Engagement and resistance at City Height’s Park De La Cruz
By Anna Daniels
Photo: Adam Ward
This month’s City Heights Park and Recreation Council meeting (Tuesday Nov. 28) took a surprise turn when over fifty attendees, mostly young people wearing blue Mid-City CAN tee shirts, arrived to speak during the non-agenda comment section of the meeting.
These skate park advocates and their supporters had hoped to address the neighborhood concerns and opposition that had recently sprung up about the planned skate park element at Park De La Cruz. They hoped that in doing so the rec council would proceed with the scheduled design meeting on December 4 as planned.
District 9 Council Member Marti Emerald announced in July that the allocation of $4.5 million in state Department of Housing and Community Development monies was sufficient to design and construct skate parks in City Heights and Linda Vista.
The second design phase meeting for Park de la Cruz skate park modifications was scheduled for December, but the Park and Recreation Council decided to postpone that meeting and hold a community hearing on the skate park issue instead. Was this an attempt to shift the conversation from how to proceed to whether to proceed?
This was discouraging news to City Heights youth whose articulate civic engagement on the issue of skate parks began four years ago. Mid-City CAN’s youth advocacy efforts are a model for youth involvement and leadership in City Heights. Their advocacy for City Heights skate parks and free youth bus passes have been the most visible reflections of their efforts.
Park De La Cruz becomes the latest poster child for City Heights park deficiency
When residential density was increased in City Heights through the adoption of the 1965 Mid-City Plan, there was no attendant provision for public infrastructure investment. City Heights has been trying to play catch up ever since.
The reality is that City Heights doesn’t have more space for parks, but will get yet more infill and demands for parks. Residents are left with the need to work with what we’ve got to develop multi-purpose public amenities.
The much needed public infrastructure that has been provided has come at an enormous cost to the community. The schools, library, police substation, park and recreation facilities have displaced thousands of City Heights residents.
And those investments still are not enough. City Heights is chronically deficient in park and open space by the city’s own standards. An analysis in 2012 stated that City Heights was at less then 40% of the target acreage required to provide 2.8 usable acres per 1,000 residents.
Since it is virtually impossible in this high density community to enlarge existing or build new public infrastructure without displacing residences and businesses, residents are forced to think strategically about or simply make do with bits and pieces of available land.
It can be said that City Heights’ ongoing efforts to build more infrastructure too often requires it to cannibalize some other part of itself. One resident at the meeting expressed the concern that we are using an existing park to make a different park when we really need more parks.
The reality is that City Heights doesn’t have more space for parks, but will get yet more infill and demands for parks. Residents are left with the need to work with what we’ve got to develop multi-purpose public amenities. That means expanding the recreational possibilities at our existing community park– Park De La Cruz.
The new youth constituency broadens civic engagement in City Heights
There has always been debate– often heated debate– over the kind of parks that would best serve the needs of City Heights. There was a period when passive parks were seen as crime magnets and it was difficult to make a winning case for picnic tables or restrooms, yet basketball courts were also seen at the same time as attractive to criminal elements. There was an unsuccessful effort to include community gardens in park spaces.
While there has been a sometime troubling inconsistency about whom parks should serve, there has always been recognition of the need for active recreational spaces for children in the community.
Youth here are organizing and engaging in public policy decisions that affect them, their families and their community. They are a source of great optimism for the aging activists among us. They also portend a change that not everyone in the community is aware of or necessarily comfortable with.
But eventually hearings are held, a decision is made, funds are allocated and construction begins. That is how the civic process is supposed to work. This process has also historically been carried out by adult decision makers.
City Heights demographics reveal that the average median age in City Heights is younger than the city-wide age and that there are more children per household than city-wide. City Heights is a young community and an active youth constituency is now making its voice heard.
Youth here are organizing and engaging in public policy decisions that affect them, their families and their community. They are a source of great optimism for the aging activists among us. They also portend a change that not everyone in the community is aware of or necessarily comfortable with.
It is clear that these young voices take their civic responsibilities seriously. They have identified the most pressing youth needs and have advocated for specific solutions. Martin Moreno, Youth and Community Organizer at Mid-City CAN, details the efforts that their group has expended:
The push for a skate park in City Heights has been a campaign for close to four years. It’s not something that has been a community secret. Youth have attended City Heights Area Planning Committees, and in 2012 CHAPC supported the construction of two skate parks in City Heights; youth made presentations to the City Heights Recreation Council, and have lobbied the City Council, [Council Member] Marti Emerald, and Mayor Faulconer’s office. The campaign has received plenty of media coverage over that time.
