San Diego officials are considering annexing 2,300 acres known as East Elliott into Mission Trails Regional Park, San Diego’s largest park with 7,200 acres of both natural and developed recreational areas, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. This large parcel of barren hillsides and flatlands is adjacent to the north boundary of Mission Trail. The proposed annexation will be considered by the planning commission before being presented to city council.
The annexation would increase the park’s size by 31%. Most of East Elliott is owned by hundreds of private investors, who bought home sites there in the 1960s, when the federal government sold off land occupied by a defunct military base called Camp Elliott. Camp Elliott was divided into three parts: the Tierrasanta neighborhood, Mission Trails Regional Park and East Elliott.
City officials had entertained several housing proposals by developers in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as considered it for a landfill site. City officials now consider East Elliott unsuitable for housing, as it is far from public transit and lacks roads, sewers and other infrastructure. Additionally, it is part of the Multiple Species Conservation Program, a crucial wildlife corridor the city helped create in 1997. The city annexed 1,500 acres known as West Sycamore into Mission Trails Regional Park three years ago, and about 115 acres on the eastern edge of East Elliott was recently annexed to Santee for a low-density subdivision called Weston.
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