Olivenhain, Losing Out to Builders, Develops Anti-Growth Strategy

The house where Marjorie Gaines lives sits beside a stand of eucalyptus trees, deep in the heart of a green and gold valley in this unincorporated borough east of Encinitas.

It is a pastoral place, commanding wide views of virgin hillsides. Geese waddle about the front lawn. Horses munch hay in a corral nearby. The smell of honeysuckle hangs in the air.

For nearly a decade, Gaines has labored passionately to protect her barnyard nirvana--and the rest of Olivenhain--from the tide of urban development sweeping briskly through neighboring communities. It has been a losing battle.

The county, Gaines said, has turned a deaf ear to local protests and has approved low-quality, high-density residential construction that threatens to spoil forever the character of her country life. At the same time, supervisors have failed to plan for the growth, leaving San Dieguito hurting for public services and saddled with traffic woes unrivaled in North County.

“I’ve attended 1,000 hearings over the years, trying to get the county to respect our wishes on land use,” said Gaines, a woman with bright blue eyes and an infectious smile. “Instead, they’ve gone willy-nilly with development all over the place, and they’ve created a terrible mess. It’s been very disillusioning.”

But Gaines and equally disenchanted folks in neighboring towns think they have an answer. Incorporation.

Champions of home rule argue that by merging Olivenhain, Cardiff, Encinitas and Leucadia into a 23-square-mile city of 44,000 residents, San Dieguito residents can slow the spiraling growth and shape an inviting future.

Moreover, incorporation boosters promise a higher level of services for residents’ tax dollars than what they have been getting from the county. And they argue that locally elected officials--who live in the same town, drive on the same streets and send their kids to the same schools--will be more sensitive to the area’s needs than supervisors ensconced in the labyrinthine county administration building in downtown San Diego.

On June 3, residents will vote on the incorporation question, which appears on the ballot as Proposition K. They will also be asked to choose one of three proposed names for the new city, elect a five-member city council and decide whether future council members should be elected by district or at large.

If approved, the new city would come into being on Oct. 1.

Proponents of incorporation appear well organized, enjoy broad-based community support and have been working aggressively toward their goal for many months. But they are dogged by history: Two previous attempts to incorporate a similarly fashioned city of San Dieguito, in 1974 and 1982, were overwhelmingly rejected by the voters.

In addition, a feisty band of opponents is waging a high-profile campaign against cityhood, erecting billboards, firing off a barrage of press releases and even filing a court challenge seeking to block a vote on the issue.

Many of the opponents’ arguments sound familiar--in particular, the notion that by forming one sprawling city of San Dieguito, incorporation backers would effectively strip the four communities of their distinctive identities.

Minor though it may seem to outsiders, the “identity issue” and related qualms about the proposed name for the new city have combined to damage the incorporation movement in past elections.

“No question about it,” Gaines said, “a lot of people voted against the name.”

There are more weighty arguments. The liability insurance quagmire facing existing municipalities prompts some incorporation foes to wonder whether the time is right for cityhood. Many companies have simply refused to insure cities, prompting some local governments to “go bare” until a solution surfaces.

In addition, nearly all of the opponents share concerns about the economic viability of the proposed city, despite a feasibility study that projects a $3.3-million surplus after the municipality’s first year of operation. Basically, the critics question whether Encinitas, the booming commercial heart of San Dieguito, can pump fast enough to keep its poorer neighbors alive and well.

“A city of Encinitas alone could support itself easily and comfortably,” said Fred Schreiber, who is affiliated with the anti-incorporation group called No on K.

“But this proposal takes in too much territory,” said Schreiber. “Sure, they could probably operate a city. But then, Imperial Beach operates. Is that what we want for our area?”

Bob Weaver, who heads Citizens Against 4 Cities, argued that major capital improvements needed in Leucadia, which suffers from flooding and streets with potholes, and Olivenhain, which shares those problems, would sap the new city’s coffers “before it could get on its feet.”

Weaver faulted the feasibility study, prepared by a consultant for the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), which must approve incorporation bids before they appear on the ballot, for allocating only $400,000 for capital improvements--”enough for about 10 potholes.”

Chiming in on the opposition to incorporation is a new and decidedly forceful voice--that of a coalition of Encinitas flower growers. The growers, who make up the backbone of the farming that remains in San Dieguito, contend that cityhood is incompatible with agriculture and fear they will ultimately be forced out if incorporation succeeds.

Indeed, the area’s leading poinsettia grower, the venerable Ecke Ranch, successfully petitioned the county in an effort to remain outside the incorporation boundaries. The Ecke holdings constitute a 900-acre unincorporated hole in the middle of the proposed city.

“It’s a simple fact,” said Erwin Mojonnier, a fourth-generation grower and husband of Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier. “Flower fields and cityhood do not mix. All you have to do is look at Orange County and Los Angeles and that’s the conclusion you come to.”

