Mission Bay water enthusiasts are lobbying against Bahia Resort expansion plans on Bahia Point, which some claim threatens both public parking and beach access.
\nConcerned residents announced they will hold a “Bahia Point Paddle and Appreciation Day” starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, March 10 at Bahia Point.
\n“Bahia Hotel is proposing an expansion that will eliminate access and parking on Gleason Road and severely limit water and beach access to Bahia Point Park,” said opposition spokesman Greg Knight. “This expansion has been pushed through the city process without any true public input.”
\nResponding to paddlers\u2019 comments, Bill Evans, owner of the Bahia and Catamaran hotels on Mission Bay, replied: “We are excited about the prospect of increasing public access and public amenities as part of our renovation and expansion of the Bahia Resort Hotel. In particular, we will be creating a bike and pedestrian pathway around the entirety of Bahia Point, adding lawn and picnic areas, as well as bocce ball courts.”
\nKnight said the opposition to the hotel\u2019s plan includes a myriad of water users \u2014 kayakers, windsurfers, outriggers, canoeists, stand up paddleboarders, sailboats, kayak fishermen, campers and picnickers.
\n“They, and more, are unhappy about having this public access taken away,” Knight said exhorting people to “come together March 10 to protest and let the city know that this land will not be taken without our voices heard.”
\nEvans said he continues to be open-minded about public reaction to the hotel expansion plan.
\n“Although we strongly believe the project will continue to allow access to a wide variety of recreational users, we are sensitive to, and mindful of, the concerns of some groups,” Evans said. “The best way forward is for all interests to continue constructive dialogue, and Evans Hotels is committed to that.”
\nBahia Resort wants to nearly double its capacity expanding from 315 rooms to 600 rooms, while adding a 10-foot walkway and 20-foot grass area around Bahia Point Park. That would necessitate shifting current public parking along Gleason Road on the peninsula to other locations inland further from the shoreline.
\nOpponents claim the hotel expansion would deny public access to Bahia Point, a popular launching spot for small sailboats, kayaks and other watercraft. They argue proposed replacement parking further away from the shoreline would not only be an inconvenience, but a hardship, for boat owners.
\nGary Cannon, a retired coastal planner and recreational paddler, cautioned that eliminating all parking along Gleason Road would be counterproductive. “[Officials] also have a mission to balance that with the needs of visitors,” Cannon said. “If you\u2019re going to make changes at the hotel site, you need to protect the existing users.”
\nCannon contends closure of Gleason Road, and the elimination of coastal access there “is an attempt to privatize the entire Bahia Point, and to minimize the public\u2019s ability to recreate there.”
\nOf the proposed bike-pedestrian path, Cannon said, “The bike path is being used as a trade-off to eliminate public use of the area by eliminating the parking.”
\n“Bahia Point is highly used, and has become more highly used over the years,” said Cannon. “The critical thing for us is it\u2019s a public park.” It\u2019s also an aquatic park. This is about eliminating about a quarter-mile of beachfront on the bay preventing easy \u2014 and safe \u2014 access into the water.”
\nReferring to Bahia Point as “a very small area of land,” Evans reiterated his view that eliminating public parking along Gleason Road “is part of the overall Mission Bay master plan.” He added, “The master plan specifically calls for removal of all waterfront parking in Mission Bay Park \u2014 you can\u2019t build anymore in the future, and you have to remove all parking spaces [on the fringe] of Bahia Point.”
\nEvans said plans to extend the bike path and walkway through Bahia Point would “put the walkway on top of the existing hotel building. So we\u2019re going to move the hotel eastward.”
\nSan Diego Park and Recreation Board\u2019s Mission Bay Park Committee voted near-unanimously on Jan. 2 to affirm Evans Hotels\u2019 proposed expansion and parking changes on its existing site at 998 W. Mission Bay Drive.\u00a0
\nPreviously, Evans noted expansion plans at Bahia call for moving, not eliminating public parking. “Parking will be put in approximately three, 100-space parking lots replacing the 270 spaces on Gleason Road with 273 spaces,” he said. “The Mission Bay master plan calls for removal of waterfront parking, and having concentrated areas of parking off Gleason Road put in.”
\nEvans anticipates his plans to expand Bahia Hotel while moving, not eliminating parking, will be heard and decided upon by the City Council sometime this summer. Bahia Point protest What: Bahia Point Paddle and Appreciation Day. When:?Starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, March 10 at Bahia Point.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mission Bay water enthusiasts are lobbying against Bahia Resort expansion plans on Bahia Point, which some claim threatens both public parking and beach access. Concerned residents announced they will hold a “Bahia Point Paddle and Appreciation Day” starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, March 10 at Bahia Point. “Bahia Hotel is proposing an expansion that […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":278727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Paddlers to protest against Bahia Resort\u2019s expansion proposal","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}