Tiny Encinitas Park Sparks a Controversy

From the uppermost part of Pimple Point, there is nothing but sea and sky all around and Encinitas at your feet.

The neighbors named it “Pimple Point” and they say it with a smile. It’s a tiny vest-pocket park on the highest knoll in town west of the freeway.

This 1.76-acre viewpoint came into being as part of an agreement with San Diego County that allowed McKellar Development of La Jolla to build a 99-unit condominium complex--Haciendas de las Playas--at Vulcan Avenue and D Street about three years ago.

Since it was graded and landscaped and planted, however, the little park has fallen on hard times--caught up in a bureaucratic tussle between McKellar and county officials. With arguments about plants, watering and access for the disabled, it may be a while before the land becomes part of the county park system.

As Joe McGuire tells it, the developer was required to create and maintain the park until its flower beds were established, its trees strong and straight and its grass thick and green. McGuire is a park planner for the county who knows better than to accept a park that isn’t up to snuff.

As Rich McDonald sees it, the park is built to specifications, its plants established. Now it’s time for the county to take it over. McDonald is residential general manager for McKellar Development.

For the last two months or so, the tiny park had languished without any watering while the negotiations limped along and bogged down. Jim Tolley, manager of the San Dieguito Water District located across D Street from the park, confirmed that water had been turned off after McKellar officials quit paying the water bills.

McDonald said the development firm dropped its maintenance work and water payments at the point when the county was to take over the chores. The county, however, in the words of McGuire, “isn’t about to take over anything in that condition.”

At a meeting late last week at which McGuire and McDonald met at the D Street park to settle their respective employers’ differences, a state Coast Coastal Commission representative acted as mediator.

The developer began watering the park again before the meeting .

But during a stormy session on a sunny morning, another issue--accessibility of the park to people in wheelchairs--became the key issue, taking precedence over the unweeded flower beds, the drought-stunted trees and the unmown grass.

“Can you imagine what would happen if we accepted a (county) park which was not accessible to the handicapped?” McGuire pointed out after the conference. County park policies require that public parks be accessible to the disabled.

McDonald pointed out that the concrete walkway snaking up the hillside to a viewpoint was constructed at a grade approved by county engineers and contained level “rest stops” at intervals where wheelchair-bound visitors could pause during the climb.

McGuire said the walkway would have to win approval of the county’s handicapped advisory committee before any county takeover of the park could occur. He said he would assemble committee members Tuesday at the Encinitas minipark to view the walkway and to test it.

The park department official explained that much of the problem at the park occurred because the developer had used plants that required very little watering--another county policy--and then had over-watered the vegetation, causing it to revert to a state that required large amounts of water.

However, McGuire said the park’s plants, some of them brown-tinged from a two-month lack of watering, probably would recover. If the amount of water used on the park is gradually decreased, the plants eventually will require much less watering, he explained.

Once the watering is reduced, the flower beds are weeded and the dead grass removed, he said, the county can consider acceptance of the park from McKellar, but only if the park walkway is accepted as suitable by the handicapped advisory committee.

Larry Mahan, a resident of the Encinitas Highlands neighborhood, told an Encinitas community group at one point last week that the pint-sized green spot was “a waste of time,” not large enough or level enough to serve as a recreational area in a town which has few flat spots and fewer public parks.

Mahan criticized the practice of county acceptance of developer-built parks which he said lead to proliferation of substandard park areas. He said the park proposals “tend to be bargaining chips between the county and the developer” and “almost inevitably provide not the park we want.”

However, R.B. Claire, county park development chief, said that the park may be expanded by another 1.2 acres of flat and level land to the west as part of a proposed apartment development at D Street and San Dieguito Drive. The issue comes up as a county general plan amendment to be heard by the Board of Supervisors Wednesday.