Escondido Neighbors Upset by Plan to Bring Farm Housing to Block

Residents of an Escondido neighborhood have vowed to fight a county-backed proposal to build low-income housing for migrant farm workers on their block.

Emmit Neilsen and some of his neighbors on West 15th Avenue don’t want a farm camp around the corner on Orange Place because such a building would cause nothing but chaos, Neilsen said.

“They are going to have growers’ buses coming in here (picking up workers) at 5 a.m., and there are going to be people all over the place,” said Neilsen, who has lived on West 15th for 33 years.

‘Look Like a Dump’

If built, the camp would be right across the street from Neilsen’s home.

“The place is going to look like a dump, and in six months, can you imagine what it is going to look like?” Neilsen asked.

County officials are planning the complex for the central city neighborhood because the current Escondido migrant-housing quarters on Quince Street will be demolished to make room for an $11.5-million county transit center.

To obtain the $4.7 million in federal funds the city needs for the transit center, officials must replace the Quince Street barracks with another low-income housing project, Bill Lorentz said.

Lorentz, county public works administrator in charge of the transit center project and whose job it is to find a new location, said about 20 sites in North County were surveyed before Orange Place was selected.

Aware of growing local concern over the proposal, Lorentz will try to ease the rancor at a 7 p.m. meeting May 4 at Escondido City Hall.

“What we would be doing is replenishing low-income housing,” Lorentz said.

“The apartments will be very attractive,” he said, hoping to calm fears that the new apartment buildings would be replicas of the Army barracks that house about 150 workers on Quince Street.

Lorentz said the new complex, which would be built by the county and leased to private industry, would have 10 family apartments and dormitory space for about 50 men.

“They will be modern apartments,” he said.

But neighbors of the proposed project aren’t worried about the condition of the building.

People like Leroy Shebal are concerned that the presence of hundreds of migrant farm workers would lower property values.

An appraiser “told me that the property values on the street would go down by 15%,” Shebal said.

If that happens, Shebal will lose $150,000 on his apartment building, which he said has been appraised at $1 million.

Shebal, who owns the Cedar Gardens Apartment for senior citizens on West 15th Avenue, which lies around the corner from the proposed complex, said he is preparing for a fight.

He said he has taken several pictures of farm workers standing outside the Quince Street camp asking for handouts or looking for work.

He said he will present these photos at the May 4 meeting to show the dangers of building the new complex on Orange Place.

“A lot of these people are illegal, and they are desperate and hungry,” said Shebal, adding that he is worried that crime would go up because of what he says would be the inevitable presence of illegal aliens.

“Where are they going to be sleeping, on my back lot?” he asked.

Jessie Clark, manager of Cedar Gardens, said all 20 senior citizens living at the home have expressed fear at the workers’ possible presence.

“We are all very upset about it, especially some of the elderly ladies here,” Clark said.

Gary Miller, who lives next door to Neilsen, is equally unhappy.

“Oh, we’re just thrilled about this,” he said sarcastically.

Lorentz said the county will insist that a superintendent be hired for the complex--which is intended for migrant workers in the country legally--to allay fears that farm workers would damage the neighborhood.

Escondido City Councilman Doug Best, who is the city’s representative on the transit center steering committee, said he understands the concerns.

Lots of Planning to Come

He added that there is still a great deal of planning to do before the project even gets off the ground.

“It’s still got to go before the Planning Commission and the City Council,” he said. “There are no easy answers. This whole project could rise and fall on the relocation thing.”

Lorentz said the county will soon begin negotiations to purchase the Quince Street housing units from Citrus Growers Inc. The Orange County-based company owns the buildings where workers, who are hired out by local growers, live.

An attorney for the company did not return numerous phone calls Tuesday.