorized transportation to and from the beach,” said PB Planning Group chair Brian Curry, speaking on his own behalf.
Curry concurred with Paul, noting, “The golf course has to be on the table. What we’re talking about doing is amending the Mission Bay Master Plan. This is public land that should be for the public — not private use.”
Phillip Tan of PB Tennis Club, with 235 active members, was concerned that whatever is done to redevelop the park “will not have a large impact on the tennis club.”
Another PB resident said what she felt was really needed was new courts for pickelball.
Environmentalists Judy Swink and Isabelle Kay both agreed the most important thing to focus on is improving the park’s ecology.
“In the early ’90s, we did a survey on what people would like to see done in the park, and they said, ‘Expand our environmental resources,'” Swink said. “The wetlands, including commercial fisheries, are a tremendous benefit.”
“We need to take advantage of the opportunity to establish a working wetlands,” agreed Kay, noting the current wetlands have shrunk down to about 40 nonsustainable acres. “This is the last chance to re-establish wetlands in the estuary.”
“The whole plan needs to have a balance,” concluded Alex Chipman, an MBHS alum. “You can’t have it all be marshlands or a giant sports park. They (uses) all have to intermingle together to serve all the people of San Diego.”
The ad-hoc committee will further discuss its vision and guiding principles at the next De Anza Revitalization Plan meeting on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. at the Mission Bay High School cafeteria.