The Port of San Diego has effectively blocked controversial plans to build an RV development next to the Coronado Cays, buying out the would-be developer’s lease and announcing plans to upgrade a park on the property.
This piece of property, comprising a little over seven acres of land and over 100 acres of water, is currently being used as a boat storage yard. It has been a point of contention for the last half century, with many different project proposals sprouting up and dying throughout the decades.
The RV resort project – also known as the Cottages at the Cays – would have featured 41 cottage-style trailers as well as new shops and a restaurant built alongside the water.
On Dec. 10, the Port bought out the lease for $3 million to develop it further as a community park with future upgrades and amenities, essentially killing the RV resort project.
The big benefit, obviously, is that the community is at peace with this.
Port Commissioner Frank Urtasun
However, the biggest goal for the port at the moment is to recoup its $3 million investment before going forward with the community park, said Frank Urtasun, Coronado’s appointee to the San Diego’s Board of Port Commissioners.
“The big benefit, obviously, is that the community is at peace with this,” Urtasun said.
The RV resort project
With the lease being bought out and only 10 years left on the agreement, the community no longer has to worry about a project being built that seemingly no one wanted.
Coronado resident Laurie McCormick said the new project would bring “too many people, too many cars, too much traffic,” at a Feb. 21 Coronado City Council meeting last year.
“The land-use designation, from the Port’s perspective, is that this is going to become a recreational open space,” Urtasun said. “So that means at the end of this (lease) term, that’s what the port is planning to do with the property.”
At the time, the Port of San Diego approved this project 4-3 to move forward with just an environmental assessment and seek analysis.
There was not a single person here that wanted to do this.
Council member Carrie Anne Downey
“There was not a single person here that wanted to do this,” Council member Carrie Anne Downey had said at the Feb. 21 Coronado City Council meeting last year, days after the port directors voted to commence an environmental analysis.
However, even before that environmental assessment, the proposal was abandoned.
Urtasun explained that the project would have required years of design work, approvals and construction – more time than what was left on the lease.
“Nobody’s going to go out and make an investment not knowing that they have the time to recoup their investment,” Urtasun said. “When a developer owns a piece of property, then he’s got a longer term to recoup the investment. But when there is a diminishing term on a lease, that’s a concern to a developer.”
According to Urtasun, the lessee, Cays Resort, LLC, reached out to the Port District in the fourth quarter of last year indicating an interest in selling the lease.
Grand Caribe Park
Urtasun noted that the funds the port used to buy the lease was with taxpayer money, so “you got to make sure that you’re doing everything correctly.”
Laura Wilkinson Sinton, who has owned a home in the Cays since 1999, said that the influx of people and traffic was the main concern residents had for opposing the RV park.
“People who are on vacation behave differently than people who live there. It’s just the way it is. They’re having a good time,” Wilkinson Sinton said. “You’d have a lot more traffic, you’d have a lot more deliveries. There’s concern in the Cays that that would increase crime, because when you have transient populations, that can happen.”
Wilkinson Sinton said she and her neighbors are hoping the new open space will expand on an existing recreation area.
Grand Caribe Park is fabulous, we love Grand Caribe Park. We’re hoping the port will put more investment in it.
Cays resident Laura Wilkinson Sinton
“Grand Caribe Park is fabulous, we love Grand Caribe Park,” Wilkinson Sinton said. “We’re hoping the port will put more investment in it.”
