What if it were more than just a fender bender?

The inevitable automobile accident at the entrance to Surf Sports Park on July 27, 2025, drives home the danger posed by the confluence of fast-moving regular traffic and endless lines of vehicles entering and exiting this hazardous location for weekly sports tournaments and practices throughout the year.

It’s also a stark reminder of the vulnerability of surrounding communities in the event of a natural disaster – and the City of San Diego’s complete lack of concern, accountability, or enforcement of public safety regulations at this site and on the fields. 

Predictably, Sunday afternoon eastbound and westbound traffic on Via de la Valle, a two-lane rural road, came to a standstill for nearly an hour with cars backed up for a mile in both directions. Frustrated drivers soon began making illegal U-turns to avoid the gridlock.   

The Rancho Santa Fe Fire Department was at the scene in 11 minutes. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries. Twenty-two minutes after the accident an ambulance arrived and took a passenger with a fractured wrist to the hospital – a clear indication that neither Emergency Medical Services personnel nor Basic Life Support Ambulance(s) were present as required by the City for such an event with thousands of athletes, coaches, referees, vendors, and spectators. 

For over a year the Coalition and Friends of the San Dieguito River Valley have called on the City of San Diego’s Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) and the office of City Council president Joe LaCava of District One, to confirm if a state-mandated evacuation plan exists for the sports fields in the event of a real emergency, and if not, why not. The SDFD appears to have been cowed into silence by the City or its Department of Real Estate and Airport Management (DREAM) that manages the Surf Cup Sports lease.

Meanwhile, a resolution proposed by the City and its lessee, Surf Cup Sports, to terminate the restrictive covenants in the Grant Deed which have in principle governed use of the playing fields, is intended as an end run around the Fairbanks Polo Club Homes’ lawsuit brought to enforce those very use-restrictions that have been in place since 1983. The City and Surf, having secured agreement from Ocean Industries, Inc., a successor to the original owner of the land, expect the City Council to approve the resolution sometime this summer – a date cannot be confirmed for the vote – to erase the covenants, moot the litigation, and thus deprive a judge of the opportunity to enforce them. This would shield the City and Surf from past violations and award them free rein over the former polo fields in the future, regardless of the destructive effect on neighboring communities and with little regard for public safety.

America’s finest collusion

In a disturbing development in the lawsuit brought by Fairbanks Polo Club Homes against the City of San Diego to enforce the land-use and environmental restrictions governing the former polo fields in the San Dieguito River Valley, it appears the City now has colluded with Surf Cup Sports and Ocean Industries – the original owner of the polo fields – to ask the City Council to erase those restrictions altogether.  

This is no less than an attempt to prevent the court from adjudicating in the Fairbanks case whether the City and Surf are in violation of those restrictions, and, even more important, to remove those legal safeguards from Surf’s future exploitation of the fields. If the City Council agrees, it would completely eviscerate the legal protections that were expressly for the benefit of communities neighboring the fields and to which the City and Surf freely agreed when they leased the land in the first place. 

The City, for its part, agreed to those use restrictions when it acquired the polo fields in 1983 through a Grant Deed which required the restrictions as part of the deal. Surf, in turn, agreed to abide by the Grant Deed incorporating those restrictions when it signed the lease for the 114-acre property in 2016.  

Yet in a joint filing dated June 30, 2025, the City and Surf announced that they have agreed with Ocean “to present a resolution to the City Council which would result in a termination of the use restrictions [in the Grant Deed] that are the subject of the [Fairbanks] litigation.” Now the legal battle that was expected to take place in a courtroom in December, appears headed for a purely political decision at the City Council sometime this summer. 

As of this writing we are waiting to hear from the Coast Law team on next steps and how individuals, homeowners’ associations, and businesses can best express their alarm directly to the City Council, either in writing, in person at the City Council, or both.  

In the meantime, please share this information widely with your neighbors and friends in Rancho Santa Fe, Carmel Valley, Del Mar, Solana Beach and other communities that have been adversely affected by Surf’s overuse of the fields and associated traffic, noise, and dust – and which fear how the City and Surf may exacerbate those harms in the future if existing legal safeguards are removed.

Lawsuit gets infusion of funds and new legal team

The Friends of the San Dieguito River Valley, a watchdog group to increase public awareness and vigilance, has contributed $16,000 in support of the Fairbanks Polo Club Homes’ ongoing litigation with the City of San Diego and intervenor Surf Cup Sports, LLC.  

