Moratorium no more: Summer construction now allowed in La Jolla

Last Updated on May 7, 2025

A city of San Diego memo removes the current policy to halt roadwork during summer’s busy tourist season. Local leaders react differently.

The summer construction moratorium is no longer, according to an April 11 memo from Rania Amen, city of San Diego engineer and director of its Engineering & Capital Projects Department.

The summer construction moratorium has been in place for years in the coastal areas, pausing construction work from Memorial to Labor days to ease traffic congestion during the busiest tourist season.

The moratorium is now removed, the memo states, “to allow for timely completion of projects” and “to increase efficiency in project completion in these areas.”

Projects within the beach areas “should incorporate additional mitigation measures and improve community outreach to help minimize potential impacts on local businesses during construction,” the memo adds.

This means that projects like the undergrounding of power lines in La Jolla Shores and others would be allowed to continue past Memorial Day this year (Monday, May 26).

The removal of the moratorium is “great news,” said Brenda Fake, who heads up Friends of Coast Walk Trail and has been working toward a permit to repair the trail’s bridge.

Complications in finalizing the permit led Fake to worry the bridge would not be repaired for the summer tourist season due to the construction moratorium.

No more moratorium means the bridge repairs, already funded privately, will begin as soon as possible.

“We are shovel … ready,” Fake said. “This is wonderful [and] facilitates us getting it done sooner.”

But negative effects of allowing construction to continue through the summer will be felt throughout La Jolla, according to Janie Emerson, longtime resident of La Jolla Shores and former President of the La Jolla Shores Association.

“The beach areas, and La Jolla in particular, are huge economic generators for the entire San Diego area,” Emerson said, adding construction in those already crowded streets means fewer tourist dollars.

If people are blocked from easily accessing the beach areas, they “will go somewhere else,” she said.

However, the memo also states that projects within the California Coastal Commission’s jurisdiction will still be subject to commission permitting discretion on a case-by-case basis,” which may include the imposition of summer construction restrictions.

Project managers or applicants “are encouraged to request a waiver” from the commission for the moratorium “to achieve the desirable efficiency in construction completion.”