Del Mar and Solana Beach will hire outside attorneys to help prepare their official comments on the three routes proposed for a tunnel to take train traffic off the eroding coastal bluffs.
Both cities have grave concerns about the effects the railroad realignment could have on property values, public safety and the local economy, particularly the disruption during construction likely to last up to 10 years.
The San Diego Association of Governments, the county’s regional planning agency, announced three possible routes for the tunnel in its notice of preparation (NOP) issued in June for the project’s environmental impact report. Anyone interested has until July 19 to submit their comments, which will be included with the agency’s responses in the report.
Initially Del Mar asked SANDAG to extend the comment period by 15 days, but the request was dropped. More than 800 comments had been received through Tuesday.
“During the last SANDAG board meeting, I agreed to continue the NOP comment period with the current three alignments, but to not extend it,” Solana Beach Mayor and SANDAG Vice Chair Lesa Heebner said in an email Tuesday. “This was agreed to by Del Mar.”
The two cities also agreed to form a “values analysis team” with representatives of San Diego, the Del Mar Fairgrounds and North County Transit District, all of whom have interests in the realignment.
The team will explore possible modifications to the three routes proposed in the notice and will encourage SANDAG to consider an entirely different route, Heebner said. Any significant modifications, changes or additions could require the agency to issue a new notice of preparation, starting the process over.
She and others support a suggestion by Encinitas Mayor Tony Kranz that a much larger segment of the railroad, from Oceanside to San Diego, be moved inland to a route along the Interstate 5 corridor.
Solana Beach was mostly absent from the realignment conversation until last month. Residents there were surprised to learn that one of the three possible routes, Alternative A, would require a northern portal in Solana Beach.
Alternative A, much favored by Del Mar, avoids most if not all of Del Mar by going from Solana Beach under the fairgrounds and along I-5 to a southern portal just inside San Diego. The other two alternatives, B and C, would have northern portals in Del Mar and would take trains beneath the city’s homes.
Alternative A is the longest of the three routes. It would be twice as expensive as the other two and could take twice as long to build, SANDAG officials said.
“Alternative A was recently proposed by a group of Del Mar residents who do not want a tunnel in their city,” Heebner said last month in a public letter asking residents to oppose the route. “So they removed it from Del Mar and placed it in Solana Beach.”
Del Mar also plans to hire outside planning, engineering and communications consultants to help lay out the city’s position on the environmental review, design and construction of any realignment.
City Attorney Leslie Devaney said Monday the Del Mar council has not discussed the initiation of any litigation related to the project.
Many of Del Mar’s less than 4,000 residents strongly oppose a tunnel.
“All of us agree we don’t want a tunnel under Del Mar, we don’t want freight trains and no eminent domain,” Angelina Neglia of the local advocacy group Coalition for Safer Trains said at a City Council meeting Monday.
A tunnel portal in Del Mar could require the use of eminent domain to acquire as many as 30 private homes, Neglia said. She asked the City Council to approve a resolution opposing the tunnel and any use of eminent domain.
Del Mar’s City Council has scheduled a special meeting for 2 p.m. July 16 to approve its official comments on SANDAG’s notice of preparation. The council also could discuss a resolution at the meeting.
SANDAG is in the midst of a fifth phase of bluff stabilization work that began more than 20 years ago to protect about 1.7 miles of track on the eroding Del Mar bluffs.
The coastal train tracks are San Diego’s only rail connection to Orange County, Los Angeles and the rest of the United States.
The San Diego segment is used by NCTD’s Coaster commuter trains, Amtrak passenger trains, and BNSF freight trains. It’s also part of the Defense Department’s nationwide Strategic Rail Corridor Network, which consists of 38,800 miles of track serving 193 military installations.
