Process To Makeover De Anza Cove Region Moves Forward

De Anza Cove is due for makeover and San Diego is the plans for that realization. There are two possible proposals for the park which city officials will be presenting tonight at Mission Bay high school. But no matter which one the city eventually chooses the park will get more wetlands and lose its mobile home and RV parks. Joining meet with more on the effort is KPBS environment reporter Derek Anderson, welcome.Thank you.How much else do the to plan share besides increasing wetlands in the park? But well if you look at the to descriptions of what could be done and that northeastern corner of Mission Bay park, they look very similar on the surface. There are provisions of both of the plants to maintain the golf course for the most part. There are provisions in both the plans that would move the tennis courts down to where there is a boat salon facility right now. There are provisions in the plans now that with replace the De Anza Cove trailer park which has been empty for more than a year now. And install some sort of a fee related camping area possibly, although that has not been decided and it will be until a lease is signed and there are plans to remove the camp land on the Bay property and put wetlands there. So there are some big changes coming. They are not all going to be decided tonight but what is happening tonight is that the mission Bay park committee will look at those two alternatives that could presumably reject them both, they could pick one as a preferred alternative and then send it on to the city Council parks committee.So a lot of big celebrities between the two plants but what are the major differences?I think the differences are what is going to happen with that little spit of land that reaches around and creates this artificial cold that De Anza Cove is in there is one plan that sort of lowers part of the plan initially I think that design was to create an island and to cut through that peninsula so waterflow could improve. I am not sure the version of -- they are considering now has that provision entirely but it would lower the land. The big thing that changes I think from the current condition to whichever of these plans if they are adopted are adopted, is that there would be public access to the Peninsula which really has not existed for many many years because when the trailer park was there, public access was restricted. You could not just walk out there and walk around because it was property, where people live, they did not want to have people walking around their property. Both of those plans do include more wetlands in both of those plans do include a walking trail that would go around that peninsula.And one has more wetlands and another?Yes, measured by degrees. The thing is environmentalist who have been pushing to do more in the natural area in that part of the park are really not very happy with either of the 2 proposals. They say that neither do it not to protect the region as sea levels will rise. They feel that you need more of those wildlands because as the sea levels go up they have to be able to absorb that extra water and if you go short on redeveloping the wetlands now, those wetlands will be flooded as the water rises and you really do not have a gate in the future.You mentioned the planning group could reject both puzzles but is there a chance upon group could agree with those environmentalist and push for even more wetlands?Yes, in the thing you have to recognizes that it is not just environmentalist upset with the two alternatives. The folks who enjoy camping, camping by the Bay interest groups, they are not terribly pleased with how their facility might be moved or might not be moved. There are golfers who are worried about access to the golf club there and really we are concerned once the initial planning process was over, that the alternative made too many changes in the golf course there. And there are people who want to have access to that part of the Bay and want to use it to recreate and I don't think they are entirely happy either.Speaking of Kaplan by the Bay which has not closed yet but expected to soon, will plans are going to have 40 acres of guest housing. Is there possibility that the camp land could be folded into that somehow or is that not on the table?I think that is one of the possibilities and if you talk to Kaplan for that is what they're hoping for that they could just basically moved camp land from next to the Kendall Prost marsh onto that De Anza Cove pencil a and already partially developed and it will be a easy transition for them. No guarantee that will happen because the city will put that housing area, 40 acres out for bid so somebody could conceivably come in with a lower bid or better bid or bid that is more attracted for the city that they would accept so no guarantee that what will be them but some sort of camping activity will likely be put on those 40 acres. So the mobile home park was closed earlier this year, have you been recently and see what the mobile home park looks like right now?We were there this past summer and at that time all the residents have been cleared out of the mobile home park process that took the city decades. And it looked like a tornado had gone through the park. There were things that were strewn about, the trailers that were still there were in bad repair, the city was in the process of cleaning that out. They also created this temporary RV park on that peninsula and they have kind of brought in it from what I could see to include a little bit more of the space so it is not completely abandoned now. We just don't have those permanent residents were living there now.You said this process could take years. Do we know if those people would be living there during that time or is the city planning on moving them out again?Their attendance there, right? There's approach lots that is there in the De Anza Cove area like you said there is a RV park this is sort of a buried tenant for now and that may be expanded to become the new camp land on the Bay but that has not been decided yet either. Can plan on the Bay by the way their lease runs through 2020 and the city actually has options to extended for two additional years if the city wants to. And that is because they know that they are not going to be ready to put a shovel into a ground within the next two or three years, and they want to continue to generate the lease revenue that that property provide.We have any any idea how much it of this plans across?We do not. It is a very good question. And I don't think we will know until we decide we find out which plan is going to be accepted. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. The city has for example they do take the initiative and decide which alternative they like and have to start an environmental impact review which would take a year or two years. They're going to have to judge how much it is going to take to remove all of that dirt that is currently working plan is because it is elevated above the water and above the marsh and they will have to remove all of that stuff and it will cost money enough to figure how much that is going to cost the city and how much it will cost to do the restoration work. To turn can plan into wetlands and then to do all the changes around the De Anza Cove area as well so we don't know yet how much the money is going to be involved, we don't know yet how long it is going to a out exactly what needs to be done, but we do know it is going to be a time-consuming process. It is not going to happen overnight. It is going to take years to do. And it is going to be expensive. It is going to cost millions although we don't know exactly how many millions.We will have to pay attention to what the planning committee decides later tonight. I've been speaking with the BPS environmental reporter Erik Anderson. Thank you.My pleasure.