South Bay Refloats Peninsula Plan in Push to Create Showplace

* The peninsula would extend north about 5,000 feet and would be 300 to 400 feet wide.

* Various configurations are under study, the land mass would roughly encompass 40 acres.

* The cost is estimated at up to $30 million, but that is very preliminary.

For years, South Bay leaders have bemoaned their plight as the backwater of San Diego Bay, an image reflected by its endless strips of car lots rather than by the tourist trappings it would like to have.

The area’s past, present and future can best be described in a word: Potential.

Much of that potential lies in its bayfront shoreline, a mishmash of huge Navy piers, private industrial complexes, environmentally sensitive wetlands and marshes, salt flats, and a popular marina.

Change has come slowly and in some cases not at all, in part because development dreams have run head-on into the reality of environmental constraints, with bricks and mortar competing for space with fish and birds, such as the endangered California least tern and light-footed clapper rail.

It is not a coincidence that the tourist and commercial waterfront projects the South Bay most envies and wants to emulate--mainly those located north of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge--were in large part built without the constraints of today’s new and significant environmental laws. Those rules and regulations now hamper the South Bay’s plans.

The proposals, though, keep coming, and one of the most ambitious is the resurrection of a far-reaching plan to build a Shelter Island-like peninsula in Chula Vista. Such a man-made land mass, the city hopes, would do for it and the rest of the South Bay what Shelter Island does for San Diego, namely draw locals and tourists alike to a recreation showplace of boats, restaurants, hotels and open space.

The San Diego Unified Port District--the agency that would be responsible for building it--seems amenable to the idea, and if the peninsula is ever constructed, the South Bay may finally get its “fair share” of Port District-financed projects and a large chunk of respect.

“Things have come to a place in the development of San Diego Bay and now is the time to do it,” says Phil Creaser, who until he retired last week represented Chula Vista on the Board of Port Commissioners for nine years. “The concept has been around for several years . . . but it was taken out of the port’s master plan because of concerns about cost and environmental questions. It was decided then that it was a battle to fight some other day. Well, that day has come.

“For years, it’s been the policy that there were other projects (in the North Bay) that were more deserving of attention in the development of the bay . . . but now it’s time to do it in the South Bay.”

Creaser and other peninsula advocates also point to the South Bay’s population growth, now roughly 250,000 in the communities of National City, Imperial Beach, San Ysidro and Chula Vista, and the resulting demand for waterfront recreational activities as another reason why the project is needed.

One illustration of this, project supporters say, is the popularity of the Port District-built Chula Vista marina, where 320 boat slips will soon be added to the original 552 slips, which are full.

Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox says that historically the Port District has been reluctant to spend money on major South Bay projects because it was worried whether such developments would provide the district with enough return on its investment. Calling it the “chicken and egg” syndrome, Cox says that “until there is a significant commitment of revenue by the port, we can’t be a large revenue producer.”

A commercially developed peninsula, with a big hotel and restaurants, would provide more than an adequate return to the Port District, according to the mayor.

It was that line of thinking which led the Chula Vista City Council last month to formally ask the Board of Port Commissioners to endorse the idea, which it did unanimously. The board authorized its staff to draft a preliminary design and engineering study of the proposal and to analyze its feasibility, including its ecological impacts.

Since then, and on another front, Chula Vista’s plan for an unrelated major bayfront development might have been hit with a potentially killing blow. In a proposed legal settlement, a large landowner on the bayfront has agreed to scrap plans for a hotel and convention center on Gunpowder Point--the anchor of Chula Vista’s bayfront project--and convey the property to the federal government as a wildlife refuge. The city is challenging the settlement in court.

But there’s no doubt, Cox acknowledged, that if the city loses, it will put more pressure than ever on creation of the peninsula, which the mayor said would be a better site for a hotel than Gunpowder Point because it would offer “a much more commanding view of the Coronado bridge, downtown and the Strand.”

The project is still in its infancy, and it will be several months before it has reached a form that is ready for more review by the Board of Commissioners, say Port District officials working on the plans.

Generally, the idea is to build the peninsula offshore from the Chula Vista marina, using an extension of J Street as the main entrance point. The peninsula would extend north about 5,000 feet and would be 300 to 400 feet wide. While various configurations are under study, the land mass would roughly encompass 40 acres. Its cost is estimated at up to $30 million, although that is very preliminary. And its construction would not be easy.