About two and a half years ago, the Park De La Cruz area began to emerge as the only suitable site for this park after a site visit was conducted by city staff, youth, the youth organizer of the Mid-City CAN Youth Council at the time and some community residents. Around this time, the focus really shifted to the Park De La Cruz area.
Youth held rallies in the area that included many parents and students of Cherokee Point Elementary, and collected over 300 letters of support of a skate park at Park De La Cruz. Though the voice of the few people that are against or in favor of reducing the size of the skate park is important, this is a City Heights community park that the overall community has shown large support for.
The Center for Policy Initiatives (CPI) provides a podcast of an interview with a City Heights student who has supported the skate park. It is illuminating.
Yet Park and Recreation Council chairman Ricky Franchi was adamant that the December 4 meeting would be used as a community hearing rather than as a design workshop. He then permitted two speakers to provide non agenda comments against the skate park and two speakers for the park.
Martin Moreno stressed in his subsequent pro-skate park comments that they were willing to sit down with residents and work together to accommodate their concerns about the park modifications.
One resident who lives adjacent to the park noted that she walks there daily with her dog and regularly picnics at Park De La Cruz. She opposed the skate park modifications, describing the skate boarders as undesirable outsiders who should make better use of their time in a library. She envisioned a park over run with taggers, pot smokers and trash and implied that the picnic tables and places to walk her dog would no longer be available–or desirable for use.
The other resident stated that she wasn’t completely opposed to the skate park. Rather, she was concerned that people in the area were not advised about the plan and that she had signed a petition for what she thought was a skate park at the old YMCA.
Martin Moreno stressed in his subsequent pro-skate park comments that they were willing to sit down with residents and work together to accommodate their concerns about the park modifications.
The remark about skateboarders as undesirables hung in the air. This resident was talking about our City Heights children. It left a fetid stench that never completely dissipated.
Martin later confirmed with me that they had initially targeted the empty dirt lot by the old Y as a potential location. The actual building site was never an option. The threat of legal action by several residents living on the adjacent street compelled them to move the proposed location to behind the baseball field in the undeveloped field space instead. A lengthy legal battle, even if it was ultimately decided in favor of the skate park use, would clearly jeopardize the two year shelf life of the funding.
Council Member Marti Emeralds’ community representative Rudy Vargas provided me with a copy of the community notice. He explained to me that the city council office’s notification process exceeded the requirements of the council policy which requires noticing all impacted residents within 300 feet.
Just a walk in the park
On the Wednesday night following the meeting I had the opportunity to walk around the area with a copy of the notice and map that the city had sent to local residents. It was 7pm and Park De La Cruz was well lit and packed with people. There were young people on the ball field and young people doing warm up exercises in the grassy area next to the field, the proposed skate park location. Adults were walking dogs and jogging on the paths. A group of adults were simply sitting together in the far corner of the park.
It was the kind of scene that brings me great personal joy as a City Heights resident–a public space that is is used, safe and clearly valued. I looked at the swath of land that would be re-purposed for the skate park. A number of picnic table areas are scattered among the long line of mature eucalyptus trees. They would all be removed. What would happen to the acorn lights?
The resident concerns about losing those tables, trees, lights and walking trails are completely understandable to me. The skate park advocates stated that they were willing to sit down with residents to address those concerns. I’ve attended enough design workshops to know that they are the appropriate place to hash those things out.
Photo: Adam Ward
I continued walking through the park, past the tot lot. An odd series of fences bisected the area adjacent to the Y. This is all city land–the Y parking lot, the gravel area between the parking lot and the street. It was not hard for me to understand why this area was the proposed site for the skate park. It is flat, minimally developed and does not appear to impinge in a significant way upon Park De La Cruz.
A few adjacent residents were able to scuttle a plan that was the first choice for the skateboarders and an acceptable location for other residents in the area. But if this area will not accommodate the skate board park it can surely provide the space to offset the loss of trees and picnic tables, green space and trails, perhaps even provide more than what will be taken. The question is whether it will.
The biggest surprise of my walk was coming upon Cherokee Point Park. It is not far from Park De La Cruz but there are no paths connecting the two. The walk there was impeded by the cyclone fences and discontinuous walkways.
Cherokee Point Park was lifeless, dimly lit– and pristine looking. It reminded me of rest stops off a freeway exit. A pair of skateboarders zipped by, headed toward Park De La Cruz. The contrast between the two parks was stunning and mystifying.
The skate park issue is far from resolved. It remains to be seen how many people recognize the necessity of the skate park and are able to see possibilities, perhaps as yet unarticulated ones, for a resolution that includes the current elements of Park De La Cruz that people value as well as the skate park. City Heights residents have a good track record of making lemonade from lemons. I’ll report back after the December meeting.
