Growth Becomes Simmering Issue in Fallbrook

Betty and Harvey Rupp needed a change. Their suburban homestead had long been hemmed in by the smoggy swirl of the Los Angeles megalopolis, so about five years ago the couple packed up their belongings and headed for the country.

They landed in Fallbrook, a rural hamlet nestled among the rolling hills on the eastern flank of the Camp Pendleton Marine base. It was a match that was meant to be. Today, the retirees are happily ensconced in a trim, Spanish-style house surrounded by a 10-acre grove of avocado trees, far from the nearest gas station or fast food restaurant.

“We love this area,” says Betty Rupp, who these days rises early, pulls on faded overalls and a worn straw sun hat and joins her husband picking fruit from the leafy thicket outside. “I always joke that Harvey’s next move is going to be to the cemetery. This is our home.”

But as the Rupps see it, there’s trouble looming for their Eden amid the avocados. Like many of their neighbors, the couple has grown increasingly concerned about urban development inching ever closer to Fallbrook.

While the sleepy country town has remained remarkably immune to the seemingly unchecked wave of growth cascading across most of North County, many residents fear Fallbrook will soon be flooded by high-density residential development that would spoil the bucolic character of the unincorporated community.

Debate has reached a fervent pitch of late, sparked in large part by Friends of Rural Lifestyle, a grass-roots group formed earlier this year by residents troubled by the specter of crowded subdivisions sprouting from the hilly terrain near their homes. Members of the organization have wasted little time, peppering the area with flyers, circulating petitions and even taking the bold step of suing the county over the growth issue.

The group’s leaders maintain changes enacted last fall by San Diego County planners have opened the gate for a stampede of high-density development that would trample the rural charm they so cherish. Incensed by the county action, they have launched a campaign for new land-use requirements. In particular, the group wants density limits that would allow a house to be built only on a parcel of two acres or greater.

“We feel a two-acre minimum lot size would serve as the best protection of our rural life style,” said Jack Wireman, co-chairman of the group. “The bottom line of the whole works is how you go about living your life. Out here, we’re oriented toward the land a whole lot more. A lot of people have stands of trees on their land, they have animals. Their kids have 4-H projects. It’s a whole different way of life.”

Opponents of the organization, however, say Friends of Rural Lifestyle have misinterpreted what constitutes country living. These critics, represented most vocally by local real estate interests, contend Fallbrook can safely maintain its rustic flavor by sticking to the one-acre minimum lot size that has been in effect for more than a decade.

As they see it, many younger home buyers and elderly retirees will be unable to purchase--or maintain--homesteads in Fallbrook if only two-acre lots are allowed.

In addition, some have begun to wonder publicly whether leaders of Friends of Rural Lifestyle are motivated by greed, charging that the group’s demands represent an elitist attitude. Indeed, some opponents have jokingly dubbed the organization Friends of a Rich Lifestyle.

“More than 90% of the people who live in this area prefer a rural life style and that includes me,” said John Moore, a director of the Fallbrook Board of Realtors. “But it’s clear that FORL is not concerned with what’s right for the community. It’s a power grab, pure and simple.”

Although the community’s leaders have always taken steps to guard Fallbrook from rapid development, the area has experienced a steady level of growth in recent years. A decade ago, the 56-square-mile community’s population stood at about 16,000. Today, officials estimate that about 27,000 people live in Fallbrook.

Much of that growth has occurred in the downtown core, a seven-square-mile knot of narrow streets and mom-and-pop stores where less-restrictive land-use requirements have allowed construction of condominiums and supermarkets in recent years. Residents in back-country areas have also begun to notice increasing numbers of single-family houses and subdivisions springing up among the citrus groves and dense stands of oak and eucalyptus.

Mostly, however, long-time residents say they have been pleased by the easy pace of growth, content that the Fallbrook Planning Group, a 15-member elected board that serves as an advisory body to the county on land-use matters, safely shepherded the community’s future.

The trouble started early this year when a group of residents along Olive Hill Road, a winding strip of asphalt that serves as the main artery to the area’s southwestern quadrant, learned about the Skylake development, a 144-acre subdivision planned near their homes.

Many neighbors were angry about the 103 houses being proposed. What bothered them even more was the developer’s plans to finance an $8 million sewage system by forming an assessment district that would include their homes.

Wireman, whose home is a half mile from the Skylake site, said residents were perfectly happy with their septic tanks and felt construction of a sewage system in the area would only clear a path for high-density development. Banding together, the neighbors formed Friends of Rural Lifestyle and set about trying to block the Skylake project.

In their research, however, the group stumbled upon something far more ominous. Unbeknownst to them and other Fallbrook residents, the county had a few months earlier amended its land-use plans for the area, a move that allowed developers to build higher density projects in the rural community.

Angry, the group decided to file suit against the county, contending officials had mishandled the situation by failing to engage in debate with Fallbrook residents about the changes. The lawsuit is still pending, with a hearing set for late July.

Supervisor Paul Eckert, whose 5th District includes Fallbrook, said he was also surprised to learn about the land-use change. As Eckert explains it, he was never notified about the switch, approved by the county Board of Supervisors in September, 1985, as part of a broad-based amendment to the county’s General Plan. Eckert said he never read the entire amendment document, a thick volume “that weighs about 20 pounds.”

