Park Officials, Fairgrounds Covet Same Acreage

A polite verbal struggle taking place behind closed doors will decide whether the greening slopes of the San Dieguito River Valley east of Interstate 5 will be left as open space for a regional park or become a 5,000-car parking lot for the adjoining Del Mar Fairgrounds.

State fairgrounds officials want to buy 44 acres of the valley land for use as a grassy parking lot, and have offered $2.4 million to the owner, Coronado resident Ken Oberg.

Meanwhile, the forces behind development of the proposed San Dieguito River Valley Regional Park have received a $2.1-million grant to buy 90 acres--including the tract the fairgrounds seeks--as part of the 42-mile-long linear park that would stretch from the ocean at Del Mar to the mountains near Julian.

Jan Anton, president of the Del Mar Fair Board, which oversees the fairgrounds, sees a way for both groups to win. He advocates joint purchase of the property and joint decision-making on its use.

But park officials are leery of joining hands with Fair Board directors, whom they consider “expansionists” and a threat to the sensitive riparian habitat of the river valley.

Fairgrounds officials have had their eyes on the property, just east of the freeway and next to the state property, for five years or so, as the only possible place in which to expand the fairgrounds’ dwindling parking space, Anton said.

“We are more than willing to work with the (regional park authorities), to cooperate with them on a hydrology study to determine if the upland portion is suitable for parking cars,” Anton said. “We are even open to a long-term lease on a portion of the property. We don’t have to own the land.”

After all, he said, the land would be used as a parking lot only during the 20-day run of the Del Mar Fair each June and July, and possibly only during the weekend and holiday attendance crunches when fireworks displays or top entertainment bring in capacity crowds.

Diane Coombs, executive director of the regional park Joint Powers Authority, acknowledges that the prospect of cooperation between the two state agencies is preferable to the existing competition.

“It may be possible to accommodate in our plans some overflow parking for the fairgrounds,” she said, “but it won’t be possible to promise them the 35 acres they feel that they will require.”

Coombs said the river valley property east and south of the 330-acre fairgrounds is a prime target for regional park acquisition because of its high visibility from the freeway and its sensitive wetlands. Studies are planned to determine how best to restore the area to its former tidal lagoon status, she said.

“I suppose to people who are not familiar with the area, use of the (90 acres) as a park for 50 weeks of the year and as a parking lot for the other two weeks makes a lot of sense,” Coombs said, “but this is a decision that can only be made when it is determined what is needed to restore the lagoon and wetlands.”

She conceded that fairgrounds officials have “a legitimate problem” in meeting the parking needs of a million fair-goers each year, “and we are planning to cooperate with them in resolving it.”

More satellite parking areas in office complexes along Del Mar Heights Road and Mira Mesa Boulevard are being studied, and a special temporary train stop at the fairgrounds to service shuttle trains from San Diego north and from Oceanside south during the fair is supported by regional park officials, as are other methods aimed at reducing auto travel to the fair and inducing use of mass transit, Coombs said.

Talks are being held among staff members on both sides, she said, “and I think we will have something concrete to take back to our respective boards after another meeting or two.”

Andy Mauro, who represents the fairgrounds in the talks, said, “We can handle the traffic now, but we must look to the future. If we don’t find a way to provide additional parking . . . now, we’ll be high and dry in the future when there is no more suitable land to be acquired.”

In the past, the Fair Board has battled the park authorities over land to the south of the fairgrounds and lost. Now, both sides agree, no adjacent site other than the 90-acre tract remains.

“I think this is outrageous, to have two state agencies in a bidding war against each other, driving the price up,” said Brooke Eisenberg, former Del Mar City Council member and now a member of the Citizens Advisory Board of the regional park agency. “No matter what happens, the public loses. It should not have been allowed to happen.”

San Diego Councilman Ron Roberts, a member of the park policy board, sees a different problem. The Fair Board is ignoring the state, federal and local mandates to reduce traffic and improve air quality when it continues to provide more parking for automobiles, he said.

Roberts aide Ann Van Leer said the councilman supports measures to discourage fair-goers from arriving in autos by making parking more difficult and providing incentives to use public transportation.

Anton, who believes the Fair Board will win this latest battle over river valley land, favors “a compromise where everyone will win” and thinks the best way to reach it is “to lower the rhetoric and get to work on solving the problem” of providing parking for fair patrons and wetlands for the regional park.

“It’s not an impossible situation,” said San Diego Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, a member of the park policy-making board. “It is a problem, however, and I don’t think that we can allow the fairgrounds to expand into any more of the river valley.

“Use of the land for a few days a year? Well, there might be a little wiggle of bargaining room there,” Wolfsheimer said, “room for compromise.”