HomeFed Corporation, a Carlsbad-based company that has been trying unsuccessfully for the past decade to develop an urban community on almost 3,000 acres on the northwestern side of Santee, is now back with a new proposal. The previous project had been approved by Santee City Council in 2007, but the San Diego Superior Court and a fourth District Court of Appeal ruled against the city’s decision citing inadequate consideration given to fire safety, water supply and other environmental issues.
HomeFed Corporation, a Carlsbad-based company that has been trying unsuccessfully for the past decade to develop an urban community on almost 3,000 acres on the northwestern side of Santee, is now back with a new proposal. The previous project had been approved by Santee City Council in 2007, but the San Diego Superior Court and a fourth District Court of Appeal ruled against the city’s decision citing inadequate consideration given to fire safety, water supply and other environmental issues.
HomeFed Corporation purchased the land for $11 million seven years ago and is now back with a new promise: “First, we improve traffic,” as it appears in capital letters on the company’s website.
This time around, the company proposes almost 3,000 housing units, which is more than double the number of units in the previous proposal. In order to be approved as is, the city will need to modify the General Plan. Van Collinworth, with Preserve Wild Santee, who fought against this project from the beginning, said the new proposal creates a “massive inconsistency with the city General Plan.” Collinworth gathered thousands of signatures to make sure the residents of Santee get to vote on future projects that require changes in the general plan, requesting the initiative to be placed on the 2018 ballot. The city council rejected the effort, requesting a $40,000 study on this initiative and pushing it on the 2020 election, after the council will vote on the Fanita Ranch project first.
On Nov. 29, the city organized the first scooping meeting open to the Santee residents to give feedback on the new proposal. John O’Donnell, Principal Planner with the Development Services said, “Our job as the leading agency is to prepare the project and the Environmental Impact Report to get it to the city council, so they can make a decision on the project that will include the general plan amendment.”
O’Donnell estimates the EIR will be completed by the end of 2019. The public will have 60 days to comment on it. After that, the EIR will have the final review and will be send to the city council for the final vote in 2020.
Jeff O’Connor, director of operations for HomeFed Corporation, said the projects will have “15 parks, 35 acres of community farm professionally run that will produce enough food for the 3,000 units. We will build a farmer market, 80,000 sq. ft. of retail, a small grocery store similar to Trader Joe’s, farm to table restaurants, a K-8 school, solar farm, an RV parking lot and 35 miles of trails throughout the community. People will be able to walk to the store and to the school and park.”
The plan includes 75 percent open space with vineyards and orchards and one 35 acres community park.
“This is going to be a self-sustained community, with solar on all homes and a solar farm to supplement the need for electricity,” said O’Connor.
O’Connor said there will be low density housing units starting at 1,800 sq. ft. with an estimated price in today’s market starting at $400,000 and medium density single-family homes on 5,000 acres, starting at 2,400 sq. ft. with a price tag between $650,000 up to a million dollars. He said there are no plans to build homes for cheaper to answer to the high demand for low income and homeless residents.
Santee resident Justin Schlaefli said, “I think looking at the site plan, it would be an exciting place to live. They are talking about all the right things and we want to make sure it doesn’t make the commute worse. I have concerns about the traffic and the fire issue and that’s why I keep talking to the developer.”
Schlaefli said he likes a lot of the features and is waiting for the EIR to be completed to see if the developer will keep their word to solve the traffic issue on Mast Boulevard and westbound SR-52.
“I want to welcome them to the community, I want to see this project done, but it’s early yet,” he said.
O’Connor said the developer will not allow a new resident in before the traffic issues are solved and they will start by adding an extra lane on both directions on SR-52 from Mast to I-15, which O’Connor claims will reduce the traffic on Mast Boulevard “down to nothing.”
Collinsworth said he is concerned with the fire safety issue.
“This is a fire corridor,” he said. “There’s no reason to put 10,000 on a fire corridor when we are having climate breakdown. We just saw a community being wiped off the map. That should be a message we need to do better in terms of land use and we certainly need to do a lot better in terms of greenhouse gas. The better ways to do this is what I’ve been saying for 25 years; let’s preserve this land.”
O’Connor promised that homes will be built with fire safety in mind.
“All the homes are gonna be built with fire resistant materials,” he said. ‘There’s gonna be a 150 ft. wide fire break around the perimeters which is 50 ft. wider than normal. We only need one lane in and out on Fanita Parkway and Cuyamaca, but we will have two lanes out in case there’s an emergency, so the traffic will be able to get out faster.”
O’Connor said the hope is to make the back country trails of the area open to the public.
“The problem is, this is our property and the people who are using it now except for a small trail are trespassing on our property,” he said. “We are not enforcing that right now because we want to be good to our neighbors. If we build our project, we will build all these phenomenal trails that will be open to everyone, not just the people in Santee. If we don’t get to build, all of this is going be closed down and nobody would be able to use it. “
