The Encinitas City Council unanimously voted Wednesday to lift the “surplus” status for the property known as L-7 and agreed to start transforming it into a city park, saying there’s at least $3.1 million available for funding.
“This park needs to be there,” said Councilmember Jim O’Hara, who represents the city district that includes the property and won election to the council in November after vowing to make the site into the city’s newest park.
Wednesday’s vote was the latest decision in a long-running saga regarding the future of the nearly 9.4-acre property, which straddles Quail Gardens Drive. Encinitas purchased the land in 1999, using city park funds, and the property is listed in the city’s General Plan as a future park site. However, the site, which is zoned for housing, has been proposed for many other uses over the years, including everything from a library to a public works yard.
The most recent proposal involved a low-income housing project with some 40 units. The housing plans were wildly unpopular with surrounding homeowners, who noted that private developers were already building, or planning to build, some 1,100 housing units in the Quail Gardens Drive region. Despite intense opposition, the project moved forward and the land was declared surplus by the council in early 2024.
The housing plans were canceled in mid-November after the city’s mayor and a council member who supported the idea lost their elections. O’Hara won his council seat in that election — he now holds a spot previously occupied by a person who supported the housing project proposal, but decided not run for re-election in November.
On Wednesday, city employees offered the new council two options for transforming the property into a park. The first, which the council selected, calls for obtaining a major conditional-use permit, which would allow a park on land that’s zoned for housing. The council’s vote also included a provision that the L-7 property and the city’s existing parks be deed-restricted, with the goal of keeping them as parkland in perpetuity.
The second option was to rezone the property from residential to public/semi-public land. That would have required a lengthy, costly process, including a public vote under the terms of the city’s growth-control regulations, city employees said.
While neighboring residents cheered the council’s move Wednesday, saying their desires were finally being realized, Stephen Russell — president and CEO of the low-income housing advocacy organization San Diego Housing Federation — told the council that he believed the proposed action could put the city out of compliance with state housing laws.
“We want to put the city on notice that we are closely monitoring this issue,” he said.
Mayor Bruce Ehlers said the federation appeared to be threatening the city, but said, “This is one of those fights where we are within our rights” because the land was bought with city park funds.
Councilmember Joy Lyndes, the lone council member who supported last year’s housing plan and remains on the council now, said the prior council’s intention was to have both a park and housing project on the site. She said that would have given the city a project where all the housing units could have gone to low-income people, unlike the private developer-funded projects that have only set aside part of the units.
Her request to add a “friendly amendment” to the park item stating that Encinitas now would look for new sites to build a “100-percent, affordable” project failed to win support from other council members.
In addition to lifting the property’s previously declared “surplus” status, the council members also discussed funding options for the future park project. O’Hara said he has heard the city has at least $3.1 million in a housing development mitigation fund. This money should be set aside for the park, and the city also should explore working with the nonprofit fundraising group People for Encinitas Parks, he said.
Ehlers said that group got its start with the city’s Mildred MacPherson Park project years ago, and said city staff should research whether there might be even more than $3.1 million in the mitigation fund later this year, given the number of housing projects now under way.
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