Board Extends Building Limit for Fallbrook

Heeding the pleas of Fallbrook residents, worried that growth threatens to ruin the town’s rural character, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors agreed Wednesday night to extend a moratorium on high-density development in the North County community.

As about 300 residents, packed into the Potter Junior High School auditorium, watched the board voted 4-0, with Supervisor Susan Golding absent, to allow the building ban to run until the end of the year.

The board adopted the moratorium May 14 as an urgency action. Because such measures expire after 45 days, the supervisors were required to consider extending the ban Wednesday.

Under the moratorium, a house can be built only on a parcel of one acre or more. In addition, homes cannot be clustered together on a single lot, a common practice in areas where hilly land makes sections of a tract impractical for development. Finally, the new homes cannot be connected to a sewer system, a move that supporters of the moratorium contend will help limit future growth.

The ban does not apply to Fallbrook’s downtown area, nor does it block sewer hookups for existing developments.

County officials say the moratorium affects only one project currently planned for the community, a 144-acre subdivision on Olive Hill Road that was to include 87 single-family houses. Developers of the project planned to build a sewer system, not permitted under the moratorium.

The board’s action comes in the midst of a simmering feud over growth in Fallbrook. That debate has been 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.

Members of the group, which claims the support of 4,500 Fallbrook residents, back the moratorium, saying it would act as an umbrella against any high-density development until the community and county planners can sit down and hammer out new land-use regulations.

Jack Wireman, co-chairman of the group, said the moratorium “keeps the door closed” on developments that could spoil Fallbrook’s bucolic charm.

“It’s important in that it demonstrates the Board of Supervisors is listening to the people,” Wireman said, noting that the growth issue has stirred renewed debate over incorporation in Fallbrook.

Although Friends of Rural Lifestyle supports the moratorium, members are pushing for the county to adopt even tough restrictions, insisting that houses in back-country sections of Fallbrook should be allowed only on lots of two acres or more.

Not everyone agrees. Opponents of the organization, represented most vocally by local real estate interests, contend Fallbrook can safely maintain its rustic appeal by sticking to a one-acre minimum lot size. As they see it, many younger home buyers and elderly retirees will be unable to purchase--let alone maintain--homesteads in Fallbrook if only two-acre lots are allowed.

County planning officials also supported the moratorium, but stressed in a written report to the board that their backing was based upon “maintaining the status quo” in Fallbrook until a fuller review of the community’s land-use regulations takes place.

Such a planning review is scheduled to begin during the fall, with the Board of Supervisors making a final decision in December on land-use issues in Fallbrook.

The brouhaha over growth in Fallbrook was ignited last September when the board of supervisors amended land-use plans for the area, a move that allowed developers to build higher density projects.

When Wireman and other residents learned of the change, they formed Friends of Rural Lifestyle and filed suit against the county over the altered regulations. That legal action is still pending.

In April, the board reacted by agreeing to reconsider their original action. They followed that in May by adopting the 45-day moratorium at the urging of Friends of Rural Lifestyle members and other Fallbrook residents.