‘We Have Been Taking Balboa Park for Granted for Too Long’

By Michael J. Stepner & Mary Lydon / San Diego Daily Transcript / Sept. 17, 2026

Residents in San Diego County overwhelmingly feel a deep sense of ownership for their beloved Balboa Park, but there is not an entity with comprehensive resources and authority to run it. The result is a dysfunctional dynamic that has been brewing for decades. Without a plan for sustainability, Balboa Park is doomed to a slow, steady decline.

Earlier this month a city of San Diego planning team presented its strategy for updating the Balboa Park Masterplan to the City of San Diego Balboa Park Committee. This is an official advisory committee for the mayor and city council on policy issues relating to the acquisition, development, maintenance and operation of Balboa Park.

Mayor Todd Gloria called for the plan to be updated three years ago but there was no money in the budget for it. Now, thanks to grants from the State of California, SANDAG and the Prebys Foundation, the planning process is moving forward.

Since the plan’s original adoption in 1989, it has had four amendments. Longtime park leaders and planners Howard Blackson and Vicki Estrada recommend amending and updating the existing Master and Precise Plans into one unified Master and Implementation Plan for the entire park to save time and money.

Throughout the years, there have been many significant planning processes and reports published by civic organizations, universities and foundations. All should be reviewed to see what is still valid. There are a lot of overlapping recommendations, but an integration of all the past good work should bring us up to date and get the process on track. This will also bring validation to all the work that has been done in the past, which will help rebuild public trust.

Another planning process was conducted last year to create a Balboa Park Prioritization Framework for future capital projects. AEA Consulting was hired to align available resources to what citizens want when visiting the park. A citizen subcommittee, made up of leaders from Forever Balboa Park Conservancy and Balboa Park Committee of 100, was assembled to develop criteria for a design review and assistance program. The criteria were developed for prioritization, design and interconnectivity between the projects.

This is the kind of opportunity for building trust between the city and its citizens, but currently city staff has not been able to respond to the implementation of the Prioritization Framework or the work of the citizen committee. If this does get completed, future projects should be connected to the updated Master Plan.

The city presentation on the Master Plan update was light on how the city would engage the public. This is problematic.

A robust public engagement process must be established to build the vision and to guide the planning process. It’s crucial to build the support, advocacy and trust to adopt the plan, so recommendations don’t die after the plan is adopted. Continued public engagement will create a dialog for how to finance its implementation as well.

Another part of the city’s presentation was a “vision to action” strategy, which included priorities, phasing, costs, governance and practical implementation. This would have been another good opportunity for building community trust but city staff went ahead and developed the strategy without input from important stakeholders.

Balboa Park belongs to everyone but there is not a well-defined leadership structure responsible for its sustainability. The result has become a classic example of a “tragedy of the commons,” where self-interests, by more than 100 park groups and organizations, make progress in their own circles while the whole around them declines. There were studies from 15 years ago with recommendations for how to organize for governance that would lead to financing, but they have been ignored.

In 2021, the Forever Balboa Park Conservancy was formed. Its roots date back to 1923. Its vision for Balboa Park includes being well-resourced, valued, collaboratively cared for, and that it contributes to the well-being of the San Diego region. This vision is their most comprehensive ever and puts them in alignment with other park conservancies around the country.

Along with the vision, Forever Balboa Park is exploring how to create a park governance structure and an ongoing funding stream. Other key park organizations, like the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, a 24-member organization of institutions in the park, and the Balboa Park Committee of 100, which has focused on preserving historic structures, would bring a lot of value to those discussions.

Creating a governance structure will not be easy, since everybody loves the park, and every blade of grass and drop of water in it has a constituency, including the Koi fish (at one point, there were two Koi support groups).

Creating a funding stream will be equally as challenging. If the citizens who live in San Diego County want a great park, we must be willing to pay for it. We will need to figure out where the money will come from for the park we desire.

There are several very realistic funding mechanisms that have been suggested recently that need to be vetted and presented to citizen funders for consideration:

• Create a county bond measure for $1 billion to pay for deferred infrastructure maintenance
• Create a fee, not unlike the San Diego Zoo’s subsidy that every property owner in the city of San Diego pays through their annual property tax bill. The zoo property tax subsidy was established in 1934 and currently raises about $20 million a year. The zoo fee was established when it was having financial challenges and needed help, not unlike Balboa Park now.
• Have all 18 cities in San Diego County contribute their fair share to supporting Balboa Park, which is a regional park. During the paid parking in the park fiasco, mayors from cities around the county held a press conference to protest. It was obvious the park is important to their citizens, so let’s create a funding mechanism for all of the county’s citizens to financially support it.

Now that the botched parking fee initiative got our attention, let’s put the awakened civic energy to good use to update the Balboa Park Master Plan and commit the needed funding to support its implementation.

Michael J. Stepner, FAIA, FAICP, is former City of San Diego Architect and Professor Emeritus of the New School of Architecture and Design. He is the recipient of the 2024 AIA San Diego Lifetime Achievement Award. He serves on numerous boards and committees including the San Diego Coalition for Public Places.

Mary Lydon, the principal of Lydon Associates, has held leadership roles within the Urban Land Institute, the Downtown San Diego Partnership, and Housing You Matters. She also served on the City of San Diego Planning Commission. She currently serves on the boards of the National Center for Creative Land Recycling, UCSD Housing Policy and Design Center, San Diego Coalition for Public Places and Humble Design San Diego.