Muddy Problem

From a strictly engineering standpoint, the problem is mud, which in the South Bay is very porous and unable to hold much weight, certainly not anything near the pressure brought to bear by buildings. The Port District recently drilled 50 test holes at the site. It found that the unstable mud runs as deep as 10 feet. That means the mud will have to be dredged and replaced with solid fill, according to the Port District’s engineer, John Wilbur. In contrast, expansive mud was never a problem during the construction of either Harbor Island or Shelter Island.

Dredging, however, leads to perhaps the biggest obstacle of all facing the peninsula--a formidable environmental gauntlet. The Port District, the City of Chula Vista and the host of environmental agencies that would be called upon to review the project all acknowledge that unless these environmental concerns can be adequately addressed, the peninsula plan will never get beyond drawings on paper. And that will be a most difficult task.

For starters, the peninsula would be built in the South Bay’s shallow water, a documented significant wetlands habitat for fish and birds. Two endangered bird species, the California least tern and the light-footed clapper rail, make their home in the area, with the least tern relying in part on fish for its diet.

Many of the fish live and are nourished by the eel grass that grows in the mud that would be dug out and replaced. Among the fish living in the southern end of the bay are the barred bass, spotted bass, top smelt, California killi fish, the sting ray, leopard shark, striped mullet, anchovy and gobies, according to Robert Hoffman, fishery biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is only one of several agencies that will have to be involved in reviewing the peninsula project. Others include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the state Department of Fish and Game, the California Coastal Commission, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and probably the Environmental Protection Agency.

Replacing Lost Habitat

As a general rule, according to spokesmen for most of the environmental agencies involved, before the peninsula could be built, the Port District would have to provide an equal replacement for the lost habitat caused by the dredging at a minimum acre-per-acre ratio.

That means, in essence, building or making available a new habitat. Whether the mud dug up from the bottom of the bay could be used for this is another question to which there is no answer.

Just as important is the question of where such a new habitat would be located.

“It would be very difficult for a project such as this, which impacts resources, to achieve that kind of mitigation within the bay” because there isn’t much room left that could accommodate a new habitat, said Richard Harlacher, Southern California section coordinator for the Army Corps of Engineers, which would have to issue a construction permit for the project.

While other port districts, principally those in Long Beach and Los Angeles, have been able to find off-site mitigation projects for their developments, such as in Seal Beach and in San Diego County’s Batiquitos Lagoon, the types of natural resources found in South San Diego Bay are much more valuable than those in Los Angeles Harbor and thus much more difficult to replace, said Harlacher.

Though Harlacher, like all the other environmental agency representatives interviewed for this story, said he has yet to be formally contacted by the Port District about the peninsula plan, he says it’s clear “it’s going to be very difficult” for the project to receive the proper environmental clearances.

That view is echoed by Hoffman of the National Marine Fisheries Service. “We would have concerns with a project of that size,” he said. “It would require filling of the bay and impacting important marine resources. One of the difficulties is coming up with a reasonable mitigation.”

In one sense, the South Bay will be penalized for its late start because while it has waited for a project such as the peninsula, many other parts of the bay have been developed so that the problem of finding a wetlands replacement is that much more onerous. Hoffman says the problem is not peculiar to San Diego.

“It’s a problem all over the state as it has undergone tremendous growth . . . because there has been so much development, most of the easy ones (land for replacement habitat) have been taken. So you are left with the tough ones. It’s time consuming and not something solved quickly.”

In order for the peninsula to be built, the Port District would also need to change its master development plan, which can only be done with the approval of the California Coastal Commission.

Not only would the Port District have to prove to the commission that the peninsula was justified, but it would also again have to meet very stringent mitigation measures, said Chuck Damm, the south coast district director for the commission. “By justification we don’t mean why you need another hotel,” he said.

“Our concerns,” Damm said, “would be related to the environmental impact of adding fill to the shallow waters . . . that have a significant habitat value for birds and small organisms that provide food for fish.” That doesn’t mean, however, a peninsula is impossible, he said. For example, Damm said that although it is probably unrealistic to expect to find replacement wetland areas in the bay, an alternative might be found in the Tijuana River Valley.

One thing seems clear, according to both representatives of the various environmental agencies and officials from the Port District and Chula Vista, the road ahead for the peninsula project indeed will be a long one, and it might not be until almost the mid-point of the next decade before the peninsula--if it can be approved--is built.