Port approves plan for 8,000 acres of expanded territory in San Diego Bay

The local agency that controls the land around San Diego Bay has finalized the governing document that will expand its authority to 7,900 more acres in the bay and another 100 acres on land.

Last week, the Board of Port Commissioners for the San Diego Unified Port District unanimously approved what’s known as the Trust Lands Use Plan, or TLUP, a land-use framework for the mostly submerged lands transferred to the agency in 2020. The commissioners also approved the plan’s associated environmental impact report, or its Mitigated Negative Declaration, which determined that there will be no significant effects once mitigation measures are implemented.

The actions advance the plan for consideration by the California Coastal Commission.

The TLUP is an amendment to the Port Master Plan that, once certified by the Coastal Commission and approved by the California State Lands Commission, will give the port permitting authority over what has colloquially been referred to as “the doughnut hole.” The moniker describes how the port’s jurisdiction has historically wrapped around the coastline of the entire bay, from Shelter Island to the South Bay and Coronado, but excluded the more central water areas.

The mostly submerged lands, previously held in trust by the State Lands Commission, were transferred to the port on Jan. 1, 2020, through California Senate Bill 507. The water and land area, which includes the deep-water federal navigation channel, is said to have been granted to the port for more streamlined management.

“State Lands recognized the need, or rather efficiency, of having us as the trustee agency in the area, (as) boots on the ground, being the agency that would manage these areas,” said Lesley Nishihira, a port vice president who manages the agency’s planning efforts. “Because it is primarily water space, what was important to us is that we talked to a lot of the users of the bay. … We talked to recreational boaters. We talked to the Working Waterfront. We talked to the Navy, fishermen (and) people that use the space. And through its goals, policies and objectives, the TLUP seeks to make sure we protect and balance all of those different interests.”

The Trust Lands Use Plan will not spur a building boom in the water. Rather, the TLUP primarily creates room for seaweed and shellfish aquaculture projects at a shuttered anchorage, allows a longstanding bait barge off the coast of Point Loma to continue operating, and preserves areas for boating and other water activities.

Formed by the state in 1962, the San Diego Unified Port District is a special district comprised of the tidelands and submerged lands in five different cities: San Diego, National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Coronado. The agency’s recently granted water territory extends its jurisdiction deeper into the bay, closing the doughnut hole.

The Trust Lands Use Plan borrows most of its goals, policies and water-use designations from the Port Master Plan Update, the agency’s future-looking bayfront development manual awaiting certification from the Coastal Commission.

The document introduces four new planning districts covering 8,003 acres: North Bay with 1,517 acres, North Central Bay with 1,146 acres, South Central Bay with 3,028 acres and South Bay with 2,311 acres.

The North Bay district, located between Shelter Island and North Island Naval Air Station, is designed to support navigation between the Pacific Ocean and San Diego Bay. The North Central Bay district, extending from Laurel Street to the Coronado Bridge, is structured to allow for commercial and recreational vessel travel. There is no land or water development planned for either district, although the document allows for short-term docking and maintenance activities in the North Central Bay district.

The South Central Bay district, stretching from the bridge to the National City Marine Terminal, allows for increased conservation efforts, including nature-based shoreline preservation projects and the farming of seaweed and shellfish at the former A-8 anchorage.

The South Bay district, its northern portion east of the Silver Strand and its southern portion abutting the city of Imperial Beach, allows for the continued existence of roughly 1,060 acres of salt evaporation ponds and includes nearly 100 acres of land.

The land area is mostly designated as conservation open space, which allows for scientific research and wildlife conservation. There is, however, a 5-acre stretch of land that connects Imperial Beach to the Silver Strand that is designated as a recreation open space area. The designation means the site, which already includes the Bayshore Bikeway, can be minimally developed with facilities such as seating, public art and informational signage — but no restrooms.

The doughnut-hole territory also includes nearly two dozen leases of varying scope that were transferred to the port in 2020. The agreements allow for public agency use, academic use or right-of-way use, and cover items such as buoys, cables or sewer mains.

Some leases bring in revenue, with the port required to share a portion of the proceeds with the State Lands Commission. For instance, BAE Systems, which operates a ship repair yard, leases submerged lands within the new territory for portions of its dry dock facilities. And Everingham Bros. Bait Company operates the aforementioned bait barge in the North Bay.

In the most recent fiscal year, ending June 30, the port paid State Lands $490,000 for its share of rental revenue from the granted land leases and kept $633,000 in payments, Nishihira, the port vice president, said. The agency’s net proceeds totaled around $135,000 for the year, she said.

The port expects to secure final approval of the Trust Lands Use Plan from the State Lands Commission by the end of 2026.