SAN DIEGO — The City of San Diego is facing a legal challenge from the country’s largest and oldest environmental advocacy organization, after the City Council entered into a termination agreement to remove open space protections outlined in a historic grant deed for Surf Sports Park.
The grant deed 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 along Via de la Valle and El Camino Real, historically referred to as the Del Mar Polo Fields and now known as Surf Sports Park.
On Oct. 27, the San Diego City Council voted to remove a section in the deed containing 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.
The council also adopted amendments to its lease with Surf Cup Sports, setting an annual 40-day limit on large events at the fields and defining “large events” as those using at least 18 of the 24 soccer fields or non-sporting events with at least 2,000 attendees.
This decision drew outrage from hundreds of residents, environmental organizations, and neighboring cities.
On Dec. 8, Sierra Club filed its own lawsuit against the city, claiming that it failed to review impacts from the removal of the grant deed and the lease changes in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.
“The City Council must uphold its prior promise to its electorate — that the Affected Lands would be dedicated for open space uses. Furthermore, the City is legally bound to implement promised mitigation measures under CEQA and state law,” said Sierra Club attorney Isabella Coye.
The San Diego City Attorney’s Office declined to comment, stating that it does not comment on pending litigation.
Ocean Industries and Surf Cup Sports are also named as real parties in interest.
At the time of the October council decision, the city and Surf claimed that the 40-day limit is consistent with how the fields have historically been used and would not lead to increased field use.
However, Sierra Club, along with other organizations and individuals, said Surf’s large soccer tournaments, which draw thousands of cars and people, portable buildings and structures, and its subleases of the land to San Diego Wave FC and a local gym have all exceeded the historic uses at the fields.
They also said the 40-day limit would only further increase cars and people, to the detriment of the San Dieguito River Park, nearby homes, and roadways. Given these potential environmental impacts, the Sierra Club argues that CEQA review is required.
“This Project would result in more annual events, including a less strict definition of what events count towards the total permitted event days, and proposes to remove protections from the remaining Affected Land, leaving them vulnerable to intensified use,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit noted that, to support its claims about the historical 40-day use, the city of San Diego provided data only through 2016, “without reliance on any recent data.”
“The documents reviewed by City Council in approving the Project are entirely devoid of any recent historical use data,” the lawsuit states. “The City Staff Report alleges that the 40-day limit is consistent with the site’s historical use … but has provided no recent data to evaluate actual use in almost a decade.”
Sierra Club said the land was granted to the city with explicit requirements to maintain it as open space, not to use it for “private or commercial exploitation.”
In addition, according to Sierra Club, the termination agreement removes open space protections not only for the Surf Sports Park land, but also for the rest of the “affected land” that was deeded to the city back in the 1980s and preserved for open space.
San Diego was deeded four lots by Ocean Industries (then known as Watts Industries) to be protected as open space: lots 1, 4, 9, and 10. These parcels included the polo fields (Lot 1), two areas just south of San Dieguito Road at Camino Santa Fe (9 and 10), and another long lot running along San Dieguito Road to the south (Lot 4).
Sierra Club said a CEQA review is required to assess the impacts of removing open-space restrictions on the lands outlined in the grant deed.
“The City not only proposes to intensify the use of the Polo Fields, but proposes to terminate all of the Grant Deed’s restrictions on all Affected Lands, not just those underlying the Polo Fields,” the lawsuit states.
Fairbanks Polo Club lawsuit
At the time of the city council decision, San Diego was already in the midst of a lawsuit filed by residents of the Fairbanks Polo Club Homes, who accused the city of failing to enforce the terms of the grant deed when it came to Surf Cup’s activities.
Fairbanks Polo Club residents say the city’s October 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 technically, the homeowners do not have any valid grantor rights because the 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.
Two days after the council’s vote, Fairbanks Polo Club Homes filed a motion in that case asking for a preliminary injunction to stay the termination of the grant deed and require CEQA review before it can take effect.
The court will consider this motion at a hearing scheduled for Jan. 16 in San Diego County Superior Court.
Along with Sierra Club, 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 have also registered their opposition to San Diego’s grant deed termination agreement.
