Taken Aback : Activists Rush to Blunt Impact of Planned Torrey Pines Research Park

Saying they were caught by surprise, activists in La Jolla and environmentalists have launched an 11th-hour campaign to limit the ecological and traffic impact of a sprawling scientific research park planned atop Torrey Pines Mesa.

The proposed Torrey Pines Science Center would spread about 2.5 million square feet of office space on land straddling the existing General Atomics plant north of UC San Diego.

Room for 30 Firms With room for as many as 30 firms, the project could add between 3,000 and 5,000 employees as well as more than 20,000 anticipated car trips a day to an area already beginning to feel the weight of a recent development boom.

The project, which is bounded by Interstate 5 on the east, Genesee Avenue to the south and Torrey Pines Road on the west, has gotten the green light from the San Diego Planning Department and is expected to go before the Coastal Commission early next year.

If all goes without a hitch for the developer, the Chevron Land and Development Co., grading could begin next spring, said Jim Whalen, project manager for Chevron.

“We’re real happy with the way it’s turned out,” Whalen said. “You can’t develop property like this any more sensitively than we’re doing it. One of our hopes is that people will point to this and say, ‘See, that’s the way to do that type of project.”’

Although the project has been on the drawing board for about three years, news of the sprawling development came as a surprise for many residents of nearby La Jolla.

Last week, the La Jolla Town Council lodged a protest with the San Diego Planning Commission, complaining that the project was shuttled through the city’s planning department without consulting the adjacent community.

“It’s incredibly poor planning,” said Rob Whittemore, town council president. “Already we’re seeing traffic bumper to bumper to get into that area in the morning.”

Officials with the Sierra Club’s San Diego chapter have also expressed concern about the project, pointing to the effect the more than 2 million cubic yards of grading will have on environmentally sensitive habitat ringing the development.

In particular, environmentalists are worried about the loss of 22 acres of coastal sage shrub in a large canyon that is considered prime habitat for the black tailed gnatcatcher, a bird being considered for the U.S. endangered species list.

Challenge Withdrawn Although the Sierra Club initially filed an appeal of the project, the group withdrew the challenge on Wednesday. Barbara Bamberger, the chapter’s conservation coordinator, said the group hopes to work with Chevron to enact changes that would ease the project’s effect on the habitat.

“Either way we went, some form of the project was going to go through, so we decided to try to work with them to insure there is as little damage to the environment as possible,” she said.

Nonetheless, environmentalists remain troubled by the project.

“I think it’s simply too much for the terrain there,” said Dan Allen, a La Jolla resident and member of the Sierra Club’s land-use committee. “They’re trying to put too much into a lot that’s a leftover from previous development. That area is mostly canyons, and they’re trying to shoehorn in more than appears appropriate.”

Allen also suggested that traffic from the project would affect not only on the immediate areas surrounding the research park, but on downtown La Jolla.

“There will be many people driving into La Jolla to go to the post office or through to Pacific Beach to find lunch,” Allen said.

Prediction of Gridlock Whittemore said the project indicates an ominous trend toward overdevelopment in the region surrounding the UC San Diego campus. With the Chevron project, a 400-room Sheraton hotel, the Black Horse Farms development and plans to double the size of the university during the next 25 years, the Torrey Pines area is headed toward gridlock, he predicted.

“Once again, it shows the incredible lack of foresight on the part of the city of San Diego,” Whittemore said. “What we need is a master plan that makes sense. We’re nickel and diming ourselves to death.”

Whalen, however, defended the project as a responsible example of careful community planning. Many of the ideas for the development, he said, came out of sessions with a committee made up of representatives from the city, the local planning group and UC San Diego.

Replanting Planned The only filling that will be necessary is for the access road leading from Genesee Avenue north through the eastern side of the project. To help offset the destruction of bird habitat, plans call for several hillsides that are disturbed to be replanted with native plant species, he said.

“What we’ll be replanting will be just that sort of coastal sage habitat that the bird needs,” Whalen said.

In addition, the project calls for sedimentation basins at each lot and along each canyon to help prevent silt from draining off and flowing into environmentally sensitive Los Penasquitos Lagoon about a mile north of the project, he said.

The entire parcel covers 300 acres, with the building pads on 140 acres along the tops of ridges that slope down toward Interstate 5. General Atomics, which was owned by Chevron until 1986, has existing structures that cover about 65 acres in the middle of the project.

While the project will attract more cars, several steps have been taken to significantly ease the impact, Whalen said.

Plans call for Genesee Avenue to be widened to six lanes as the project goes forward as well as provisions for improved turn lanes at the intersection with Torrey Pines Road. In addition, the overpass at Interstate 5 is to be widened to six lanes by 1993.

Chevron also is requiring that firms moving into the research park take part in a traffic management program that would encourage employees to participate in van pools and ride-sharing, Whalen said.

“Traffic should be at worst what it is like now, and perhaps even slightly better” when all the improvements are in place, Whalen predicted.

Time Allowed He also emphasized that development of the property would likely come over about a decade, allowing time for the various transportation improvements to take hold.

“This is a significant piece of property,” Whalen said. “It’s not like it’s going to develop in five minutes. It’s going to take a long time. A lot of people think that in the course of a year the traffic is going to go from good to terrible, and that’s just not true.”

Although not a spade of dirt has been turned the project has already received considerable interest from companies in the biotechnical and pharmaceutical business, Whalen said. Letters of intent have been signed for 10 lots on the west side of the project, he said.