SAN DIEGO — The City Council agreed Monday night to enter into a termination agreement with Ocean Industries to remove open space protections outlined in a 40-year-old grant deed for the Surf Sports Park property along Via de la Valle, and implement new protections via amendments to its lease with youth soccer organization Surf Cup Sports.
The grant deed in question was adopted in 1983, when developer Watts Industries/San Diego (now Ocean Industries) conveyed land in the San Dieguito River Valley to the city of San Diego. This included the 114-acre site, known as the polo fields and Surf Sports Park, which has been used for years by the San Diego Polo Club and more recently by Surf Cup Sports.
A section in the deed, Exhibit B, sets restrictions on land uses, including a requirement to preserve it as open space with “passive non-commercial recreational uses” and a prohibition on large assemblages of cars and people.
After nearly a decade of disputes regarding specific allowed uses on the land, and amidst a lawsuit from residents accusing the city of failing to enforce the terms of the grant deed, city officials said they are eliminating the vague restrictions about permitted land uses and adding more specific rules to Surf Cup’s 2016 lease for fields.
District 1 City Councilmember Joe LaCava, whose district includes the sports park, said these changes will make it easier for the city to enforce regulations and address residents’ concerns.
“With all the number of issues raised, I’m focused on maintaining the open space protections found in Exhibit B of the 1983 grant deed, preventing an intensification of uses on the property, strengthening the current lease to give the city more tools and to hold the lessee accountable, removing the vagueness that has plagued this lease since 2016, and which I have been very vocal about,” said LaCava.
The motion to eliminate the grant deed and amend Surf Cup’s lease passed 6-2-1, with councilmembers Marni von Wilpert and Raul Campillo opposed and Jennifer Campbell absent.
In letters and spoken comments, hundreds of residents, several of whom live near the fields, urged the council not to eliminate the deed, stating that it breaks a promise made to residents to preserve the land as open space.
State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, the cities of Del Mar and Solana Beach, San Dieguito Planning Group, Rancho Santa Fe Homeowners Association, San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy, Environmental Center of San Diego, and Sierra Club San Diego Chapter also registered their opposition.
“Removing these protections would break a promise made to the community, and send the message that protection covenants are reversible and vulnerable,” San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy President Lee Haydu told the council on Monday.
Many of these same groups and residents have reached out to the city multiple times since 2016, complaining that Surf Cup has violated the grant deed due to excessive vehicle traffic and noise caused by large tournaments with thousands of people.
Residents’ frustration was evident at the meeting, with repeated instances of shouting out, prompting LaCava to threaten to clear the chambers if people didn’t quiet down.
San Diego granted Surf Cup Sports a formal lease of the fields in 2016, after years in which Surf had operated as a sublessee. The grant deed restrictions were integrated into Surf’s lease.
However, many residents say Surf has been intensifying the number of people and cars at the fields since its lease began.
Surf representatives and families, many holding “Support Surf Sports Park” signs, were also present at Monday’s meeting to support the termination of the grant deed.
Surf Cup CEO Brian Enge said they will not be intensifying their use of the park. Enge also emphasized the park’s status as a premier international soccer destination, and Surf’s positive impacts on youth and the region as a whole via scholarships, youth athletics opportunities, and overall financial stimulus to the San Diego area.
“The proposed grant deed revision and lease update before you today will ensure that Surf can continue benefitting San Diego communities into the future. They provide a clear and balanced solution to the challenges the city currently faces with the property; one that protects the city, respects surrounding neighbors, and ensures the park can continue serving our community as it has for decades,” Enge said.
Residents of the Fairbanks Polo Club Homes, who are suing the city for failing to enforce the terms of the grant deed, say the city’s decision also illegally overrides the grantor rights which Ocean Industries transferred to the homeowners in 2018.
These rights grant them the “rights, privileges and powers” to oversee the terms of the grant deed and “approve all discretionary uses” at the site.
However, Surf Cup and the City of San Diego have argued in court that the homeowners do not have any valid grantor rights, because this assignment of rights was made to Fairbanks Polo Club Homeowners Association, while the group’s correct name is Fairbanks Polo Club Homes.
Fairbanks Polo Club Homes filed a separate lawsuit against Ocean Industries in April seeking to correct their name on the 2018 assignment of grantor’s rights.
Coast Law Group attorney Livia Borak, representing the homeowners, said they will ask the court to prevent the city and Ocean Industries from eliminating the grant deed at an upcoming hearing.
“The assignment was clear — we got all of Ocean’s rights. What happened yesterday, we believe, was illegal,” Borak said.
