Posted on November 16, 2017
By David Garrick, The San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego officials unveiled plans this week to spend $117 million over the next 10 years upgrading Mission Bay Park with new amenities, restored marshland and additional habitat for endangered species.
New amenities will include cycling and pedestrian paths, playgrounds, a fitness course, lighting, signs, landscaping, resurfaced parking lots and rehabilitation of the seawall.
City officials had previously been blocked from spending the park’s lease revenue on such upgrades, but city voters one year ago amended those regulations by approving Measure J.
Before being amended, the regulations required the park’s share of lease revenues be devoted to two priorities: dredging the floor of the bay to boost boating opportunities and restoration of marshland, which helps fight sea level rise.
The amendment maintains those priorities but allows the city to begin spending money on lower-priority projects while lengthy environmental approvals are secured for dredging and marshland restoration.
The $117 million includes $25 million the city has accumulated in recent years because the old regulations severely restricted expenditures.
The rest of the money will come from the park’s annual share of lease revenue generated there, which is expected to slowly and steadily increase to $10.8 million in fiscal year 2026 from $7.2 million in fiscal year 2018.
The park’s leases, including SeaWorld and some resort hotels, generate more than $30 million a year for the city.
The first $20 million goes to the city’s general fund, with the remainder divided up between Mission Bay Park and the city’s other regional parks: Balboa Park, Mission Trails Regional Park, Chollas Lake Park, Otay River Valley Park, Presidio Park and the San Diego River Park.
Before the amendment voters approved in November 2016, Mission Bay Park got 75 percent of that money and the others parks split the remaining 25 percent. The amendment shrunk Mission Bay Park’s share to 65 percent, with 35 percent now devoted to the other parks.
City Councilwoman Lorie Zapf, who lives in the Bay Ho area of Clairemont, hailed the amended spending regulations during a Monday meeting of the council’s Infrastructure Committee.
“This process is phenomenally better than it was before,” Zapf said. “We couldn’t do any of these smaller improvements around Mission Bay. I’m thrilled to see everything actually happening.”
The city also plans to accelerate completion of the projects by doing a comprehensive analysis of how all of them together would affect traffic and the environment, instead of analyzing the impact of each of the projects separately.
The spending on amenities is slated to include $11.5 million on playgrounds, $9 million on restrooms, $5.3 million on parking lots, $3.5 million filling gaps in bicycle and pedestrian paths and $2 million for an adult fitness course on the bay’s eastern shore.
The money also covers $1.8 million for signs and landscaping, $1.3 million for lighting, $2 million to upgrade the Santa Clara Recreation Center and $1 million for improvements to the San Diego River Trail.
Other planned expenditures include $27.5 million for upgrades to the Ocean Front Walk Seawall, which is 10,500 feet long, and $500,000 for a path connecting the North Ocean Beach Gateway project to Robb Field Park.
The city must annex the gateway project, which is located at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and West Point Loma Boulevard, into Mission Bay Park in order to spend lease revenue money on the pathway.
Councilman Chris Ward, who lives in University Heights, said during the Infrastructure Committee hearing that’s he’s concerned enlarging the park could create more opportunities to commercialize parts of it, potentially allowing additional hotels.
That concern is based on city regulations dictating that a maximum of 25 percent of the park’s acreage can be devoted to commercial activities.
“Whether that is a good or a bad thing, I think it’s a pretty big thing,” Ward said.
Zapf said those concerns are overblown because the parcel proposed for annexation is less than an acre in size.
But the also plans to annex into the park more than 20 acres of the 46-acre Campland-on-the-Bay site so that the entire parcel can be restored to marshland.
City officials said the latest estimates they have indicate just over 22 percent of the park is used for commercial purposes.
Two years ago the city launched a separate effort to study how to redevelop the park’s northeast corner, which includes Campland-on-the-Bay, the defunct De Anza Cove mobile home park and Mission Bay Golf Course.
Two preliminary proposals envision the area becoming a combination of recreational amenities and restored marshland.
The 10-year plans includes costs for that work within the $28.5 million the city is slated to spend on marsh restoration and water quality improvements. Other areas slated for restored marshland include Fiesta Island, Tecolote Creek and Cudahy Creek.
The 10-year plans also calls for $12.1 million in dredging work, which city officials hope to begin this winter so much of it can be completed before the summer nesting season.
The plan also includes upgrades to a piece of land known as “bowling pin” island, which aims to allow more of the park’s birds and other endangered species to use the land as habitat.
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