Editor Note: This post was updated to include the date of the Park and Recreation Council meeting–Tuesday November 18.
Anna Daniels
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I wonder if a few demonstrations of techniques from skateboarders might make it tougher to demonize skaters; maybe advocates could throw some public competitions? The real concern — as you pointed out — is that we don’t have a plan for decent but denser public housing and redevelopment, one that would add neighborhood parks to a vast unserved area, as you point out.
All that space, so little regard for it.
This is NIMBY stuff in City Heights is very disturbing. Voice of SD, KPBS reporter Megan Burks featured a video on this project as an example of what is happening with the California Endowment Building Healthy Communities funds. This local Recreation Council sounds very negative. How exactly do they find their way to these positions? Are they self appointed, elected, anointed? Very mysterious.
The City Heights Park and Rec Council and other key organizations could be requesting that the community as a whole conduct a series of workshops to determine the future of this valuable asset– Park de la Cruz plus– once the YMCA exits. Price Charities could be assisting in this process, since they decided to make an offer to the Copley YMCA that they apparently could not refuse to move to Kensington del Sur (by the way, has the YMCA found some other name for their acronym other than the “Young Men’s Christian Association”?)
Thanks for your work on this issue Anna. By the way I have a book on building skateboard parks when the neighbors finally decide to work with the next generation.
Hi Jay! I’m almost certain we’ve met before?
My name is Stephanie Napoli (formerly Stephanie Monroe), I was Organizing Director with CPI for a couple years (and with LAANE for 7 years) and I’m a new member of the Cherokee Point community of City Heights (although I’m an old San Diegan– went to San Diego High School, etc…).
Are you suggesting that Price Charities and the Park and Rec Council lead community workshops on the issue or are you saying it’s already planned? It’s a fantastic idea.
I signed Mid City CAN’s petition years ago to have a skatepark in the area but would never have imagined they’d choose a worse location and plan to literally use ALL our green space. You see, this is the park that brings our community together… where I walked my son to sleep several times a day during the first year of his life, meeting diverse community residents along the way. Residents didn’t know the skatepark would not be at the old YMCA site until 2 weeks before the first design hearing much less be involved in approving the idea. The location and scope was a done-deal before we knew about it.
Wonderful article, Ms. Daniels. You really articulate what we’re struggling with… cannabalizing one community need for another. I’d love to see how we can make this a win-win situation to make our whole community proud… by bringing the YMCA back in as a potential site and, at the very least, reducing the size of the skatepark and replacing our lost green space with the greening of the space between the two parks.
I am curious why the Central Avenue Skate Park is not mentioned in this article. Why is this lovely proposed skate park not enough for the skaters in our area? Cherokee Point is a small community within City Heights. The new mini park would certainly be sufficient to handle the skating enthusiasts from the Cherokee Point area. The Central Avenue Skate Park will be in City Heights directly across from PDLC connected by the walking bridge from the current YMCA on Landis. The Central Avenue Skate Park will clearly be visible from Central Avenue for police to easily observe. This proposed skate park IS on undeveloped land where Marti Emerald and Mayor Falconer recently broke ground for construction to start soon. It will be in place in 2015 from what the project manager told me, construction is proceeding on time.
Conversely, Park de la Cruz is off the main roads and intersections and is inconvenient to police or observe activity. It is not a suitable place to have an unfenced skate park. It is beginning to shape up as a very tempting after dusk attraction where there will be no adult supervision. With the YMCA vacating the facility on Landis next month how long will the proposed unsupervised and unfenced skate park reside alongside a very large boarded up building with an empty pool inside? Who will Parks and Rec have on hand during the opening and closing time to enforce an unfenced skate park’s use with a 10:00 am to dusk skate park use restraint? Presently we have problems with young people hanging out after dark in PDLC, surely the advocates are not implying that having an unfenced skate park will correct this issue that is difficult for the police to grapple with now?
Why take the only open green space in Park de la Cruz that the Cherokee Point residents fought for over 10 years to see brought to realization? It was finally turned from an open decomposed granite lot into Park de la Cruz (PDLC). Residents and the then Cherokee Point Neighborhood Association planned and worked with the city planners. Residents gave input into what “they” wanted in “their” neighborhood park, not just one advocate group. I want to know who had the audacity to give the go ahead to undo the residents hard earned efforts by authorizing digging up the open LANDSCAPED (not “undeveloped field space” as the article states) green space to build a concrete skate park? Mind you with not one bit of regard for those who are not skaters who use this park on a daily basis. All ages use this park, babies being pushed in strollers, tiny tots to senior citizens, to the disabled… why; all to get healthy, to get fresh air and exercise. Many to get out of a cramped apartment with no yard or a home that has multiple families living in one unit.