In a generous related contribution, the Rancho Del Mar Association provided an additional $1,000 to support the lawsuit. Both donations come on the heels of an encouraging and strategic change in the HOA’s legal representation.  

Attorney David Peck of Coast Law Group now represents Fairbanks Polo Club Homes in the lawsuit. Mr. Peck, a seasoned litigator, brings extensive experience in land use and environmental law, a proven track record of success, and a collaborative, team-based approach that aligns with the goal of moving forward vigorously and efficiently. Mr. Peck and his team will guide the lawsuit through its current deposition and discovery phase to a jury trial set for December 5, 2025. 

The Coalition encourages all concerned residents to continue to help fund this lawsuit and its goal of protecting the San Dieguito River Valley from overuse and commercial expansion by Surf Cup Sports and its related business entities – such as the most recent breach of the Grant Deed that governs use of the property: installation without permit or public review, a commercial training facility run by Performance Sports Lab that trains some 500 athletes a week, bringing more unwanted traffic, noise, and air pollution. 

Checks should be made payable to: “Coast Law Group Client Trust – FPCH”
Mail to: 1140 S. Coast Hwy 101, Encinitas, CA 92024

Surf slips another commercial tenant onto open space

In late January of this year, Surf Cup Sports installed a plat of synthetic turf filled with crumb rubber in the northeastern corner of the playing fields they lease from the City of San Diego next to the San Dieguito River.

The Performance Lab training facility for adults and young athletes was placed just a few feet from the Coast-to-Crest Trail at the northeastern end of the playing fields.

This was followed soon after by the placement of a large metal shipping container a few feet from the Coast-to-Crest Trail, trenching to bring electricity from a nearby transformer, and the erection of a black chain-link fence to cordon off the area from public access and remove it from open space. There is no record at the City’s Development Services Department of any permits being applied for or approved for this work.

By the end of March the container on Field #5 had been painted black and filled with weight-lifting and other gym equipment such as ice baths, mats, cameras, and high-tech training equipment by Performance Lab SD for use as a semi-permanent training facility, presumably through some sort of sub-lease from Surf Sports, even though the Grant Deed that governs use of the fields – and the Surf lease – prohibits such commercial activity on the property.

Performance Lab’s social media post indicates they are training up to 500 athletes a week at the facility.

The facility now is being used daily from morning until dark to train both young people and adults – some “300-500 athletes a week” – according to Performance Lab’s social media marketing. Music, an apparently integral part of the training, is blasted on speakers during all sessions creating an endless barrage of booming bass notes that invade nearby homes throughout the day. Despite numerous complaints the noise continues unabated. In addition, the number of cars using Field #5’s dirt parking lot has increased dramatically, adding to the hundreds of vehicles already bringing players and families there for daily soccer practices with a commensurate increase in noise and dust, especially during the busy afternoons.

Numerous letters and phone calls to the City of San Diego inquiring about permits and the presence of the training facility have met with predictable silence, allowing one more egregious violation of the Grant Deed – at least for the time being – to worm its way onto the fields without official City, public, or environmental review.

 

 

Rancho Santa Fe donates $50,000 to support lawsuit

Sending a clear signal of growing regional concern about the negative effects of expanding and unchecked use of the former polo fields for sporting and other events, the Rancho Santa Fe Association, through its political action committee, last week donated $50,000 in support of the Fairbanks Polo Club Homes’ (FPCH) lawsuit against the City of San Diego. The complaint targets the City for its failure to enforce clear land-use restrictions in the grant deed held by the FPCH that run with the 114-acre parcel in the San Dieguito River Valley.

The Association’s donation was gratefully received by the plaintiffs and represents the latest of several significant contributions to the FPCH legal fund in recent months. The ongoing show of financial support comes from individuals and communities affected by the potentially dangerous and unsustainable increase in traffic, noise, and environmental problems generated by events on the property leased from the City by Surf Cup Sports, a multimillion-dollar syndicate ostensibly promoting youth sports. In addition, a brush fire in Del Mar on a busy tournament day last June as well as recent devastating fires in Los Angeles, drove home the disturbing fact that no emergency evacuation plans exist at the City or County level that take into account the added impact of thousands of cars and people on any given day on the busiest routes in and out of the Ranch and surrounding communities.