New lease terms
The council agreed to add various new requirements to Surf’s lease to make up for the deletion of the grant deed. These include:
- Defining the park as open space,
- Setting an annual limit on the number of events,
- Addressing traffic, dust, and litter mitigation,
- Adding deadlines for work on the Coast to Crest Trail,
- Not holding tournaments on the Fourth of July to prevent exacerbating traffic from the Fairgrounds,
- Requiring Surf to post a calendar of its planned tournaments and events to allow better community planning
The 1983 grant deed did not originally set a limit on the number of large events allowed per year, nor did it clearly define what constituted a large event. Watts Industries later amended the deed to include a 25-day limit on soccer and lacrosse tournaments and dog shows.
On Monday, San Diego city officials agreed to set a limit of 40 days of large events per year. The city defined “large events” as those using at least 18 of the 24 soccer fields on the property for soccer events, or those with at least 2,000 attendees for non-sporting events.
A staff report says this 40-day total accounts for the 25-day limit expressed by Watts, plus the average 15 days of polo club events that were historically held at the fields from the 1990s to 2015.
“It is important to note that removing the 1983 grant deed restrictions does not mean the City will increase the number of large events held on the property each year,” the staff report states, adding that the new provisions would “require Surf to continue the same activities and programs that have occurred on the site for decades.”
Several speakers argued that Surf’s activities far exceed those in years past and said the 40-day limit would only further increase cars and people, to the detriment of the nearby San Dieguito River Park, residents and roadways.
Resident Beth Nelson said she was already seeing an increased impact on traffic in the area by the time Surf Cup took over the lease in 2016, and it has only gotten worse since then.
“Our roads and infrastructure were insufficient to handle this level of activity and traffic at the site then, and nothing has changed in almost the decade since except that the events and practices have gotten bigger and more frequent, so the impacts have become more severe,” Nelson said. “Despite what you’ve been told about historical use not changing, anyone who lives in the area can attest that it has.”
Traffic flow is expected to improve somewhat in the area when El Camino Real is widened from Via de la Valle to San Dieguito Road, a project expected to begin next summer.
The original lease also required Surf Cup to restore a portion of the Coast to Crest Trail located along the southern border of the fields following the San Dieguito River, but did not include a deadline for this work.
Over nine years after the lease was adopted, Surf has confirmed that they are just now beginning work on the trail. The City Council set a mid-2027 deadline for completing the initial restoration, with additional maintenance to take place in the following years.
Von Wilpert questioned why Surf Cup officials have yet to complete the restoration and why the city has not stepped up enforcement to ensure it is completed sooner.
“The fact that we had to put in a date today to put the Coast to Crest trail completion in, and it wasn’t contemplated before this meeting, just shows me we haven’t really leveraged our power as a city to require the lessee to do what they said they would do 10 years ago,” von Wilpert said.
Enge said the organization chose to prioritize investing in their fields first via a $7 million project that included extensive sod work, and then address the Coast to Crest Trail afterward.
At the request of von Wilpert, Surf officials also said they would attend an upcoming San Dieguito River Park JPA meeting on Nov. 14 to provide more information about the group’s trail restoration plans.
LaCava, supported by the council, also gave direction to update the base rent and percentage rent Surf Cup pays for the fields by next September, and that the gross revenue be calculated across the entire premises. The economic development department was also instructed to provide evidence that Surf Cup is current with all required payments.
Since 2016, Surf Cup has paid the city a quarterly base rent of $60,000 plus 10% of the gross revenues. LaCava did not propose a specific rent change.
Following a heated exchange with city officials, Surf also agreed to pay a recreation impact fee of $18 per hour per field during its large events. Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, representing District 9, said this would be consistent with the fee applied to other sports organizations that hold events at city parks, to fund youth recreation opportunities in San Diego.
Surf representatives initially pushed back against the request. Randy Grossman, an attorney representing Surf, arguing that Surf already pays significant money to the city through its lease. Grossman also said he would be happy to discuss it more with the city attorney, but Elo-Rivera insisted he have the conversation with the council now.
“I’ll just say that this interaction is incredibly telling, and very, very much is going to weigh on how I think we should engage in lease negotiations in the future,” Elo-Rivera said.
Campillo and von Wilpert said there is more work to be done before the city can move forward, with Campillo stating that the city needs to do better and ensure compliance when it enters into agreements.
“The city as an organization has let the problem fester for nine years,” Campillo said.
Von Wilpert said there still aren’t enough teeth in the lease to ensure Surf Cup follows the rules. She suggested adding financial penalties for violations to incentivize compliance.
“I think we need to get more actual commitments,” von Wilpert said. “We need liquidated damages day by day … to force the lessee to do what they said they would do before we have to go to court. And I just don’t see that here right now.”
