San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
ANOTHER BATTLE AT BALLOT BOX
Measure L could overturn approval of North River Farms project, as has happened in past referendums
Ballot-box decisions have not been kind to San Diego County developers in recent years. Since 2016, voters have defeated at least four measures that would have allowed residential or mixed-use projects.
The developer of the North River Farms project in Oceanside is hoping to beat those odds with Measure L.
Integral Communities wants to build as many as 585 homes on a 268-acre site in the heart of the North County community’s agricultural region. The project would include a 25-acre commercial village, an 88-acre working farm, an education center, and open space with parks and hiking and biking trails.
It was narrowly approved last year by the City Council after years of public and staff pushback, but opponents were able to collect enough signatures to put it on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Ballot arguments filed for the measure take starkly different viewpoints. The Yes on L statement says the development would preserve farmland, generate $5.2 million for Oceanside schools, and spend tens of millions of dollars to widen roads.
Opponents say in their written argument that the project is “sprawl development” in an area long used for farming and that it would increase taxes, wildfire risks and traffic congestion. More than 177 acres of the site would be lost forever to high-density homes, and the project puts the entire 3,350-acre Morro Hills agricultural region at risk of further residential development, according to the No on L statement.
Integral Communities has spent almost $1.5 million through September of this year for online advertising, mailers, television spots and consulting services to get people to vote for the measure.
Meanwhile, the No on Measure L
campaign has raised only about $4,500 so far, according to financial disclosure statements filed with the Oceanside city clerk’s office.
“We have smarter ways to work that are just as effective as running television ads, if not more so,” said Kathi Carbone, one of the referendum organizers.
Integral officials say Oceanside needs housing and they can provide it in a unique and innovative way that preserves the region’s open space and farming legacy. The commercial area would include offices, retail shops and restaurants. The developer would spend $7.5 million to widen a section of North River Road and the College Boulevard bridge and to improve other roads leading to the site.
Integral has invested five years of work in the project, including “public meetings, six revisions and a full environmental impact report,” project manager Ninia Hammond said last week in response to emailed questions.
She called the referendum “ballot-box planning” led by NIMBYS whose efforts are contributing to the state’s housing shortage.
“People like housing and farms, and they want to be a part of this community,” Hammond said. “I get emails every day asking when we are going to start because they believe in the idea, and it’s a place they want to raise their family.”
Integral has revised the project multiple times in response to the concerns of residents and city planners. The original plan called for up to 985 homes. Then it was downsized to 725 homes and then to the present 585. Also, the company purchased additional property to keep as open space and lower the overall density of the site.
The city’s planning staff initially recommended denial of the project, and the city’s appointed Planning Commission voted 6-0 in 2017 to recommend the City Council deny it. However, the council voted 3-2 on Nov. 7, 2019, to approve the revised plan, with council members Ryan Keim and Esther Sanchez opposed.
Residents opposed to the council’s decision immediately launched a petition drive and gathered enough signatures of registered voters for the referendum, despite what they said was harassment by Integral employees. Given the choice of reversing its decision or holding a citywide election, the City Council chose to place the measure on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Ballot-box decisions seem to be a trend in San Diego County.
Carlsbad voters in a special February 2016 election overturned their City Council’s approval of a plan by Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso to build a luxury shopping mall on the strawberry fields next to Agua Hedionda Lagoon.
As with the ballot measure campaign this year in Oceanside, Caruso vastly outspent his opponents on the Carlsbad campaign. However, the developer’s publicly declared expenses of $12 million could not overcome his opponents, who spent about $100,000. The prime coastal-view property remains vacant today.
Also in 2016, voters countywide defeated by 64 percent to 36 percent a measure that would have allowed more than 1,700 homes in the Lilac Hills Ranch development proposed for farmland in the Valley Center area.
Another large residential project, the Newland Sierra plan for 2,100 homes along with trails, retail stores and parks on open land along Interstate 15 near Escondido, was defeated in this year’s March primary election by the relatively narrow gap of about 4 percent of the votes.
Also in this year’s primary, voters in Del Mar shot down by 59 percent to 41 percent a plan by Encinitasbased Zephyr Partners to build a resort hotel, condominiums and businesses on 17 acres of the seaside bluff near the city’s border with Solana Beach.
Integral’s “Yes on L” website lists as supporters the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the North San Diego
County Association of Realtors, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, the San Diego North Economic Development Council, and the Oceanside Firefighters Association.
“It is imperative that we implement lifestyle-supportive housing to attract and retain our workforce,” Oceanside Chamber CEO Scott Ashton said in an announcement of the Chamber’s support last year.
Opponents include the local nonprofit Preserve Calavera and the local chapter of the Sierra Club, which explained its position in a Sept. 29 news release.
“The Sierra Club does not oppose development, we support it in the right places, with affordable housing where people can access services and jobs,” Sierra Club member Barbara Collins said in the release.
“But we say ‘No on Measure L’ because it will sharply increase traffic congestion and put a dense housing development in a wildfire danger area on some of the last remaining farmland in North County,”
Collins said.
A Sept. 24 letter by Oceanside Fire Chief Rick Robinson, in response to questions from the City Council, reviewed the potential fire risk for the project.
A fire in the San Luis Rey River bed in 2014 reached the proposed North River Farms boundary but was controlled at North River Road and caused no structural damage, Robinson said. One or two homes on the opposite bank of the river were damaged but not destroyed.
“New construction, access roads and fire-resistive plantings in this same area would have allowed firefighters to hold the fire at the river banks with less active fire spread,” he said. Modern homes have sprinklers and other safety systems designed to protect residents and give them early warnings when necessary.
The Lilac fire of 2017 created “an evacuation challenge for Oceanside residents” when hundreds of vehicles were directed west on state Route 76 into Oceanside from Rainbow, Bonsall, Fallbrook, Vista and South Morro Hills, he said. “The result was too many cars trying to go in the same direction at the same time.”
Once people got out of the traffic jam and removed themselves from the South Morro Hills area, they were no longer at risk, Robinson said in his three-page letter.
“In conclusion, it is my professional opinion that a well-designed, well-built community with residents who educate themselves about the risks of living in a wildland interface community should not be at any greater risk nor should any such a development create a greater risk to the surrounding communities,” Robinson said.
Preserve Calavera filed a lawsuit against the city challenging its approval of the project less than a month after the City Council’s vote. The group’s president, Diane Nygaard, called the project “egregious.”
“It represents the worst kind of sprawl development, placing dense housing where it was not planned, where there is inadequate infrastructure, and where the local community ends up paying a high price,” Nygaard said.
Integral’s motion to dismiss the Preserve Calavera case was denied by the court, and another motion hearing is scheduled Jan. 15 in Superior Court.
Integral has backed two lawsuits against supporters of the referendum. The first claimed that the residents’ petition was illegal and that it contained “false, forged or fictitious names.” Judge Gregory Pollock ruled in August that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing and dismissed the case.
The company’s second lawsuit, filed in July, alleges the referendum is illegal because it violates rights granted by the city and state for the developer to build housing.
No decision on that case is expected until after the election, and it could be a moot point if voters don’t overturn the city’s approval of the project.
philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com