Del Mar celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Community Plan on Tuesday, Sept. 8, with a ceremony that brought current and former city officials together at City Hall.

Mayor Tracy Martinez read a proclamation honoring the 1976 plan at the Del Mar Civic Center Town Hall, 1050 Camino del Mar, following the regular City Council meeting. A vintage photo slideshow included images of original committee members holding a planning meeting on the beach. Cake and coffee followed.

The event drew a notable crowd, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Current council members shared the dais with former council members Tom Shepard, Nancy Fletcher and John Weare, along with Sage Sweetwood, the former chair of the Del Mar Planning Commission in 1976. Martinez said she was "admittedly starstruck" to meet the former officials.

The Community Plan governs how Del Mar approaches growth, development and environmental protection. The state legislature required California cities to adopt binding general plans in 1972, and Del Mar's planning process began the following year under Mayor Janice Heinzmann, according to the city's announcement. More than 300 residents organized into task forces and committees to draft the document, according to the Union-Tribune's account.

Shepard, who joined the City Council in 1972, described a Del Mar with no stoplights between 15th Street and La Jolla Shores Drive. City Hall sat in what is now the Rusty Surf Shop, and the city contracted with San Diego County for planning services.

Multi-family development was increasing at seven times the rate of single-family construction, Shepard said. Crest Canyon, Seagrove Park, the Powerhouse and Anderson Canyon were all privately owned and at risk of development.

Former Mayor Dwight Worden said general plans were strictly advisory at the time and environmental protections were limited. "There was no zoning. It was quite literally the Wild West, and this is when the development boom took seed and started to grow," Worden said at the ceremony.

The plan emphasized a walkable village center, a vibrant commercial downtown and environmental and view protections. After the City Council initially adopted it in 1975, a referendum petition sought to repeal it. The council removed the most contested provisions and put the plan to voters in 1976, alongside a bond measure to finance the purchase of Crest Canyon. The plan passed with 72% of the vote, according to the Union-Tribune.

Drew Keeling spoke during public comment. He was an 18-year-old UC San Diego student when he joined one of the plan's task forces. Keeling is the son of the late David Keeling, a climate science pioneer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography who participated in the planning process with his wife Louise. Louise Keeling died in August.

Former City Manager Wayne Dernetz submitted a written statement to the Sept. 8 meeting crediting Gary Binger, hired in 1973 as Del Mar's first planning director, as the person most deserving of credit for the plan's completion. Binger had just graduated from the University of Washington's land use and urban planning program, according to the city's meeting agenda.

Sweetwood, who later served as Del Mar mayor and a California Coastal Commissioner, called the planning process one of the most meaningful community decision-making experiences of his life.

The 50-year-old plan, amended over the decades to add recreational, transportation and environmental management elements, still serves as Del Mar's general plan.