‘The Fix Is In’: Balboa Park Plan Discards 100 Years of Preservation

In 1915, it was called “The Magic City.”  It still is, but its days are numbered as of July 9, 2012, when the San Diego City Council turned over civic planning and policy to the unelected, unappointed Jacobs faction and its costly, broad axe approach to clearing the Plaza de Panama of cars.

We, and many others, repeatedly begged the council not to go down in history as the one that dismantled one of the world’s great urban spaces to gain a mere 272 parking spaces (100 of those for valet service).  Not to be the one that turned over the jewel in the crown to a monied industrialist.  Not to be the one that lacked historical perspective, cultural sensitivity and a decent regard for the vision of the founders Bertram Goodhue, George Marston, Kate Sessions, Julius Wangenheim, Thomas Nesmith, Mary Coulston, Dan Cleveland, Dr. J. La Fevre, Mrs. Ben Lake, Melville Klauber, Col. D.C. Collier and others.  Not to be the one that discarded 100 years of effort by many San Diegans to preserve the park.  

Not to ignore a logical alternative—install a parking structure across Park Boulevard at Inspiration Point and increase the trams.  Not to ignore the most cost effective solution—remove parking from the Plaza de Panama and close the Cabrillo Bridge to all but pedestrians, bikes, service and emergency vehicles, and trams for the disabled.  They didn’t even test this obvious, latter solution.

Not to be the one that fills the park with more cars than ever before in its history.  But that’s what they did.

The industrial [Irwin] Jacobs plan thinks in terms of big parking structures, massive retaining walls, pillars and abutments.   The “Jacobs Freeway” through the park will carve a hole in the iconic Cabrillo Bridge, stripping it of federal landmark status to allow thousands of cars to make a risky hard right amid pedestrians in order to drive around a curve into an underground garage ventilated only on one side (building code violation).  

En route, cars carrying the handicapped, Fed Ex, UPS, etc., can pull into a congested spot by the Alcazar Garden to pick up and drop off people and parcels.  The classic beauty and serenity of Alcazar will be destroyed.  The House of Pacific Relations will be isolated (some 6,000 of its members opposed the plan).  The archery range will vanish.  The parking garage assuredly will not pay for itself and will cost over $300,000 annually to maintain.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg —and all because civic history, culture and preservation, not to mention reasonable alternatives, matter little or nothing to Jacobs and his council.  The fix is in. 

An elected City Council is charged, among other things, with protecting and defending its history and important civic resources (like Balboa Park).  In fact, this actually occurs in enlightened cities all over America.  But on July 9, in an embarrassing, hands-off display, in a 6-1 vote, the San Diego council abrogated its sworn responsibility and allowed the Jacobs plan to supplant the wisdom of thousands of local, state and federal planning and preservation professionals, and “ordinary voters,” who oppose the plan.  

The council waited through more than six hours of wrenching testimony before falling to its knees in front of Jacobs—who, let the record show, hasn’t actually produced his $31 million and the city certainly doesn’t have its $14 million.   But hold the phone.  There will be a bond and, down the line, “fees.”  And guess who’ll pay for those?

Helen Ofield and the board of the Lemon Grove Historical Society