Residents Rally to Bar Rancho Santa Fe Resort

Developers promise it will be the West Coast’s premier meeting place, drawing from among the country’s elite corporate executives.

Residents say it poses the biggest threat to Rancho Santa Fe’s woodsy ambiance in its 60-year history.

The county Planning Commission on Friday sided with residents, rejecting the proposed 82-unit Posada Del Rancho Santa Fe resort and conference center.

But the fight over the proposed tony resort now moves to the Board of Supervisors, and homeowners on the Ranch remain wary.

The elite center is proposed for 16.5 acres at the corner of El Montevideo and Paseo Delicias, just as the latter becomes the Del Dios Highway.

Covenant Doesn’t Rule

What galls residents is that the site is among two dozen “islands” within the Rancho Santa Fe area not governed by the Rancho Santa Fe Covenant, a rigidly enforced property owners agreement that dates from when the area was founded by the Santa Fe Railroad to grow eucalyptus trees for railroad ties.

The islands comprise less than 100 acres of the 6,500-acre ranch.

Property owner Daniel Bunn has tried to appease Rancho Santa Fe residents by assuring them that resort visitors will be, well, their kind of people--wealthy, Fortune 500 executives and top-of-the-line professionals, well mannered.

An environmental impact report prepared for Bunn by a San Diego consulting firm concluded that “the facility will increase the number of nonresidents (i.e. employees, conference attendees, and social guests) in the community but demographic and social class conflicts are not expected.”

It continues:

“The attendee is likely to be highly educated and Republican. The demographic/social class composition and associative life style is in keeping with that of an upper class income area such as Rancho Santa Fe.”

Its marketing strategy will be to attract top-level management executives from throughout the Southwest. No vulgar signs visible from the street, no advertisements in mass market magazines. More than just money will be necessary to rent a room.

Life Styles Differ

“Such a marketing strategy,” the report purrs, “takes into account that individuals with similar income levels may have disparate life styles. Plumbers and carpenters make as much money as college professors but there are striking differences in their values, behaviors and overall life styles.”

Residents of Rancho Santa Fe, where the average two-acre undeveloped lot sells for $400,000, are unswayed by the snob approach. To the Rancho Santa Fe Assn., an upper crust conference center with suites is just as objectionable as a mom-pop-and-the-kids Motel 6.

Gus Stelzer, a retired executive from General Motors, brought to the county Planning Commission a unique visual aid to demonstrate his opposition--a large blank piece of white cardboard (616 square inches), with an inch-square yellow dot in the middle. The dot represented the proposed resort.

“Bunn is planning something right in the middle of a pristine site,” Stelzer said. “There is not one single commercial structure within a full mile of the Bunn site--not one.

“When Mr. Bunn says his proposal is compatible with the community, I say we’re getting the Joe Isuzu (TV’s lying car salesman) sales pitch without benefit of the disclaimer.”

But Bunn’s representatives, former Supervisor Dick Brown and Costa Mesa attorney Jean Melious, argued that the resort would fit perfectly into Rancho Santa Fe, with its proposed Spanish colonial architecture, lush landscaping and no building taller than two stories.

Fear of Impact Seen

“Rancho Santa Fe seems to fear any impact in their bailiwick, even a benign and very beneficial impact,” Melious said.

“These are suites because of the caliber of people who will be attracted to the conference center,” Brown said. “The center will cater to small groups, five to 10 people, presidents and vice presidents of business. Everything will be state of the art.”

The proposal includes 82 units (42 no-kitchens, 40 with partial kitchens), a 200-seat restaurant, a 5,200-square-foot health spa, 4,000 square feet of meeting rooms, three tennis courts and a large swimming pool--in all, 16 buildings, with red tile roofs.

Rancho Santa Fe residents, who chartered a bus and packed the 250-seat auditorium, say the plan would increase traffic, burden sewers and--possibly worst of all--spur other “island” owners to ask county approval for things frowned upon under the covenant.

“There are other islands,” said ranch planning director Gail MacLeod, “and if the county approves what is a plan-busting plan, we’re scared this would be a green light to other owners.”

Brown argued that since the property is not governed by the covenant, the county should not be bound by it. The San Dieguito Community Plan, which covers Rancho Santa Fe, allows for resort development on the site, he noted.

“We have followed all the rules and we meet all the requirements,” he said.

William Paul, president of the board of directors of the Rancho Santa Fe Assn., said the Bunn proposal is the biggest threat to the community since the covenant was established on July 14, 1927. “This just flies in the face of 60 years of tradition and community effort,” he said.

The ranch has limited all commercial development--including boutiques, restaurants, stock brokerages and real estate offices--to an area known as The Village. Around the Bunn site, the association allows but one home per two acres.

In the end, the commission voted 4-0 against the project, with Commissioners Don Hansen, an architect, and Alan Ziegaus, a public relations executive, taking no part in the discussion or voting because they have had business dealings with Bunn.

“I think there is definitely incompatibility with the community character,” said the commission’s chairwoman, Toni Katelic. “Also, we do not think the traffic issue has been mitigated, and the bulk and density of the project are incompatible with the surrounding (land) uses.”

Even as the Rancho Santa Fe residents were cheering their success, property owner Bunn, whose family is involved in the development and management of nursing homes in East San Diego County, vowed to take the matter to the Board of Supervisors.

Brown, who served on the board from 1973 to 1977, had complained bitterly about not having enough time to explain the project’s virtues to the commissioners.

“It’s like you get 40 seconds per $1 million of (the project’s) value,” he told them.