Builder Gets Permits, Ends Challenge of Growth Limit

The only lawsuit challenging San Diego’s controversial growth-limitation ordinance has been dropped because the Rancho Bernardo developer who filed the suit has been given the building permits he needs to complete portions of a multimillion-dollar project.

Camino Bernardo Associates, a limited partnership, filed suit against the city Aug. 4 in federal court after city officials refused to issue the partnership building permits for 205 residential units to be built in its 252-acre Rancho Bernardo project. The partnership said the city’s refusal to issue the permits imperiled an $8.2-million business deal, and the partnership argued it had a “vested right” to go ahead with the project because the city had approved tentative maps of the development.

City administrators froze building permits after the City Council approved the ordinance in concept on June 23. The measure seeks to slow rapid urban growth by limiting developers to building up to 8,000 residential units in the next year.

The city attorney’s office, however, ruled several weeks ago that developers such as Camino Bernardo Associates were exempt from the 8,000-unit limit if they had received approval for their tentative maps before the council adopted the ordinance. Camino Bernardo Associates received approval for its tentative map in August 1986.

That ruling cleared the way for Camino Bernardo Associates to receive its building permits effective this week. The developer signed an agreement on Aug. 14 to drop its lawsuit, said Alan Sumption, chief deputy city attorney in charge of the civil litigation division. The agreement also allows the partnership to obtain additional building permits to complete the project, he said.

Camino Bernardo Associates’ lawsuit asked for an injunction to force City Manager John Lockwood to issue building permits for most of the development, and attacked the exemptions to the ordinance--Tierrasanta, Otay Mesa, downtown, portions of the midcity area and all trolley areas--as a “political compromise.”

Attorneys for the developer said Camino Bernardo Associates had a right to build the 1,215 residential units, convalescent home, day-care center and recreational facilities because the City Council had already approved a subdivision map a year ago. Since then, according to the lawsuit, Camino Bernardo had spent about $19.5 million in connection with the project.

David Mulliken, an attorney who represented Camino Bernardo Associates in the suit, said when the suit was filed that although the basis of the lawsuit was constitutional, its goal was to secure an exemption.

“We don’t have any philosophical ax to grind,” he said then. “We just have a lot of money at stake here.”