Del Mar Acquires Parcel Near Lagoon

The city of Del Mar has purchased a quarter of an acre bordering San Dieguito Lagoon, property that will be an important part of plans to preserve the lagoon, Mayor Jacqueline Winterer said Monday.

Winterer explained that, if such property remains commercially owned there is extraordinary pressure to put rock or other protective devices on the waterfront to save the property from floods, and that hurts the lagoon’s natural ebbs and flows.

The city paid Charles Scott $500,000 in cash for the four lots, where an abandoned 4,000-square-foot manufacturing plant now stands. The parcel is southeast of the Del Mar Fairgrounds off San Dieguito Road.

The money for the purchase came from an open space fund established by the city five years ago but never used. Since then, the city has taken $100,000 from the general fund each year and put it in the open space fund.

City officials said it is important to purchase the land now so it can be integrated into plans to develop a regional park.

The San Dieguito River Park Joint Powers Authority, which is made up of representatives of the county and the cities of San Diego, Del Mar, Escondido, Poway, San Diego and Solana Beach, is developing plans for a 60,000-acre greenbelt stretching inland from the mouth of the San Dieguito River.

“Our mission is to see (this area) become a park, and this (purchase) is part of the beginning of that,” said former Del Mar Mayor Brooke Eisenberg, president of the San Dieguito River Valley Land Conservancy, the nonprofit group established to raise funds and preserve land in the river valley.

In 1991, as part of the overall park plan, the joint powers authority used state and city of San Diego money to purchase 89 acres just east of the fairgrounds. Also, Southern California Edison has agreed to purchase 87 acres just east of I-5 as part of its mitigation plans for the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

The lagoon land purchase “provides another link in a chain that is going to anchor this portion of the 55-mile park,” said Diane Coombs, executive director of the joint powers authority.