DEL MAR — The cities of Del Mar and Solana Beach, along with the Del Mar Fairgrounds, have entered into a joint agreement outlining their expectations for the San Diego Association of Governments as they continue planning for the regional rail realignment project.
The resolution was created in response to three proposed realignments for the Los Angeles-San Luis Obispo-San Diego rail corridor in Del Mar, which SANDAG said would be advancing for environmental study in a notice of preparation released this summer.
These alignments include one starting in Solana Beach and running along Interstate 5, known as Alternative A, and two options starting in Del Mar, one following Crest Canyon (Alternative B) and another along Camino Del Mar (Alternative C).
Alternative A quickly garnered strong opposition due to its high cost and potentially devastating impacts on the Fairgrounds and other infrastructure in Solana Beach. Officials from both entities also noted that SANDAG never included them in discussions about the route before it appeared in the NOP.
Last week, Del Mar, Solana Beach and the 22nd District Agricultural Association — the board governing the Fairgrounds — signed a joint resolution calling on SANDAG to engage all affected parties equally in route discussions and to bring back new route alignments that limit negative impacts wherever possible, among other demands.
“The joint resolution is really intended to find commonalities between all of the stakeholders in the process to provide SANDAG, what our expectations are, what our priorities are, aligned across all three cities and the agricultural district,” said Solana Beach City Manager Alyssa Muto.
Along with equal engagement of stakeholders, the resolution calls for SANDAG to consider how to avoid or minimize negative or adverse impacts on businesses, public and private property, public safety, tourism, sensitive environmental areas and the regional economy.
It also said decision-making related to a route, project objectives and determinations of significance under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, should be based on research, engineering and technical evaluations.
Strategic resolution
The resolution was also a strategic move for Del Mar, as the small city fights for a voice in the regional project that will have unprecedented local impacts.
Alternative A had more support among Del Mar residents than in neighboring Solana Beach due to its avoidance of a tunnel portal within the city of Del Mar. However, city officials agreed that none of the proposed alignments in the NOP were acceptable, partially due to the lack of specific details regarding each route.
“We’re trying to hold hands with our neighbors and have a collaborative approach to leverage SANDAG in the way we want,” said Del Mar Councilmember Dwight Worden, whose last council meeting will be Sept. 24. “We will have a lot more juice with them, if all of us are collaborating and using the same voice.”
For Del Mar, the resolution is also a show of goodwill to the Fairgrounds, which recently decided to pause discussions with Del Mar about building state-required housing on their property until the city formally opposes Alternative A.
The City Council has chosen not to take a stance on any alignments yet until SANDAG can provide more details about the exact locations of tunnels and other infrastructure. This will help to clarify who may have a conflict of interest.
Since the action of the 22nd DAA, state housing officials have already begun reaching out to Del Mar, asking them to demonstrate that housing discussions are moving forward, said City Manager Ashley Jones.
“I want to remind everyone that there’s more at stake, and there’s more this is intended to do than just deal with the LOSSAN issue. It’s also intended to work collaboratively with our partners to try to keep things on track and maintain good partnerships,” said Jones.
The resolution also includes the city of San Diego, which has yet to sign it.
Next steps
During the NOP scoping process, SANDAG received over 1,500 comments from individual residents and local agencies regarding the three planned routes.
Solana Beach City Manager Alyssa Muto stated that SANDAG has paused the NOP process and is now engaging in a value analysis using a third-party consultant. This process will engage all affected stakeholders in discussing concerns and technical aspects of each alignment and is expected to be completed later this fall.
However, SANDAG clarified that while the value analysis is a new step that was added in order to find consensus among stakeholders, the NOP process was not paused and was already complete as of July.
“The joint resolution is very much in line with the value analysis work we are doing in partnership with Carlsbad, Del Mar, Encinitas, San Diego, Solana Beach, the 22nd District Agricultural Association, North County Transit District, and Caltrans. By working together, our hope is to find consensus around a range of alternatives to study in the environmental analysis phase for the LOSSAN Rail Realignment project,” SANDAG said in a statement.
Copies of all comments on the NOP are expected to be made available for public review in the coming weeks.
At the same time, SANDAG is also in the process of identifying a lead federal agency that will work with them on a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) study, separate from the state-level CEQA study.
Both must be completed before the project can progress, and a final alternative can be chosen.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to add a statement from SANDAG that the NOP process is not paused, but was completed in July.
