A ruling by Judge Victor M. Torres of San Diego Superior Court has handed an important win to the Fairbanks Polo Club Homes (FPCH) homeowners’ association in their ongoing lawsuit against the City of San Diego, Surf Sports, and Ocean Industries. The September 9, 2026 ruling ended the defendants’ attempt to knock out FPCH’s position through a motion for judgement on the pleadings.
In his ruling, Judge Torres found that questions remain about what happened when Ocean Industries assigned all its rights under the 1983 Grant Deed to FPCH nine years ago, and specifically whether Ocean Industries in doing so, may have lost the ability to exercise the power to terminate the deed restrictions as it did in concert with the San Diego City Council in October 2025.
That disgraceful vote by the City Council ended 40 years of open-space protection over some 600 acres in the San Dieguito River Valley including the 114-acre former polo fields in the San Dieguito River Valley leased by Surf Sports since 2016. Instead of enforcing the law, the City Council rewarded a decade of violations by raising Surf’s annual event limit from 25 to 40 days — a farcical gesture given that Surf’s public 2026 calendar already schedules 29 events across 80-plus days, more than triple the original limit. In addition, the City voted to exempt their tenant’s commercial activities from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a decision that could come back to haunt them; notably, it opened the door to yet another lawsuit against the City filed by the Sierra Club last December. That suit is moving forward through the discovery phase.
Meanwhile, Judge Torres’ ruling now gives the Coalition real momentum and means FPCH can continue to pursue its arguments in court and to seek a clear determination of whether the protections in the 1983 Grant Deed remain in force.
Of note is that the court's written ruling went further than a simple denial — it specifically questioned whether Ocean acted in good faith when it gave away its enforcement rights to FPCH in 2017 and then, years later, turned around and helped the City try to erase the very protections it had signed away. While the court was careful to note that it was not making a final ruling on that question at this early stage, it found it entirely reasonable to conclude that Ocean’s about-face “does not appear to be in good faith” and may amount to a breach of its own agreement. That is a meaningful signal from the bench.
None of this is possible without your continued support. Litigating against a municipal government, a private equity group, and a corporate developer is exactly as resource-intensive as it sounds. Every contribution helps the FPCH legal team and keeps the pressure on the City, Surf, and Ocean to honor the promises made more than forty years ago. We are ever grateful to the scores of nearby homeowners’ associations, residents of surrounding communities, and environmental organizations who have already supported this fight. If you have already given, thank you — and if you haven't yet, now is the time. You can donate directly by paying into a fund held and managed by Coast Law Group for the sole purpose of funding the litigation here: https://secure.lawpay.com/pages/coastlaw/trust Please list “Fairbanks litigation” in the Reference. All funds will be used for legal fees and costs. Donations are not tax exempt.
