SAN DIEGOSAN DIEGO — Golfers are launching a last-minute campaign against plans to transform much of northeast Mission Bay into climate-friendly marshland, which the City Council will consider Tuesday after years of controversy and lobbying.
Local golfers, high school golf coaches and regional golf organizations say they don’t oppose the marshland idea — they just don’t like that it will require Mission Bay Golf Course to become a few acres smaller.
That could require shrinking the driving range, shortening some holes or both. And those changes might cost the course its eligibility to host some high school events.
Changes planned for the course are relatively minor compared to what the marshland plan would do to camping, which would move to an entirely new location and see the number of campsites cut nearly in half, from 970 to roughly 500.
Golf, camping and non-organized activities like picnics have to give up space to allow the city to triple the amount of marshland, wetlands and dunes in the area from 82 acres to 262 acres.
Golfers worry this could be just the beginning.
“Reducing the size is just the first step to eliminating it forever,” said John Mason, a local youth golf advocate who is director of instruction at Encinitas Ranch Golf Course.
Nikki Gatch, chief executive of the Southern California Professional Golfers’ Association, said the City Council should delay approving the long-awaited marshland plan to reconsider the impact on golf.
“Mission Bay Golf Course is the model facility for golfers of all ages and ability levels at an affordable price,” Gatch said. “It is places like this our golf professionals point to when we are introducing beginners to golf.”
Shrinking the course could potentially require Mission Bay to become an all-par-3 course instead of an executive course featuring both par-3s and par-4s.
“Changing the golf course acreage could negatively affect the character, charm and playability,” Gatch said. “We can all agree that environmental sustainability is a priority in this beautiful city, but not at the expense of golf and other active recreation that gives so much value to its residents and visitors.”
Any changes to the course would be several years away, because the city still needs to refine its plans and find millions to pay for transforming the northeast corner of the bay.
And the specifics on how the course would change won’t be settled until city planners, with from the public, create a general development plan that designates which uses would go where in the transformation.
For example, under the marshland plan the City Council is voting on Tuesday, space for active recreation would grow slightly from 60 to 66 acres, allowing two more courts for tennis and pickleball and enlarging some playing fields to regulation size.
But advocates for tennis, soccer, softball and other recreational activities won’t know where they will ultimately be located until that general development plan is created in a few years.
Last year, city planners created a hypothetical “test fit” map that shrank the golf course from 47 to 43 acres, reducing it from a par-58 to a par-54 and making the driving range smaller.
But a revised version shows the golf course shrinking by only 2 acres instead of 4 acres. And a final decision on how it might be reconfigured won’t come until the general development plan is created.
The marshland proposal has generally been well received, getting unanimous approval from the city’s Planning Commission in December and the council’s Environment Committee in March.
The Environment Committee called the plan a fair compromise between environmentalists, ers of camping and advocates for recreation.
The ’s praised the plan for managing to preserve nearly all existing uses while also fighting sea-level rise and working to take dangerous carbon out of the air by tripling the marshland in the area.
The plan was also praised for recent revisions guaranteeing that camping and recreation uses, which will shift to new locations, will be able to keep operating until the city is ready to break ground on the changes.
After the council approves the plan, it must also get approval from the California Coastal Commission.
The fight over Mission Bay’s northeast corner began more than seven years ago, when the closure of the De Anza Cove mobile home park prompted San Diego to explore how to revamp 505 acres of land and water there.
New features included in the plan include a nature center, a small non-motorized boat area on the beach of De Anza Cove and an extensive network of multi-use waterfront trails.
The groups that have been fighting over the area for years mostly expressed grudging for the plan when the Environment Committee approved it in March. But they also complained about what they would lose.
The 50-acre Campland on the Bay site would become marshland in the plan, so it can be ed with the existing Kendall-Frosh Marsh Reserve north of Crown Point.
Kendall-Frost is the only remaining marshland in 4,000-acre Mission Bay Park, which was essentially all marshland before it was aggressively dredged after World War II to create what city officials call the world’s largest aquatic park.
Camping would get less space and be relocated to De Anza Point, where the mobile home park used to be. Campland ers noted that the city collected more than $5.6 million in rent and tax revenue from camping in northeast Mission Bay during 2023, an amount that they say would likely shrink significantly with fewer campsites.
Environmentalists, including a group of 86 organizations that have formed a coalition called ReWild Mission Bay, have continued to advocate for even more marshland than the 262 acres proposed by the city.
The coalition wants 315 acres instead, contending sea-level rise will put much of the new marshland under water in coming years.
Tuesday’s council hearing is scheduled for the afternoon session, which begins at 2 p.m. in City Hall at 202 C St.
