Community Commentary -- Tom Hyans

Before I start, let me assure you that I have been here for 30 years

and still am an advocate for a public, marine-oriented recreational use

at Las Arenas Park and Las Arenas Beach on the Balboa Peninsula.

I can’t believe the “From the Newsroom” piece I read in the Daily

Pilot Monday (“Sounds out of Marinapark echo those of a certain cove.”

But then again, maybe I do. That ringing Editor Tony Dodero hears isn’t

from “a bell,” but probably from a blow to the head he’s forgotten about.

Indeed, as he asks the readers, have you ever been to the Marinapark

Mobile Home Park? I think not, or he wouldn’t have drawn the ridiculous

parallel to Crystal Cove.

Marinapark occupies about one-third of the tidelands or uplands

property that is Las Arenas Park and Las Arenas Beach, between 15th and

19th streets. There are three public access routes by which pedestrians

can get to the beach, only one goes through the mobile homes property.

There is one access at each end of the 10-foot-wide bayfront walk and one

using the tenants’ entrance driveway. No nonresident vehicles are

permitted inside the Marina Park, as there are no public parking spots,

but pedestrians are not prohibited passage.

Once inside the tenants’ entrance, there are 11 paths to the

945-foot-long beach. Your “unsightly chain-link fence with a locked gate

that guards this little haven” is one of two utility gates intended for

moving mobile homes in and out in the days when such was once, but is now

no longer, necessary. Parking is abundant at Las Arenas Beach and Park,

compared to your “gated” Crystal Cove or any other peninsula bay beach.

At Las Arenas, there are nearly 300 public parking spaces, over 100 of

which are not metered, as in “free to the public.” Of the 300, half are

located where it is not necessary to cross any street to get to the

bayside beach.

Did someone in Marinapark kick Dodero’s dog? Why else would he go to

such lengths to demonize the folks who have been, in retrospect, the

beneficiaries of a lease that was not unusual and served the needs of the

city as well, when it was drawn. If the term was too long, or had no

five-year step-up provisions over its 15-year life, whose fault was that?

Former City Manager Bob Wynn got his credit for “affordable housing,” the

public kept the park and the beach and bay access we have, the city

revenuers received what rent was reasonable until property values went

through the roof, and the tenants got a deal. Geschaft ist Geschaft.

The Marinapark tenants are not whining, and the resort developer,

Stephen Sutherland, who is hoping to get the municipal revenuers’

blessing to build his 147-room luxury hotel, is certainly not their

“whipping boy.” The Marinapark tenants are simply competing with other

potential users for the four or so acres of Las Arenas Park that they

occupy. They, along with seven other petitioners for alternate uses,

submitted a proposal for their continued use of the mobile home leases

several years ago, along with an offer to bring their rents to market at

the same time.

The City Council decided to continue the short-term leases for two

more years and gave Sutherland-Talla the exclusive right that opportunist

bought for chump-change, $15,000, to pursue the improbable resort

proposal.

So far, we’re up to the fourth version. Oops. Excuse me to Mayor Tod

Ridgeway. Of course he’s right, the council didn’t really choose the

resort, the council simply rejected all the other proposals.

The Marinapark tenants’ 15-year lease did have the caveat that the

tenants would be out the door at the end of the lease to make room for a

“public recreational use.”

That’s not what’s going on now, and they do “have a case” as you deny,

as much a case as any other proposal, to use the property for its highest

and best use. The highest and best use remains to be defined.

We’ll work on that definition over the next few months while

Sutherland Talla works on Version No. 4, or No. 5, or ...

* TOM HYANS is a Balboa Peninsula resident.