After a local preservation group challenged the environmental study done for construction of the city’s first skate park, San Juan Capistrano leaders decided to have a more detailed check done of potential impacts, walking back their approval of the project for now.
Further review of a skate park’s environmental impacts will allow the city to “move forward with the most defensible project possible” in light of the group’s lawsuit, Matisse Reischl, a senior management analyst in the city’s administration office, told council members on Tuesday.
But getting the report done will mean another delay for the skate park that has advocated for by skateboarders and supporters for more than a decade. While city officials originally anticipated construction to begin this month, the process of conducting the environmental review and bringing it back for city approvals is expected to take between nine months and a year, Reischl said.
The City Council had approved a final design for the $3.3 million project in April.
The plans called for a 20,000-square-foot skate park and a range of other recreational elements on a small portion of the 28-acre Kinoshita Farm property, a site off Camino Del Avion that is owned by the city. Other features would include a playground, restrooms and a public trail adjacent to the city’s Community Center and Sports Park.
Currently leased to the nearby Ecology Center, the Kinoshita Farm property has been zoned for a variety of agricultural land uses. Along with approving the project plans, the City Council in April also amended the property’s uses to allow the skate park and public trails.
Those opposed have focused on possible noise and impacts to traffic in the area once the park opened.
In a lawsuit, filed weeks after the council’s approval of the project, the group Preserve Our Farm SJC argues the city was required to perform the more in-depth environmental study and that the project goes against a measure approved by voters in 1990 to preserve the property for agricultural use.
At Tuesday’s council meeting, Mayor Derek Reeve acknowledged many were likely “disappointed” by another delay to the project. He said the environmental review city officials performed for the skate park was one commonly used for projects, and there had been “no negative environmental impacts” expressed.
The firm that conducted the first environmental review for the city said noise levels expected from the park at the nearest residential site to it were lower than the standards set under city code, and that predicted traffic noise resulting from the project would be “a negligible increase to the existing outdoor ambient sound levels and result in a less than significant impact,” a report from city staffers said.
But Reeve called the council’s decision to conduct further study the “prudent action” and “of the best interest for the residents and the taxpayers.”
A handful of community members expressed frustration during the meeting about another snag in the skate park’s progress. After years of promising kids in San Juan Capistrano a place to ride their wheels, “the rug keeps getting pulled out from underneath them,” one resident said.
The mayor noted that the environmental study will evaluate the Kinoshita Farm property “and other sites,” and vowed that city leaders will “move forward with a skate park somewhere.”
“We remain – all the residents remain – committed to having this happen,” Reeve said.
The environmental review, which will also study the rezoning of the property for skate park and trail uses, will cost $75,000, officials said.
