By DAVID GARRICK
Posted in The San Diego Union-Tribune on June 27, 2021
San Diego’s recent push to boost its poorest, most parks-deficient neighborhoods will accelerate this summer when the city designates much of southeastern San Diego as Chollas Creek Regional Park.
The area won’t be a typical rectangular-shaped regional park like Balboa Park or Mission Bay, and it won’t be a linear regional park like those being created along the San Diego River and Otay River.
Instead the Chollas Creek Regional Park will be a loose collection of small parks, open space canyons, trails and other recreational amenities spread throughout a roughly 20-square-mile area where the creek and its many tributaries run.
It will include City Heights, Encanto and many surrounding neighborhoods of southeastern and mid-city San Diego. The southern edge of the park will be the mouth of Chollas Creek where it enters the bay near Naval Base San Diego.
Mayor Todd Gloria earlier this month announced his intention to designate Chollas Creek a regional park as part of a new master plan for city parks that also will increase parks funding for low-income areas.
The designation is expected to boost the status and reputation of the Chollas Creek area and make it eligible for more funding for recreational amenities. It also will spur creation of a master plan focused on enhancing the long-neglected creek in a coordinated way.
“The master plan will identify where we should be focusing efforts to create park activities and amenities, how we should address preservation and care for the natural resources of the creek, and how we should enhance public access to the area,” said Andy Field, the city’s parks director. “It will be a road map to help us move forward.”
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