Carlsbad OKs University, Residential Development

The City Council on Tuesday gave its hearty endorsement to a 168-acre private graduate university and residential development on the bluffs north of Batiquitos Lagoon, approving what may be the most unusual and ambitious project in Carlsbad’s history.

Praising the $250-million development as “innovative,” “intriguing” and “impressive,” council members voted unanimously after a two-hour public hearing to permit San Diego-based Sammis Properties to build the Batiquitos Lagoon Educational Park.

If the California Coastal Commission approves the project next month, construction could begin by December, Sammis officials said. The company hopes to enroll its first students by next fall.

“I am highly impressed with the level of expertise shown by this company and the consultants on their staff,” Councilman Richard Chick said. “I think this campus in itself will give Carlsbad world-class status.”

Even Councilman Mark Pettine, the council’s sturdiest slow-growth advocate, had kind words for the educational park, calling it a “high-quality” development that offers “a wide variety of opportunities and assets for our residents.”

The project, which Mayor Mary Casler described as “certainly the most unusual development ever proposed in our city,” will be built on former flower fields atop a mesa just west of Interstate 5 overlooking Batiquitos Lagoon. Across the freeway, Texas oil billionaires W. Herbert and Nelson Bunker Hunt plan to build a resort and residential community surrounding a golf course.

The centerpiece of the Sammis project is a small, private graduate university with at least five separate disciplines--schools of law, public affairs, communication and information science, land use and real estate, and Pacific Rim studies. Several other possible disciplines, including architecture and business, are under study.

The development also includes a public policy center, or “think tank”; research and development facilities; a 423-room hotel; a convention center; two libraries; three restaurants; convenience and retail stores, and about 600 houses and condominiums around the rim of the site.

In addition, the company plans to build the permanent training centers for the U.S. Olympic volleyball and weightlifting teams on the property. Don Sammis, company founder and chairman of the board and a volleyball fan, once owned the San Diego Breakers and the Salt Lake City Stingers in the short-lived International Volleyball Assn.

Unlike the resort and residential project proposed by the Hunts, who many local residents have viewed with suspicion as heavy-handed developers from Dallas out to make a buck, the Batiquitos Lagoon Educational Park has won support from nearly all corners.

The Batiquitos Lagoon Foundation, a nonprofit environmentalist group working to protect and enhance the lagoon, endorsed the Sammis project Tuesday night and praised the developer’s commitment to restoring the wetland. Concerned about the aesthetics of the 526-acre lagoon, which tends to dry up and smell in the summertime, the company funded a study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography to determine the best methods for improving the resource.

The study recommends that the lagoon be dredged and its mouth reopened to the ocean to restore regular tidal exchange. That recommendation, among others, is being examined as part of an ongoing state Coastal Conservancy review of the lagoon and suitable enhancement strategies.

Environmentalists also applauded the company’s adherence to guidelines contained in an unofficial management plan designed to protect the lagoon from the impact of development. In accordance with the document, Sammis lowered building heights on the mesa and observed strict setbacks on the lagoon bluffs.

City officials, meanwhile, heralded the project in a staff report as “unique” and “extremely important to the future of Carlsbad if successful.” An economic feasibility study estimates the educational park will increase city revenue by $1.4 million annually, mostly through sales and transient occupancy taxes.

Casler supports the project for yet another reason: She rather likes the prospect of having a university in town.

“I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “A university like this would be very prestigious and give our little city nationwide recognition. The faculty itself, although not huge, will become a very valuable part of the community and a great resource. The whole project will definitely enhance our reputation.”

Even the California Coastal Commission, which usually has a long list of concerns about developments adjacent to sensitive wetlands, has little argument with the Sammis project. Adam Birnbaum, a commission planner who reviews developments in Carlsbad, said, “We don’t have any real major concerns about the project.

“Certainly, that corner of the world will look a lot different when the company’s through with it. But so far it looks like any direct impacts on the resource have been avoided.”

Birnbaum added, however, that some of the company’s property is in Carlsbad’s agricultural reserve, acreage that the Coastal Commission has earmarked for preservation as farmland. Company officials will have to pay fees or take some other measure to make up for the loss of farmland to development, he said.

In addition, a proposed amphitheater and a bicycle path along the north shore of the lagoon have raised concerns among some other state regulatory officials, who worry about the noise and the path’s proximity to the wetland’s nesting birds.

In the eyes of city officials, the only major point of debate regarding the project--and the issue that received the most attention Tuesday night--has been the traffic it is expected to generate.

To begin with, access to the site is limited, confined to the already overcrowded La Costa Avenue and Poinsettia Lane. And an analysis by city traffic engineers indicates that the project will attract about 26,500 additional vehicle trips per day in the area, roughly twice what surrounding roads are designed to carry.

The engineers concluded, however, that most of the traffic would be within the campus park itself, and that the overall impact on the area would be limited. Nonetheless, Sammis has agreed to finance certain road improvements.

Several residents who spoke against the project Tuesday night, however, said they were not convinced sufficient study of the traffic problem had been conducted. And others argued that the project conflicts with the city’s general plan and is an inappropriate use for the site.

“This project represents three negatives for the people of Carlsbad: location, location, location,” said resident Ann Mauch. “The issue is, is this the best land use for this super-sensitive parcel in this corner of Carlsbad. I don’t think so.”

Company officials said their project, which will have a Spanish-Mediterranean motif, is similar to developments around Stanford and Princeton universities. But the project is not being built around an established university, and the concept of such parks is relatively new; consequently, Carlsbad planners recognize that the campus could fail.

To protect the city, planners have required that work on the project cease if the university fails or student enrollment drops more than 50% in any two-year period. In addition, to ensure that any business conducted in the park remains closely tied to academia, the city has drawn up a list of criteria that all proposed research and development activities on the site must meet.

To finance the university, Sammis is forming a private limited partnership and seeking as many as 35 “investing founders,” said Tom Bauer, a financial consultant for the company. Bauer said the partnership will be expected to raise $20 million over five years specifically for the graduate institute.

“We’re billing it as a sort of public-spirited social investment,” Bauer said. “It will have a financial return, but also represent a charitable contribution to higher education. The founders will have their names inscribed on a central monument.”

Company officials have been relatively tight-lipped about faculty and other specifics of the university, which is expected to enroll about 1,000 students initially. But according to documents on file with the city, the company intends to transfer an unidentified existing law school to the Batiquitos site. The school will offer a traditional three-year program with a focus on business, land use and international trade law.

To create its communication and information science program, Sammis officials have proposed to relocate the University of Southern California’s School of Library and Information Management to Carlsbad. USC has decided to cancel its program in June, and company officials are discussing the possibility of expanding and relocating the school with the school’s dean, Roger Greer.

A master’s degree would be offered in a one-year land-use and real estate program modeled after one at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while the Pacific Rim studies program, described in company documents as “still in the conceptualization stage,” would “educate students on how to relate to and do business with the Pacific Rim countries.”

Finally, the public affairs institute, being organized with the assistance of Alan Heslop of Claremont McKenna College, will emphasize public opinion research in its program for business executives, political action committee managers and legislative staff members.