Valley Center Residents to Plant 1,000 Donated Trees

To most motorists who travel the two-lane roads that snake through rural North County, Valley Center is just another nondescript small community. But, beginning today, the town will distinguish itself by the eucalyptus trees--more than 1,000 of them--that will line its three main streets.

The trees are a gift from John Belanich, a real estate broker who also owns a small nursery. He offered the trees to the Valley Center Planning Group as a means of improving the community’s appearance, so that it could attract commercial development while maintaining its traditionally bucolic character.

“It’ll give identity to the community,” Belanich said from his San Diego office. “Trees in general do a lot to tie in a community. Trees are just a very unifying thing. They’ve got to be nice. When you’re talking about a tree, you’re talking about God. Everybody loves them!”

Starting at 7 a.m. today, more than 100 volunteers, including members of several local youth, senior citizen and civic groups, will plant six varieties of eucalyptus along Valley Center Road, Woods Valley Road and Cole Grade Road. Belanich said the trees, about eight feet tall, will eventually reach heights of 100 feet or more.

“They’ll outlive us, and I think that’s kind of nice,” he said. “You want to leave a place with something more than was there before. What do you think of going down the road in 50 years and telling your grandchildren you helped plant those trees? It gives you a really nice feeling.”

The planting of the trees coincides with Valley Center’s recent efforts to emerge from its back country anonymity.

For the last four years, the town of 8,000 has been subject to a moratorium on septic tank installations which prevented new development, said Carol Thomas of the Valley Center Planning Group. Now, with a federal grant to build a new sewer system, the city is embarking on a dramatic growth plan that is expected to push the unincorporated town’s population above 40,000 by the year 2000.

Belanich, who owns several large parcels of land in the area, obviously welcomes this growth. However, he said he is committed to preserving Valley Center’s pastoral atmosphere through projects such as the tree-planting.

“(The planning group) just announced a plan to have the community grow in an orderly manner, and one way of unifying that is with landscaping,” he said. “It’ll enhance the Valley Center viewpoint most people have: They live in Valley Center because it’s nice here. Well, this will just make it a little bit nicer for our kids.”