According to Mojonnier, the new city will be so strapped for funds they will begin to pressure the growers to sell out and make room for residential construction that would bring developers’ fees and tax dollars into the community.

In addition, the growers predict the new, locally elected city council would be more likely to crack down on certain aspects of their operations--the use of pesticides, for example--because members will be more sensitive to residents’ complaints.

“There are a lot of people who don’t like looking at greenhouses and are bothered by other elements of our business,” Mojonnier said. “The county understands our concerns. I don’t necessarily think the city will.”

Incorporation proponents describe such statements as utter nonsense. Cityhood backers say they view the flower growing industry as an integral part of San Dieguito’s ambiance and insist it would be better protected under home rule. To demonstrate their support, all 16 candidates for seats on the council have signed a pledge vowing to “encourage agriculture and ensure that it will continue to prosper within the new city.”

Sounding a different note, Gaines and other pro-K boosters charge that growers’ cries of fear are a mere smoke screen for another motive in opposing incorporation.

“They want to stay in the county because they know the county will approve high-density zoning on their property, which makes it worth more when they sell out,” Gaines said. “We don’t have any plans to lose the growers, and they know it.”

Cityhood supporters have ready responses to opponents’ other arguments as well--answers they believe will sway the voting majority their way in this round of balloting.

On the community identity issue, Gaines and fellow council candidate Gerald Steel have proposed the creation of four separate planning commissions to decide land use issues in each of the four towns. Although opponents contend the scheme will create four fiefdoms sure to divide the new city, backers say the plan will help preserve the individuality of the four areas.

“My observation is that the people in Encinitas don’t care about the apartment project going up in Cardiff, and the people in Cardiff don’t care about the animal regulations in Olivenhain,” said Steel, an energy consultant and former chairman of the San Dieguito Citizens Planning Group, an advisory panel.

“With these locally elected bodies, the four communities will truly be able to make their own decisions and keep the character of the neighborhoods defined and even enhanced.”

To persuade voters who opposed incorporation in past elections because they objected to the city’s name, proponents held a name contest and placed the three top selections on the ballot.

The choices? Encinitas, San Dieguito and Rancho San Elijo, the latter symbolizing the area’s proximity to San Elijo Lagoon.

And as for the economic strength of the proposed city, those favoring home rule scoff at critics’ charges that San Dieguito would be a fiscal flop.

“According to LAFCO, we would be the most financially viable city they have seen in years,” Gaines said. “The facts are that we will be able to provide a higher level of services than the county and still have money in the bank.”

Michael Ott, a senior analyst with LAFCO, echoed that statement.

“It looks like San Dieguito would have a 30% surplus of revenues over expenditures after its first year of operation, well above the average, which is an 8% to 10% surplus,” Ott said. “There is every reason to believe this would be one very fiscally feasible city.”

Even if the economic picture weren’t so promising, Gaines and fellow boosters likely would still be promoting incorporation, for two reasons.

“The main motivating factor is land use,” Gaines said. “To accommodate developers, the county has repeatedly granted amendments to the community plan to the point where it’s so mangled I don’t even recognize it.”

The result, incorporation supporters say, is dense residential projects that are out of character with the community and have ushered in traffic problems the county has failed to address.

“The bottom line is, we have to incorporate to protect ourselves,” Steel said. “If we don’t, the county will keep saddling us with these incompatible developments.”

The second issue fueling the fire under incorporation supporters concerns the level of public services the county provides in the San Dieguito area.

According to LAFCO’s Ott, the area targeted for incorporation contributed $8.5 million to the county’s general fund in the 1984-85 fiscal year. During the same period, the county provided $4.7 million worth of general services--law enforcement, planning and so forth.

“We’re not getting our fair share of the benefits,” said Stewart Walton, vice chairman of the North Coast Incorporation Coalition. “We’re getting shorted on police, parks, planning and in many other areas. If we control those dollars we can solve that problem.”

On a related issue, People for a Clean Ocean, a group fighting the relaxation of sewage treatment standards, has endorsed incorporation as a means to control the quality of waste water released into the ocean. If San Dieguito incorporates, the new city would likely assume control of the treatment plant and outfall at Cardiff State Beach--and would thus have authority to decide whether any downgrading of sewage treatment takes place.

Despite their past defeats, incorporation proponents say they are confident that this time cityhood will win at the polls. In 1982, they say, a nationwide recession made some residents leery of stepping out from under the county’s wing. And a building boom that has spawned numerous projects throughout San Dieguito has made growth and its impact front-burner issues.

“The time is now,” Walton said. “If incorporation doesn’t go, we’ll see an avalanche of growth, a vastly accelerated pace of development. The only way to avoid that and preserve what we’ve still got is to come together as four communities.”