Port Declines to Act on Barrio Logan Parkland

Despite impassioned pleas from local politicians and community leaders, the San Diego Board of Port Commissioners on Tuesday refused to act on a request to increase Barrio Logan’s parkland and bayfront access by expanding Bayfront Park.

The city councils of San Diego, Chula Vista, National City and Coronado joined with Barrio Logan residents to request that the commission change the designation of 2.2 acres next to the park from industrial use to public use--thereby creating a 5.4-acre park at the foot of Crosby Street.

Instead, the board, stymied by what one commissioner called the “Solomon-like decisions” before it, tabled the expansion proposal and voted unanimously to select an engineering consultant to study how to build a berthing pier off the land. However, the board also specified for the first time that the consultant will be directed to study alternative uses for the 2.2-acre plot that would not interfere with public enjoyment of it.

San Diego City Councilman Bob Filner, who spoke in support of the park expansion, said he was pleased with the board’s action.

“The original recommendation was for purely an engineering study of a berthing pier. Now they’ve agreed that the land has to be compatible with the park,” he said. “If that land is ever going to be redesignated (as parkland), you have to consider what other uses are possible. This is definitely a step toward full recreational use.”

But Al Ducheny, the chairman of the Harborview Community Council, a group of Barrio Logan and Logan Heights residents, said he was disappointed by the port commissioners’ “arrogance” and “lack of intestinal fortitude.”

“I’m angered by the way they brush aside the sentiments of a community,” he said. “As long as the 2.2 acres remains designated industrial, there will be a sword hanging over the head of Barrio Logan. We’ll never know what possible dangers are in the water. And we have no way of checking.”

Ducheny and others are worried that whatever industry is allowed to set up shop on the land, the neighboring park will suffer through pollution. They noted that, although affluent, predominantly white Coronado was awarded a 54-acre park, the poorer Barrio Logan community, which is mostly black and Latino, has spent nearly 20 years fighting for just 5.4 acres.

“This is about equity,” said Jorge Luis Parra, a spokesman for the Mexican American Political Assn. of the South Bay.

Don Nay, executive director of the San Diego Unified Port District, said the community can rest assured that the land will not be used for shipbuilding or ship repair, which do have emissions that “would be incompatible with the park.”