Plans to bolster some of San Diego’s poorest neighborhoods with a new regional park are gaining momentum this summer.

Supporters of the proposed Chollas Creek Regional Park, which would cover 32 square miles including much of southeastern San Diego and parts of La Mesa and Lemon Grove, say it would give the area an identity, connect diverse neighborhoods with trails and bring greater attention to a neglected natural and cultural resource.

“It’s a catalyst to improve the area,” said Vicki Estrada, a prominent local land planner working with a nonprofit agency on the project. “Making it a regional park would bring signage, create a logo and tie the area together, making the neighborhoods begin to feel part of a bigger picture.”

It could also mean an estimated $700,000 in city funding to create a master plan for connecting the area’s trails, cleaning up dump sites, restoring native vegetation and replacing some concrete flood channels with more natural creek banks.


So supporters are completing a feasibility study they’re scheduled to present to the city of San Diego’s Parks and Recreation Board in October.

Meanwhile, the idea has been endorsed recently by city councils in La Mesa and Lemon Grove and community planning groups in Encanto and southeastern San Diego. And Estrada is scheduled to present the proposal next month to additional planning groups in Barrio Logan, City Heights, Golden Hill and North Park.

If it’s named a regional park, the Chollas Creek watershed would have the same status as other regional parks like Mission Trails, Mission Bay and Balboa Park.


But supporters say it would be more similar to the San Diego and San Dieguito river parks, where trails, pocket parks and other recreational amenities have been steadily added along a previously neglected waterway.

The waterway in this case would be Chollas Creek, which runs from the neighborhood of Chollas Creek southwest toward its terminus at San Diego Bay near Naval Base San Diego. La Mesa and Lemon Grove are part of a wider watershed surrounding the creek.

The long-term plan is to create a joint powers authority among the cities within the watershed, where they would share annual costs for maintenance and the planning of park upgrades.

The regional park designation would give the Chollas Creek watershed an identity that would increase public awareness and spur fundraising needed to make many changes supporters have imagined for years, supporters say.


“It will call attention to this watershed and brand it as an incredibly wonderful place for biological diversity and cultural resources,” said Leslie Reynolds, executive director of Groundwork San Diego, a nonprofit focused on upgrading Chollas Creek.

Reynolds said significant progress has been made since her group began in 2007, including some habitat restorations, creek crossings and bike trails. But she said a regional park designation would be a key milestone.

“When we began this process, there was a general perception at City Hall and elsewhere that there is absolutely no reason anybody would actually come to this watershed for much of anything,” she said. “That is a notion that will turn around immediately with this designation.”

Groundwork managed to raise $3 million for a trail connection between Southcrest and the Bayshore Bikeway, but she said the designation would accelerate such progress.


“We raised that money because it was a compelling case, so once we have a master plan you can imagine how many more things like that there will be,” she said. “There’s going to be a wealth of interest in funding, especially with the focus on underserved communities and bringing them into active transportation.”

The new regional park would dovetail with Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s focus on bolstering San Diego neighborhoods whose economies and infrastructure needs have been neglected, Reynolds said.

It also fits with the city’s proposed climate action plan, which would reduce carbon emissions by encouraging more people to walk and bicycle to work and school, something a vibrant trail system in southeastern San Diego could help accomplish.

Reynolds and Estrada acknowledge, however, that they face a long, uphill fight.


The city doesn’t own all of the land in the watershed like it does in Mission Trails and Mission Bay regional parks, forcing negotiations with property owners for many projects.

And community awareness of the creek is low because most commercial and residential developments have been built with their backs to it.

That’s partly because poverty in the area made it a popular dumping ground and place for homeless encampments, overgrown plants that city officials neglected to maintain and other unappealing things.

Ken Marlborough, chairman of the Encanto Community Planning Group, said he didn’t even know the creek was there while growing up in the area. Only through his work as a community leader has he come to realize its potential, he said.


“I think it would make a big difference in community pride,” he said, referring to the regional park designation. “It could help us turn the creek back to what it originally was. It’s the right thing to do.”

City Council members, who expressed support for the regional park designation last spring, would need to include money for creating the master plan in next year’s budget, Reynolds said.