The Del Mar City Council will meet on July 16 at 2 p.m. to continue its discussion about a Notice of Preparation by the San Diego Association of Governments on the rail realignment project.

The deadline for the city to submit an official response to SANDAG is July 19.

The council also met July 1 in a closed session and decided to enlist outside legal counsel to help with the city’s review of the Notice of Preparation and other aspects of the rail realignment project. The city also announced that it plans to hire outside planning, engineering and communications consultants as the project moves forward.

The Notice of Preparation, released about one month ago by SANDAG, outlines three alternative alignments to move the rail off the eroding Del Mar bluff. Two of them would involve tunneling underneath Del Mar, which residents in Del Mar have vehemently opposed for years.

A third option, labeled Alternative A by SANDAG, would circumvent Del Mar and push the tunnel and construction impacts north into Solana Beach and the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

Solana Beach residents packed their own City Hall at the end of June to share their surprise and concern over that option’s relatively sudden inclusion. Three SANDAG officials, including newly appointed CEO Mario Orso, were in attendance to give a presentation about the status of the rail relocation project to Solana Beach council members, who also said they felt blindsided by Alternative A.

The options that include tunneling under Del Mar are labeled Alternatives B and C, although SANDAG says the lettering doesn’t indicate rank or preference.

Late last year, officials at the Del Mar Fairgrounds were also alarmed when Del Mar City Council members encouraged the study of an alignment that would go through the fairgrounds, in part because of the recent economic hardship the state-owned venue has faced due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The city later approved a “guiding principle” that asks SANDAG to take into account the economic, environmental and other concerns that the fairgrounds has.

Those calls by Del Mar ultimately led to Alternative A, which includes a “fairgrounds north” portal that is actually in the city of Solana Beach. The route then proceeds south under fairgrounds property.

Following more study of the three routes in the Notice of Preparation, SANDAG will make the final call on which one to proceed with. The plan is for the new alignment to be in place by 2035.