CARLSBAD — The city’s Parks and Recreation Department will prioritize maintaining and improving existing parks rather than building new ones and increasing the number of pickleball courts, according to a master plan update.
The update, providing guidance for the department through 2030, will not impact current park development plans, including two of the most significant undertakings in Veterans Memorial Park and Robertson Ranch Community Park. Outside of these new parks, the department will focus on education on sustainable practices, evaluations of fees and protocols and adding and improving amenities for the next seven years.
“The focus itself is to maintain our existing high-quality parks and recreation services but adapt them to the current needs and priorities of the community,” said Parks & Recreation Director Kyle Lancaster.
During a Sept. 26 meeting, Neelay Bhatt of Next Practice Partners, a consultant group that worked with the city on data to inform the new master plan, told the Carlsbad City Council that in a citywide survey of residents’ satisfaction with services, only a small percentage of people surveyed responded that their needs for a local park were not met.
Bhatt said the data points to a desire for services instead.
When asked if they would like to see a greater emphasis on recreation projects, programs and services, 2% said no and 60% said yes.
“This is a consistent pattern I’ve seen through that pandemic and, again, speaks well to what the community here values,” Bhatt said.
The exception to the deprioritization of new development is pickleball: Parks and Recreation will look into potential sites for more courts to meet the high demand. Poinsettia Park hosts the city’s six courts, which residents say are a hot commodity.
The Carlsbad City Council directed staff to prioritize new areas for pickleball courts rather than converting tennis courts, a move led by Mayor Keith Blackburn, who said he didn’t want a turf war between pickleball and tennis players.
Some residents criticized the plan for its lack of direction on a park in the Ponto area.
“Homeowners have consistently provided facts and data that prove unequivocally that south Carlsbad is underserved in parks,” resident Mark O’Donnell said. “And it doesn’t take much to look around that area to see that the entire area is rife for improvements.”
Ponto residents have long fought for a park in southwest Carlsbad, even suggesting the city buy 11 acres near Cape Rey Hotel, but the idea hit a dead end when the owner was unwilling to sell. The Coast News previously reported that local group People for Ponto had lobbied the city about the development for seven years.
“Every time there was a vote on anything related to planning area F, the people raised their voice and asked you to develop Ponto,” Jodi Jones of People for Ponto said in the meeting. “They asked for Ponto Park.”
Bhatt presented a map of all the parks and recreation areas in the city with circles representing the area the park serves. The city’s standard is three acres of park space per 1,000 residents.
Per the busy map, Veterans Memorial Park, at the intersection of Cannon Road and Faraday Avenue, serves the Ponto area, but residents say that’s inaccurate because coastal residents need to cross Interstate 5 to get there.
“It’s great to see charts and graphs saying everyone’s happy things are good; just keep doing what you’re doing,” Jones said. “But I’ve listened to the community for five years, which I know is not as long as many people, but there is a big hole in the data that is not being represented.”
Councilmember Teresa Acosta made a motion for staff to research options for a park in the southwest quadrant and bring them back to the council, but the motion did not pass in a 3-2 vote.
