Proposed surf park in California desert is rejected by La Quinta City Council
Linda Hildebrandt, Los Angeles Times
The first proposed surf park in what was once the state’s most productive agricultural region was rejected by the La Quinta City Council on Wednesday night. La Quinta is near the southern end of the Santa Barbara County arroyo, where there are no bodies. Residents have been fighting to preserve a natural area for swimming, fishing, hiking, picnicking and other outdoor activities.
The proposed park was proposed by an organization called the Surfrider Foundation and wanted to build it at the Santa Ynez River near the community of Carpinteria. La Quinta city officials said the proposed site is too close to the public road where a truck was involved in a fatal head-on collision a few weeks ago and residents spoke up against the plan.
“After many years of public input and study, the City Council decided that a proposed surf park in the Santa Ynez River in the county arroyo is neither necessary nor appropriate at this time,” the council wrote in a resolution.
The project also failed in May when a panel of experts, including the National Park Service and the California Fish and Wildlife Commission, recommended it.
Surfrider officials and others who opposed the plan were disappointed not just with a resolution but with the fact that the decision was made at city hall without a public hearing.
“To suggest that the council has no skin in the game when it comes to the environment is just insulting,” said Mark Poulin, president of the Surfrider Foundation.
“Any citizen can come forward with a project that may or may not have been put through the city council and get it thrown out, and this is just the latest example of that,” he said. “The city of La Quinta is a city that embraces innovation and new ideas,” mayor John Lewis said.
The surf park would have used natural sand on the Santa Ynez River bank, which is located in the arroyo near a town called Carpinteria. The project called for a 1,000-foot-long concrete-