The supervisor said he later learned that county planners, when they proposed making the Fallrook land-use change, had notified the county’s then-Chief Executive Officer Clifford Graves, who resigned under pressure last year. Eckert said Graves never told him about the switch planned for Fallbrook.

“No one, outside the planners, was aware this was actually being done,” Eckert said.

After learning of the problem, Eckert pushed through a resolution that blocked high-density development in rural sections of Fallbrook. Wireman and other Friends of Rural Lifestyle leaders, however, argued that the action “lacked any teeth.”

Last week, the supervisors went further, agreeing to a moratorium that bans construction of houses on lots of less than one acre, prohibits new sewers in areas outside downtown Fallbrook and blocks developers from increasing densities by clustering houses on smaller lots. County planners say the moratorium will block only one project, the Skylake development.

Despite such victories, Friends of Rural Lifestyle have suffered setbacks. Last Monday, the Fallbrook Planning Group voted to recommend that the community have a one-acre minimum for lots. The county Board of Supervisors is expected to decide the matter in December.

The planning group’s vote angered Friends of Rural Lifestyle members, who contend most Fallbrook residents favor the two-acre option. As proof, Wireman points to the 4,500 signatures they have gathered in recent weeks in support of the group’s position. He noted that about 80% of the more than 500 people who packed the planning group’s meeting Monday raised their hands when asked if they preferred to have homes built on lots of two acres or more.

Wireman, a slow-talking man whose drawl betrays his Kentucky roots, chafes when he talks about it. “Our own planning group has failed to recognize what its constituents are telling them,” Wireman said. “They bulldozed ahead, totally contrary to what the people wanted. Our democracy broke down that night.”

But planning group members say they voted for what will be best for Fallbrook.

Gib Moudry, a longtime member of the group, said he and other representatives on the planning board feel Fallbrook has survived well with a one-acre minimum lot size.

“One acre is a lot of land,” Moudry said. “Most people living in the city consider one acre to be a farm.”

Moreover, Moudry noted, the planning group has been careful to restrict projects, such as the Skylake development, that call for sewers or high-density clustering of houses.

Frank Harriman, a member of the Fallbrook Board of Realtors, agreed. Harriman noted that most rural regions in Fallbrook are marked by steep hills that would hinder high-density development. Under country planning rules, houses built on slopes of more than 15% must have double the normally required lot size; the parcels must be four times as big when the slope is greater than 25%. Because of that, Harriman said, most houses would be constructed on a two-acre lot even if the area were zoned for one-acre parcels.

Although many developers try to skirt such rules by clustering homes on flatter sections of a parcel, Harriman said he and other Board of Realtors members favor prohibitions on such tactics. In addition, the realtors group opposes the extension of sewers outside of downtown Fallbrook, Harriman said.

“Because of the terrain and the community’s opposition to sewers, this area will never, ever become another Anaheim,” Harriman said. “It’s just not in the cards. But a lot of people get confused and immediately imagine homes shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow. There has been a lot of undue concern here.”

Despite such arguments, Friends of Rural Lifestyle members remain unconvinced.

They maintain that slow-growth efforts in surrounding cities such as Carlsbad and Oceanside may persuade developers to begin looking toward communities like Fallbrook. And they note that owners of large agricultural parcels in the area are feeling increasing pressure to sell their land because of the high cost of water.

Others have more personal reasons. Joyce Tomlinson, 41, moved to the area from Mission Viejo with her husband, Vernon, so their 10-year-old son, Grady, could grow up in a less congested area.

Indeed, the boy now lives a Tom Sawyer existence. Out front of the couple’s cedar clapboard house is a creek and a small pond. A tree house is nestled amid the gnarled branches of a nearby oak. Chickens cluck contently as they peck the earth around the family’s three-acre parcel.

But Tomlinson is worried that all that could change if the developers get their way.

“We came down here because of the peace and serenity,” said Tomlinson. “It’s country living. You wouldn’t want someone to take that from you.”

Up the road, Milt Black has 23 acres, much of it planted in avocado trees. A small stream runs through the property near a grove of oak trees, feeding a lake where coots and mallards gather.

Black, 59, considers himself “a refugee” from Los Angeles, where he owned an electronic component sales firm. These days he keeps busy working the land or tending to the backyard electronics business he runs with his son.

“One acre sounds big and sprawling, but we think of it as high density,” Black said. “Two acres gives us more assurance. It tells the county to stay out and leave us alone.”

Wireman, likewise, has his reasons for wanting a rural buffer between his house and new development.

For the past five years, the 56-year-old engineer has toiled to build the home by hand. With the help of his wife, Faye, and three children, Wireman formed adobe bricks from the soil on his property and hewed huge wooden girders. Piece by piece, the family fashioned an immense, Spanish-style home with high ceilings and arched doorways. It is a distinctive house, the kind of home that stands alone.

Now Wireman, Tomlinson and the others are considering their options. If need be, they will press their lawsuit. An effort to recall members of the Fallbrook Planning Group has also been discussed.

“They’ve got to wake up and understand that we’re not just barking to be barking,” Tomlinson said. “It comes to a point where if we don’t take a stand, Fallbrook is not going to be the same town we came here for.”