Thank you J. Harry Jones for an important story.
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/apr/11/development-north-county-housing-boom/

Many Large Housing Projects Planned for the North County Back Country

Boom or Doom? Huge projects loom

Open land at the northeast corner of I-15 and Route 76 where nearly 2,000 homes will be built. — J. Harry Jones

NORTH COUNTY — A potential housing boom that could transform huge swaths of land in rural and semirural inland North County is fueling renewed debate about how the county should grow in the decades to come.

More than 7,000 new homes have been proposed — and in some cases already approved — across a region that includes Fallbrook, Valley Center and Pala, as well as the San Pasqual Valley east of Escondido and the Twin Oaks Valley north of San Marcos.

Developers say the projects are needed to meet the county’s insatiable demand for new housing. Slow-growth advocates and environmental groups say the problem isn’t what is being built, it’s where. Many of the developments are being pitched exactly where the county’s General Plan says they shouldn’t go — in rural and agricultural areas, far from urban centers with existing infrastructure.

Caught in the middle are city and county officials, often torn between their desire to attract industry and jobs and their concern about how to provide needed services and how the projects would affect traffic and the quality of life in rural areas.

“Every politician wants job growth and they want full employment, but not every politician supports housing development,” said Randy Goodson, the chief executive officer of Accretive Investments, which is planning the 1,746-home Lilac Hills Ranch project off Interstate 15 near Valley Center and Bonsall. “… A house is only a way of accommodating job growth. A house is just where a good job sleeps.”

Regional planners, however, said the connection between housing and jobs is somewhat elusive.

“I don’t want to say (that’s a) complete myth, but Riverside’s been living off that concept for a long time — ‘If we get people out here, then businesses will follow and will be self sustaining.’” said Marney Cox, chief economist for the San Diego Association of Governments. “They’ve been waiting for that to happen for maybe 50 or 60 years.”

Cox said just building housing in North County won’t necessarily get businesses to relocate there.

“The reason businesses locate in particular areas is not so much to be next door to their labor force but to be within a reasonable commuting distance,” he said.

The long-term trend in the county is for the majority of development to happen within cities, not rural areas, Cox added. Governments are less likely to approve large rural housing projects because of the cost of providing basic services like fire and law enforcement protection.

“I think there is some hesitation to allow the sprawl to occur when we rarely can afford the sprawl we currently have,” he said.

Most of the planned projects looming in the north are near Interstate 15, a freeway already struggling to handle the crush of southwest Riverside County commuters who travel to San Diego for work.

In Fallbrook, three projects totaling 1,878 homes — to be built at the northeast corner of I-15 and state Route 76 — have already won the blessing of the county and await construction.

A few miles south, the Lilac Hills project is just months away from a hearing before the county’s Planning Commission and, ultimately, a vote by the board of supervisors.

Other proposals in the concept or planning phases include:

• Warner Ranch, which calls for 780 homes on the north side of state Route 76 just a bit west of the Pala Casino Spa Resort about 5 miles east of I-15;

• Newland Sierra, the revised Merriam Mountains project that would put roughly 2,135 homes north of San Marcos and Escondido;

• and Safari Highlands Ranch, a 550-luxury home development proposed for the San Pasqual Valley near the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park.

The Safari Highlands project must seek approval from the city of Escondido, which has agreed to annex the development site east of the city limits, where the community would be built.

The other proposed projects — Lilac Hills Ranch, Newland Sierra and Warner Ranch — are in the unincorporated part of the county and would require the supervisors to amend the county’s General Plan. The planning document, which was updated a few years ago, encourages development of large-scale housing in urban areas where infrastructure, services and transportation are already in place.

When an earlier and slightly larger version of the Merriam Mountains project came before the board of supervisors in 2010, it was rejected by a 3-2 vote. A majority of the panel said it was just too much for the area — too much traffic, too many houses, too many people, and too great a fire danger.

District 5 Supervisor Bill Horn — who represents the sprawling North County region where most of the projects are planned — said through an aide Friday that he could not comment on any proposed development

District 2 Supervisor Dianne Jacob — who has served on the board for 22 years and opposed the Merriam Mountain plan — said last week that each project must be weighed independently on its own merits.

“I take a fair and balanced approach to planning and any general plan amendments, ” Jacob said. “Any changes in the general plan warrant additional scrutiny. Is it compatible with the character of the community and the surrounding area? Does it have support in the community? Are there significant, unavoidable impacts like fire, which is a huge issue in our region?”

She said developers have property rights but so do neighbors of proposed developments. Any project must be a good fit for the community where it would be built, she said.

The drought also will play into the future decisions. All developments must have guaranteed water sources — agreements with water districts, for example — to win approval.

Goodson, the Lilac Hills developer, said his project would use less water than is currently being used by farmers and ranchers on the same land.