State sticks with El Morro plan

Mary A. Castillo

The California Department of Parks and Recreation’s conversion

plans for the El Morro mobile home park were not swayed by the

redevelopment plan announced by the El Morro Community Assn. last

week.

“We wish to turn this into a coastal campground,” parks spokesman

Roy Stearns said. “This is the last remaining place that we know of

in the Los Angeles Southern California area where there could be a

coastal campground.”

Stearns argued that the plan for building affordable housing and a

vacation hostel posed by the current mobile home park residents was

simply unacceptable to the state.

“I think if we had to have affordable housing in this state park

or in any state park, the majority of Californians would be very

unhappy because it denies the state park to the public,” he said.

A day before the community association announced its plan, the

state parks department released a statement listing some of the

changes it made to its plan outlined in the final Environmental

Impact Report. Among the changes included the increased height of the

boundary between the campsite and El Morro Elementary School and

restricting campfires during normal school hours.

He denied the association’s claims that the budget for Crystal

Cove State Park is hamstrung by the state’s budget crisis. Stearns

indicated that the development’s funds are locked in place by

Proposition 12, the Parks Bond Act of 2000 and were included in the

governor’s 2000-01 budget.

The association promised $10 million generated from an extended

30-year lease.

“Economically, our plan could be a very good thing for this

community,” he said.

State parks host about 85 million visitors a year and bring in

$2.6 billion annually in the communities around state parks.

Elisabeth Brown reiterated Laguna Greenbelt Inc.’s support of the

state’s plan. She felt that that the state parks department had been

responsive to community input. The greenbelt opposed the placement of

a signal at Pacific Coast Highway near El Morro Creek, which the

state promised not to install.

“It should be very interesting to see the re-greening of El Moro

Canyon,” she said. “Under this plan when the day use people go home,

very little will be going on down there in the canyon and it will

allow animals to go out.”

But she blasted the community association for referencing the

greenbelt and the State Parks Foundation in its announcement.

“I think these folks have a lot of nerve coming up with a plan for

land they don’t own,” she said.

Former councilman and spokesman for the association Paul Freeman

indicated that the community association purposefully did not consult

with either organization because it did not want to create a conflict

of interest on the support of the park. In addition to the $10

million that would be earmarked to the park, the proposal also offers

$1 million each subsequent year to the two environmental groups.

If they don’t want the money, he said, they would gladly find

other groups who would use it to protect and preserve Laguna’s green

space.

“This is not a choice between open space and development,” Freeman

said. “This is a transitional plan from what [the park] is now to

whatever it will be over time under the direction of State Parks.”

Freeman likened the controversy over El Moro to the purchase of

Laguna Canyon in the early 1990s and the development of Treasure

Island. He felt that the community should join in a debate and use

the opportunity to not only create affordable housing, but also

generate dollars for Crystal Cove State Park and local green space.

He said the City Council could be a platform to take the proposal

to state parks.

However, at the City Council meeting Tuesday night, Councilman

Wayne Baglin asserted that the council had not participated in the

community association’s proposal and expressed concern upon reading

statements from union representatives and city employees in the

community association’s release.

“We have not supported it, and no city staff had any involvement

at all,” City Manager Ken Frank said. “We’re very much in support of

the state plan and not in extending leases.”

The El Morro mobile home tenants are scheduled to move out in

December 2004 before construction officially begins in early 2005.

The community association hopes to bring its proposal before the City

Council this spring.

* MARY A. CASTILLO covers education, public safety and City Hall.

She can be reached at [email protected].