OCEANSIDE COUNCIL UPHOLDS RESORT PLAN OK
City planners’ approval had been appealed over worker and traffic issues
The approval of Ocean Kamp, Oceanside’s proposed resort with an artificial surfing lagoon, restaurants, shops, a 300-room hotel and up to 700 homes, was upheld this week by the Oceanside City Council.
The Oceanside Planning Commission signed off on the project in July, but two groups — the local nonprofit Preserve Calavera and San Diegans for Sustainable, Economic and Equitable Development (SD SEED) — appealed the decision to the City Council.
SD SEED, which represents local labor unions, dropped its appeal after a private settlement just before Wednesday’s council meeting. Dozens of union members, mostly carpenters and plumbers, and their families attended the meeting in support of the project and the jobs it would bring to the area.
“The wave lagoon will be transformative and thrilling,” said Jon Corn, an attorney and CEO of the partnership developing the 92-acre site along state Route 76 near the Oceanside airport. “It’s going to be a world-class destination.”
Both appeals raised similar concerns about the project’s economic sustainability, water consumption, safety issues related to the airport, and the use of an environmental impact report completed for a previous development, a large big-box-anchored shopping center that was never built.
“We agree this project can bring some benefits to Oceanside, but it also includes huge risks and sacrifices,” Preserve Calavera President Diane Nygaard told the council.
Traffic is a serious problem, she said, and the project will generate more than 19,000 additional trips per day on streets that already are congested.
Preserve Calavera has won concessions from a number of North County developers by filing legal actions against their projects.
In September, the nonprofit announced a settlement with Integral Communities that, among other things, will reduce the number of
homes in the North River Farms community proposed for South Morro Hills to 395 homes instead of the 585 homes approved by the Oceanside City Council in 2019.
“We are considering our options to address the numerous, substantive concerns we have about this project,” Nygaard said Thursday when asked about the Ocean Kamp decision.
“It is unfortunate that pretty pictures and vague promises took precedence over meaningful actions,” she said by email. “The traffic congestion, air pollution, safety issues next to the airport, (greenhouse gases), and impacts to the regional wildlife movement corridor need to be fixed before the project is built — after is too late.”
Oceanside’s business community and many surfers support the project.
“A one-of-a-kind project such as Ocean Kamp will further solidify Oceanside’s reputation as a Southern California destination,” said Oceanside Chamber of Commerce CEO Scott Ashton, adding that it will include much-needed housing in a variety of styles and price ranges.
Ten percent of the homes in the development will be reserved as affordable housing for qualifying families. Corn said that as a result of negotiations with the appellants, the developer agreed this week to include the entire 10 percent on-site instead of building half on-site and paying in-lieu fees for the other half.
Still, some residents said the proposal lacks a number of important details, such as a time schedule for construction and whether the hotel and commercial elements will be built before all the housing.