The City Council voted 5-0 to purchase the property located at 536 Matagual Dr/Rd on the corner of Hacienda and Matagual. This property is over 2.5 acres adjacent to the new Sunroad development which brought a “Chic-fil-A, Panera, Starbucks and Habit Burger drive-through to the City of Vista. The property has come before the council multiple times and the Matagual community was very involved in letting the council know they wanted a park as opposed to a hotel, or medium high density housing. The property was listed for 3.8 Million dollars and had been under contract multiple times. Hilton House2Home Suites worked with former Economic Development Director Kevin Ham to bring a hotel to that site. A housing development or hotel would require a General Plan Change which is why the council was able to deny their plans.
The Shadle family are long time Vistans who own the property Sunroad purchased as well as this property on Matagual. They agreed to sell it to the City of Vista at a discounted price of 2.1 M with the stipulation that a parkland deed rider be recorded with the sale. This deed inclusion specified that this parcel must remain parkland on perpetuity for 50 years. The citizens that attended the council meeting where the item was officially approved were very excited with the councils decision. The Vista city council has made the purchase of parklands, and preservation of green spaces a priority. They were presented all available lots for sale by city staff in 2022 and all seemed overpriced and impractical. Councilmember Green said, “When Councilmember O’Donnell brought me in on his desire to bring this forward as a park for our community, I was in full support. The Shadle family was kind enough to sit down and discuss our plans, and saw the benefit to the city, of designating this parcel as park land. It has been years since the city has purchased new park land and I am so excited we have a council that has prioritized this and is taking action.”
Councilmember Dan O’Donnell spoke with a gentleman named Nadav, who told him he had purchased his forever home here in Vista for his wife and their young children. He shared his concerns over infrastructure in the neighborhood, community safety, and how he had to drive to Carlsbad or San Marcos to take his kids to a park. “That conversation resonated with me,” Dan said. In March, Councilmember Green and O’Donnell met with Julian Shadle and had a conversation about how we would like to activate that space. It was during that conversation that Julian has mentioned how his father always said it would be a great place for a park and that they would be open to discussions with the city to sell the property, so long as it would be a park forever. The rest is history. This is a huge win for District 4 and for all of Vista!
The sale is expected to close by the end of August and the city plans to include the property in their park master plan study currently underway. The park was purchased from the cities park land purchase budget which are funds that are solely allocated for park land purchases and improvements. There will be several community meetings to determine the highest and best use for this site.
