The Del Mar Fairgrounds Board of Directors voted May 13 to postpone its regularly scheduled vote on whether to continue housing discussions with the city of Del Mar until its next meeting, which will be in either July or August.
The fair board and city entered into an agreement last year to negotiate a potential 61-unit affordable housing project on fairgrounds property, which the city needs to complete to meet a state-mandated affordable housing requirement.
The negotiating agreement gives the fair board unilateral authority to pause or end housing discussions at any time. Board have repeatedly said they are unsure whether they want to allow housing on the property, partly because they’re unsure how it fits in with the fairgrounds master plan that they’re in the process of developing.
“There’s no commitment except to discuss,” fair board President Frederick Schenk said during the meeting. “This is an ongoing discussion that we keep having every month. Like Groundhog Day, here we are again.”
If the negotiating agreement does not end in a housing project at the fairgrounds, state regulators have told the city it needs to upzone north and south bluff properties as a backup plan.
So far, the fair board has paused negotiations twice, followed by decisions to resume. Both decisions to pause discussions on affordable housing were due to a separate project to reroute the LOSSAN rail off the eroding Del Mar bluffs. Fair board have been staunchly opposed to any new alignment that runs through fairgrounds property, but two times over the last year they felt that city officials were advocating for that option. The two sides reconciled with the city adopting and then affirming a set of “guiding principles,” including one to protect the interests of the fairgrounds. The San Diego Association of Governments is still in the process of selecting a route for the rail realignment project.
After the second time, the board decided to check in on the matter at each of its monthly board meetings and take a vote on whether to continue.
“The intent was to provide ability for the City of Del Mar for adhering to its guiding principles,” reads a fair board staff report.
The first such vote took place during the board’s April meeting, when it unanimously agreed to continue.
The fair board also postponed a separate agenda item to July or August to discuss the affordable housing project and how it will impact operations and master planning for the future at the fairgrounds. The discussion will help address the “numerous questions about the feasibility of affordable housing,” according to a staff report.
The next regularly scheduled meeting is August. The fair board does not always meet in July, when the San Diego County Fair is going on, but they could decide to call a meeting.
