The Gate at the End of La Jolla Farms Road Opens Twice This Week. The Pending Plan Would Keep It That Way.

The California Coastal Commission is meeting this week, Wednesday through Friday. On Friday morning the gate at 9400 La Jolla Farms Road opens for volunteer weeding, and on Saturday it opens again for a docent-led walk across the mesa. All three events turn on the same question about the Scripps Coastal Reserve. UC San Diego wants to manage public access to the reserve's bluff top with tours and supervised visits, and that model is already running.

Those two mornings show the proposed plan in practice. Anyone who has looked through the locked gate on the way to the cul-de-sacs can see this weekend the format UC San Diego has asked the Commission to approve.

Two Mornings, One Address

The University of California Natural Reserve System says the reserve's mesa top, which it calls "the Knoll," can be visited by the public during docent-led tours or weekly weeding events. UC San Diego's event calendar lists the venue as "Scripps Coastal Reserve - Mesa," 9400 La Jolla Farms Road.

The weeding crew's hours change with the seasons. The reserve's Biodiversity Trail guide lists 9 to 11 a.m. for winter, so a quick call to the reserve office at (858) 534-2077 before Friday is worth the minute. The same office handles volunteer questions by phone or at [email protected].

The route you walk is the Scripps Coastal Reserve Biodiversity Trail, a half-mile loop across the Mesa. According to the La Jolla Light, the reserve can be viewed from that loop, and the rest of the time the gate stays locked unless a tour is running or UC San Diego students are using the site.

What the Plan on File Actually Asks For

Until March 2020, the reserve was open from 7 a.m. to sunset every day. In a typical week now, the public gets the two hours of Friday weeding. In a week with a first Saturday, it gets two more. That is the gap between the old access and the current one.

The managed access plan does not propose a return to sunrise-to-sunset hours. As the La Jolla Light summarized the application, it seeks to "allow for the continued preservation and adaptive management" of the reserve's biological and cultural resources, to manage public health and safety risks, to prioritize the UC Natural Reserve System's research and educational mission, and to protect long-term deployments of research instruments. It would do this by continuing limited, supervised access with tour guides.

A hearing would decide whether this weekend's format, with a docent at the front and a waiver on a clipboard, becomes the formal terms of public access to the bluff top next to La Jolla Farms.

Part of the reason is the land itself. The Natural Reserve System counts about 86 acres of upland habitat: mesa top, coastal canyon and bluffs. The other 934 acres are the San Diego-Scripps Coastal State Marine Conservation Area, made up of sandy beach, rocky intertidal zone, submerged coastal plain and a deep submarine canyon. That is why the reserve gets described as "nearly 1,000 acres," while the walkable mesa is a small piece of it. The university also describes the reserve as surrounded by developed areas, which it says makes environmental awareness essential for the rare habitats and species there.

Why the Hearing Date Keeps Moving

The permit has been on the calendar several times. According to the La Jolla Light's Oct. 11 report, it has gone through these steps:

1. March 2020. The reserve closes along with statewide COVID-19 restrictions.
2. February 2023. The state lifts its pandemic emergency declaration. Some residents argue that from this point the California Coastal Act required a coastal development permit to keep access limited.
3. 2024. UC San Diego applies for that permit.
4. Late 2024. Commission staff say the application will likely be complete and ready for a hearing by April 1, 2025.
5. March 2025. Staff extend the hearing deadline to June 30, and several continuances follow.
6. October 2026. The application, scheduled for the Commission's Oct. 8 meeting, is withdrawn and resubmitted again.

UC San Diego spokesperson Melinda Battenberg told the La Jolla Light that the university withdrew and resubmitted the application "to provide additional time for stakeholder input and discussions with the Coastal Commission." Commission spokesperson Joshua Smith told the paper that the process has no cap:

"There are no limits to withdrawing and resubmitting."

There is a deadline on the Commission's side, though. Smith said that under the state's Permit Streamlining Act, the Commission must hear a permit application within 180 calendar days of receiving it complete, with an optional 90-day extension if the applicant agrees. A project not acted on in that window is subject to automatic approval.

In October, Smith said the resubmitted application was on track for a hearing before the end of the year. That left two Commission meetings as openings, this week's session on Nov. 4 to 6 and the Dec. 9 to 11 meeting. Both dates are on the Commission's published meeting schedule, and the Commission posts item listings on its meeting agenda page.

The Beach Is a Separate Question This Winter

Neighbors often assume the mesa leads down to the sand. It doesn't. The Natural Reserve System says there is no beach access from the mesa top. The reserve's intertidal and underwater areas are open to the public at all times, and the university asks visitors to check tide conditions first so they can reach those areas safely.

To get to the water, the Natural Reserve System points to three routes. This season only two of them are open:

• Blacks Beach Way, about half a mile north of the mesa
• The Coastal Meander Trail on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography campus
• Trails at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, closed for now

California State Parks closed Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve to all visitors on Sept. 22 for the next phase of a multiyear improvement project. The closure covers every trail, the Beach Trail Staircase, the Lodge and both upper parking lots, and the reserve is scheduled to reopen in March 2027. Torrey Pines State Beach and its North and South parking lots remain open. State Parks says the work includes new gas, water, wastewater and communication lines, along with an accessible path from the upper parking lot to the new restrooms and the Lodge. Updates are posted on the agency's construction project page.

So until spring, the two nearest public bluff tops north of La Jolla Farms both depend on someone else's schedule. Torrey Pines is shut for construction with a stated end date. The Scripps mesa opens when a docent or a weeding crew is there, and the hearing still to come would decide whether that stays the rule.

What Supervised Access Could Look Like

The arguments about the closure have mostly been about why it started. A 2023 post on the reserve's Facebook page cited visitor misuse as the main reason. Many La Jolla residents dispute that and point to the Coastal Act's permit requirement.

Some of the people who follow the reserve most closely are asking for something in between. La Jolla Shores resident Mike McCormack has tracked the reserve since the partial closure and has spoken about it at several La Jolla Shores Association meetings. He told the La Jolla Light that he supports well-monitored access, with attendants on site to make sure the area isn't overrun, rather than either extreme. Of the latest withdrawal, he said, "It seems like we're caught in a cycle of continuances without addressing the downside of completely open access. It is one way to kick the can down the road."

His version and UC San Diego's version both put a person at the gate. The difference is how often that person is there. That question goes to the Commission, which as of October named this week's meeting and December's as the remaining openings for a hearing this year. In the meantime, the mesa opens at 9400 La Jolla Farms Road on Friday for weeding and on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 9 to 11 a.m. for the docent walk.

If you'd like to talk over how the Scripps Coastal Reserve decision might shape life along La Jolla Farms Road, or hear what we're seeing on the streets around UC San Diego's north edge, the Nelson Brothers Team is happy to share what we know. Let's connect.