With a late-year mediation attempt behind them, and thankful for the ongoing community and coalition support, Fairbanks Polo Club Homes says it intends to “continue to prosecute the case vigorously and to take appropriate discovery to document what it contends is the City’s ongoing failure to enforce the grant deed’s restrictions on uses of the land.”

A GoFundMe campaign was launched last year to support the lawsuit. Click on the link to view the GoFundMe page and/or to donate.  

Bigger and nastier

An estimated 18,000 people descended on Surf Sports Park for a four-day soccer tournament July 19-22 that filled all 27 fields from dawn to dusk.

That number reflects 272 soccer teams comprising nearly 6,000 players and some 12,500 spectators – not including scouts and referees – most of whom were from other parts of the country.*

The arriving crowds and vehicles (coinciding with the first days of the Del Mar Racing season), generated the predictable noise, clouds of dust, gravel, and vehicle gridlock along sections of Via de la Valle that residents in surrounding communities now resign themselves to during such events in the absence of enforcement of frequency or size by the City of San Diego and total lack of interest by County officials who maintain it’s a City problem.

In an unfortunate development at the field level, according to David Gerson, a United States Soccer certified mentor and referee, officials at the tournament were told by the Surf organizers to avoid handing out penalty cards that would take players out of games because “people paid a lot of money to be here.” That directive appears to have sparked a dangerous brawl involving over 30 parents, coaches, and players physically attacking referees who tried to rein in excessive violence by one team and their coach.

Mr. Gerson’s Instagram link with video from the incident and comments by fellow referees and soccer parents is included here.

* Figures for the July 19-22, 2024 tournament based on data provided by Surf Cup for a 2014 economic analysis by San Diego State University’s Center for Hospitality and Tourism Research. Click here to read the study.

A stark reminder

Smoke from a brush fire in the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve Extension just west of the I-5 in Del Mar

A small, mid-morning brush fire in a Del Mar canyon June 25 grew in size during the early afternoon sending plumes of smoke into the sky just four miles from Surf Cup’s biggest soccer tournament of the year.

Despite the smoke and dramatic scenes of firefighting helicopters scooping water from a lake behind the playing fields, cars continued to come and go throughout the day with eastbound traffic on Via de la Valle backed up two miles to the freeway. Fortunately, it was an off day at the San Diego County Fairgrounds.

The fire was contained by early evening, thanks to the skilled efforts of firefighters in the air and on the ground but it was a stark visual reminder of why there are continuing concerns about the wisdom of allowing massive gatherings of people and cars in the San Dieguito River Valley – in direct violation of a grant deed that governs use of that leased land – and the impact on neighboring communities and surface street traffic in the event of a more serious emergency. Unhindered evacuations would be critical not just for the thousands of players and families to exit the playing fields, but for many more thousands of residents who would use the same routes to safety.

Business as usual

The City of San Diego’s failure to enforce the Grant Deed restrictions generated an April 2023 lawsuit that among other goals seeks to limit Surf Cup Sports’ use of the fields to 25 days a year as stipulated in the Grant Deed. Even before the lawsuit, San Diego officials – including City Councilman Joe LaCava whose District One encompasses the sports fields – have studiously looked the other way to avoid addressing or taking action on complaints about the increased, daily use of the fields and accompanying traffic, noise, and dust. 

The County of San Diego appears to be in lockstep with the City. When specific concerns about unsustainable levels of traffic and numerous accidents on San Diego County Route S-6 (Via de la Valle) near the Surf Cup Sports entrance were raised by the Whispering Palms Community Council in a recent letter to County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, the response was equally evasive:  

“After close review of the issue,” an aide to Supervisor Lawson wrote in May 2024, “it appears this situation directly involves the City of San Diego. The County of San Diego and Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer does [sic] not have any authority to directly address your concerns. Because you live in our County Supervisorial District, we are happy to forward your concern along to the City Council Member’s office.”

Morning traffic was backed up two miles to the I-5 freeway

Institutional obfuscation

The City of San Diego’s Department of Development Services (DSD) recently offered to meet with representatives of the Whispering Palms Community Council to discuss the controversial two-story, 48,000 sq. ft. sports complex proposed by Surf Cup Sports (d.b.a. as Pioneer Sports and Entertainment) for the 24-acre parcel adjacent to the former polo fields. Before the meeting however, DSD requested that questions for the meeting be submitted in advance. Eight questions were duly sent over. The DSD then replied that the topics raised could not be discussed in person, and that instead, the DSD would respond in writing. That unhelpful document now can be viewed via this link.