In this day and age of environmental concerns and an increase of COPD in the I-15 corridor is it okay to tear up a landscaped park, that took millions of tax dollars to build and maintain in the first place, that is heavily used by the residents in favor of a SECOND skate park?
If those who advocate for the skate park to replace our open green space are allowed to proceed then what protection will they have from a senior citizen advocacy group that comes along in a few years and strongly believes they have the right to dig up the skate park in favor of a outdoor gymnasium to keep them viable and active in their old age because they can no longer drive to the gym?
Let me also take issue with notification. I would like to know when a precedent was set by the City of San Diego to first notify a youth group regarding a major alteration in a local park before the residents who surround the park are notified. The Mid-City Skate Park Advocacy Group notified the youth months before the residents were notified by the project manager giving residents no voice in the matter what-so-ever as to where the final decision was to place the skate park. Residents were notified 2 weeks prior to the first planning session that months were promising the skating youth that they would have input into “their park.” They were told to bring their “wish lists” and the planners would try to give them everything they wanted. That is absolutely a slap in the face for those who put years of effort into getting PDLC off the drawing board and into reality for ALL the residents of Cherokee Point. Truly, this should be an issue that all residents, young and old, must have input as to whether they want the park, or not.
The youth of Cherokee Point ride bikes and scooters, they run remote control cars, swim, are gymnasts, play tennis, there are runners, kids that play volley ball and basketball, four square, kick ball on the green… a myriad of interest our youth of Cherokee Point have. Why does one group with one interest get to take precedent over all the youth that use Park de la Cruz?
I don’t agree with the lady who stated that skaters are “undesirable outsiders.” The facts are that we do have youth who skate and they are good decent kids but reality has shown that we also have had damage done to PDLC by a number of skaters who don’t seem to have any regard for the amenities we as residents fought hard to obtain. You cannot blame residents who are not necessarily tickled pink with the idea of giving up space for a multi-million dollar skate park replacing their open space to satisfy the dreams of those haven’t shown an interest in helping maintain the park.
If those planning and building our park were earnestly concerned about our youth they would take into consideration improvements that would benefit the largest body of children of all ages. Let’s also not forget the older residents. We aren’t pushing up the daisies just yet. We might be getting old and shuffleboard might no longer be a blazing interest for some but… there are a great many of us living in Cherokee Point who do use our park to benefit our health. We have every right to advocate for the majority. We’ve collected signatures and contrary to what the article indicates there are a vast number of residents opposed to a skate park within the “300 feet” Mr. Vargas quoted and even a larger body of Cherokee Point residents who reside outside the 300 feet that also oppose this project.
We will do everything in our power to have our voice heard and the majority of the residents to have a vote and a voice.
As a concerned Cherokee Point resident I am opposed to the skate park the way it has moved forward.
My family signed the petition for the park long ago but was deceived by the youth presenting the petition. We were told the proposed skate park would be located where the old Copley Family YMCA currently is once the “Y” moves to their new location….not that our small community park would be destroyed.
That’s right…destroyed! Our park is now in the cross hairs of an environmental nightmare! The plan is to remove our trees, grass, and land in order to pour more concrete! The only area left will be the softball field where we can’t picnic, walk our pets, exercise, etc…
Yes, please build a skate park in City Heights…but in an unimproved area. Don’t however, take away our small community park, a park which our citizens had to fight for and cost millions of tax payer dollars in the first place.
At any rate, in the long run, we (my neighbors and I) just want to do the right thing for the environment and our community. Tearing out our trees and grass for more concrete is simply wrong!
I go back a ways when what is known as city heights was called East San Diego, I have lived on 40th st. 56 years and will turn 57 in February. When I was about 5 I remember the y.m.c.a had a large scale model of a freeway that would soon come thru our street/neighborhood to relieve us of a lot of traffic noise. Fast forwarding 25 years I recall my parents who are now deceased having meetings with Caltrans with neighbors about the I-15 freeway project, then came the groundbreaking and the project was well on its way after several meetings, this project was discussed from head to toe in great detail. Unfortunately this took so long to complete that my parents never got to see its completion, there was billions spent on it and now that little park we know as Par de la cruz now lies in the cross hairs over some skateboarders. I say bologna to that kids, this park offers more to more people of all ages just the way it stands now. I had to wait 40 years plus for changes in my neighborhood to get what was much need so I say grab a ticket and get to the back of the line.