La Jolla resident Patrick Ahern didn't want to see haphazard additions to Scripps Park – a playground here, a bandstand there.
So Ahern started a grass-roots drive to create a master plan for the landmark next to La Jolla Cove.
But a landscape architect's proposal is now churning up controversy for the changes it suggests, including relocating a 67-year-old clubhouse across the park.
The landscape architect will unveil his ideas for improving the seaside city park at a public workshop tonight. The meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. at the La Jolla Recreation Center, 615 Prospect St.
Ahern and Neil Murray, chairman and vice chairman respectively of the renovation effort, say their committee doesn't want to radically change the famous site, which is a favorite spot for weddings, picnics and sea-gazing.
“My motivation is to preserve this beautiful park that I love pretty much as is,” Ahern said.
But the much-used location needs a little help, they say.
Runoff over the cliffs is eroding them. Veteran trees are dying without always being replaced. Some buildings, including a public restroom, block the best views.
“When you start looking at the park more carefully . . . we're not taking really good care of it,” Murray said, a Pacific Beach resident who swims in the cove each morning.
The Scripps Park Project was born in 2003 when some park enthusiasts got together to discuss the issue. They formed a steering committee that hosted a November 2005 workshop to collect community ideas.
Based on that feedback, they hired Santa Monica landscape architect Doug Campbell to craft a long-term plan for the park.
The highlights of the changes proposed by Campbell:
Move the white structure leased by the La Jolla Cove Bridge Club. Campbell believes the single-story building partially eclipses the panoramic view of the ocean. Instead of sitting close to the bluff, Campbell suggests relocating the building closer to Coast Boulevard, on the southern edge of the park.
Replace the restroom with a new one closer to the street to avoid blocking the ocean view.
Pull the bluff-top sidewalk back six to eight feet in a section where the cliff beneath is badly eroded. A city sign posted there now warns of danger. Campbell also suggests replacing ice plant covering the bluff with native plants to reduce erosion over the cliffs.
Regrade the park so runoff no longer drains toward the cliffs. Instead the lowest point of the large grassy expanse would be in one corner, so rain and irrigation water would end up in a storm water system.
Replace dead, dying or diseased trees.
If everything in Campbell's proposal was done, capital costs would be about $3 million.
Organizers stress that these are just ideas. They say they want lots of community feedback before any piece of the proposal could continue.
Some response is already negative.
“We'll fight it as much as we can,” said Scott Farr, president of the 120-member club that has inhabited the Bridge Club building since 1939.
Farr listed the reasons: The structure might not survive the move; the proposed new location is too close to condominiums and hotels along Coast Boulevard that would be disturbed by noise from the club; it would destroy the view for weddings and other events that rent it out.
“It blends in perfectly with the park,” Farr said of the city-owned structure. “It doesn't interfere with the park in any way.”
Private donations would cover most of the expenses, though state contributions are a possibility because some changes address ocean pollution, Ahern said.
So far, the group has raised about $50,000 in donations and some public money. County and city governments have given a total of $14,300 to the planning process.
In order for any of Campbell's suggestions to become reality, Ahern and his committee will have to wade through months, if not years, of city procedures.
A proposal would have to go before at least five La Jolla community groups for comment. Then it would navigate the city Park and Recreation Department's approval ladder. Finally, it probably would go before the San Diego Planning Commission and City Council to be adopted as a master plan.
Organizers said they will absorb what people say at tonight's meeting and then decide how to proceed.
“Our hope is it will be well-attended and people will listen to what the background is for this project and the consultant's point of view with an open mind,” Murray said.
Jeanette Steele: (619) 293-1030; jen.steele@uniontrib.com
