The San Diego City Council on Monday voted 6-3 to approve a five-year lease extension for Campland on the Bay campground, allowing it to expand to a large area of the recently closed De Anza Cove mobile home park.
Campland occupies a 46-acre space in the northeast corner of the Mission Bay Park and has been there for 50 years. Its lease was set to end next week.
The proposal from the owner of Campland is to extend its lease for five years. It would also take over a big part of the neighboring De Anza Cove trailer park.
“We want to recognize what a wonderful job they’ve done here with this natural resource for so many years,” Mission Bay Town Council president Matt Gardner said at a pre-council meeting rally in the Civic Center Plaza. “We’re excited for the opportunity they’ve been given the pathways that we have, increase the amount of people they can introduce to wonderful resources that we have at Mission Bay and to continue the cleanup effort that is desperately needed in that area.”
The mobile home park is in need of repairs and Campland has agreed to clean up the property in return for rent credit.
It was abandoned years ago and now many of the remaining mobile homes are falling apart. The Campland proposal includes cleaning up around 100 old and decrepit mobile homes.
“Anyone who goes and walks outside cannot look me in the eye and say that is not a crisis waiting to happen and that this is not an embarrassment as it stands,” Campland’s vice-president of operations Jacob Gelfand said. “The coastal bike and pedestrian path under this project would be made much safer, much more accessible for the public to enjoy.”
The San Diego Audubon Society is taking the lead for a number of groups that oppose the plan. The group says the city is merely putting off the inevitable and the Campland proposal is a giveaway to the owners of the campground. The Audubon Society says it does nothing to address serious environmental concerns in that part of Mission Bay.
“This proposal before the city council today does nothing to improve water quality,” said Andrew Meyer with the San Diego Audubon Society. “That’s the one measure that they should be doing that they are not doing.”
He said the city council needs to address the water quality issue with this proposal and any other proposals before it in the future regarding this part of Mission Bay.
Rod Meade, who opposes the Campland proposal, said the city is looking for a quick-fix to resolve a problem it created in the 1960s when it approved the mobile park site in Mission Bay.
"The reality is, this fix will likely turn into a nightmare," Meade said at the council meeting. "You're repeating the same mistake council made (years ago).
Even with Monday’s city council approval, it is far from a done deal. The proposal will still need the California Coastal Commission’s approval.
