Planning Lags for San Dieguito Valley, Hahn Tells Forum

About 150 environmentalists, politicians, conservationists and nearby residents gathered here Saturday to discuss how to save the San Dieguito River valley from developers, but it was a developer who earned the group’s most enthusiastic applause.

Shopping center magnate Ernest W. Hahn, a Rancho Santa Fe resident and developer of San Diego’s Horton Plaza and dozens of other shopping malls, took politicians to task for failure to plan ahead for orderly growth, both in the North County river valley and countywide.

Thousands of acres in San Diego’s urban reserve--land restricted from development until after 1995--”have never been looked at, never been planned. Nothing has been done in the past, and, as far as I know, nothing is being done now,” Hahn complained. The city’s Proposition A, which requires approval of city voters before any of the land reserves can be developed, “is a cheap cop-out for officials in power” and “takes planning out of the hands of professionals,” Hahn said.

Hahn warned his audience that “politicians will not be able to accomplish what you seek”-- the creation of a major regional open space park along the 43-mile river valley that runs from near Ramona to the ocean at Del Mar--”without the help of private industry.”

He suggested that anti-development groups work for a compromise with property owners who want to develop large, high-density residential tracts, to produce a plan that will allow both groups to achieve their objectives.

Economic incentives such as allowing developers to cluster dense development in return for dedicating open space are one way to foster cooperation between environmental and building interests, Hahn said. He criticized present planning policies that allow very low-density development, noting that estate development will not support the infrastructure of roads and urban services that will eventually be needed to accommodate the 65,000 county residents arriving annually. Low-density planning, he said, “is as obsolete as the dodo bird.”

The daylong seminar and tour, sponsored by Citizens Coordinate for Century III and nine other groups, centered on proposals to control growth, and on present and future development of the last rural river valley in the county.

County Supervisor Susan Golding and City Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer agreed that a major park should be developed in the valley but differed on the prospects for creating it. Golding said that the valley--which lies within both the city and county of San Diego jurisdictions--is in danger of being developed piecemeal, as was Mission Valley, unless a single specific land use plan is developed and implemented. Golding added that there were not enough favorable votes on the Board of Supervisors to set aside money for acquisition of park land.

Wolfsheimer outlined city plans to assign three city planners to the San Dieguito River valley and La Jolla projects, both of which are designed to transfer categories of land density from sensitive areas to other city areas where they can be used. She said that the city, with action scheduled by the City Council on Monday, will have set aside $3.9 million for acquisition of open space in the valley.

Wolfsheimer said she envisioned “a 43-mile waterway park, perhaps 750 acres” along the San Dieguito River, including a golf course, boating facilities, equestrian and hiking trails, a wildlife sanctuary, botanical preserve, archeological sites and perhaps a natural amphitheater.

During a question-and-answer session, residents asked why the city would restrict its planning to such a small area when about 30,000 acres of city-owned land and reservoir property was located within the San Dieguito River valley.

Former Del Mar city attorney Dwight Worden told the group that cities and the county had broad powers for lowering zoning densities on private property, powers that have been tested and upheld by the courts.

Also speaking was Lynn Benn, a Del Mar activist who heads a newly formed group, Friends of the San Dieguito River Valley, which she said will work to prevent “irreversible, insensitive development” in the rural valley.

Trish Butler, consultant for the Del Mar Fair Board, outlined plans for the state-owned fairgrounds that lies at the mouth of the San Dieguito River. A new master plan calls for doubling the capacity of the grandstand to 20,000 seats, expanding parking lots by about 50 acres, and constructing off-ramps and on-ramps from the fairgrounds parking lot to Interstate 5 to relieve congestion.