San Dieguito Trust Wants to Build 30 Homes in River Valley

Two days after a San Diego City Council election in which the fate of the San Dieguito River Valley was raised as an issue, a landowners’ group that includes UC San Diego co-founder Roger Revelle has proposed a 30-home subdivision in an environmentally sensitive portion of the lower valley.

The San Dieguito Trust is seeking permission to build the spacious homes on about 10 acres between El Camino Real and Interstate 5 on the southern slope of the valley.

The application, filed Thursday with the Planning Department, drew immediate opposition from environmentalists.

“The timing of the application is very suspicious,” said Jackie Sanders, chairman of the Friends of Famosa Slough, a San Diego-based environmental group. “It suggests that it was held off so as not to damage (Bruce) Henderson’s election chances.”

Sanders organized a blufftop press conference a week ago to warn that the election of Henderson, a former attorney for the San Dieguito Trust, could set back efforts to preserve the San Dieguito River Valley as open space.

Sanders and others at the sparsely attended conference predicted that development plans would soon be filed.

Henderson defeated Bob Ottilie by 51.5% to 48.5%--the closest of the four council races--to win the 6th District seat now held by Mike Gotch, a staunch supporter of preserving the valley.

Leo Wilson, a member of San Diegans for Managed Growth, said that if the application had been filed before the election it might have focused the attention of the press and public on the precarious future of the San Dieguito River Valley.

Abby Silverman, who succeeded Henderson as the trust’s attorney, said the land-use application, called a tentative subdivision map, was filed as soon as the necessary paper work and technical calculations were complete. No attempt was made to forestall its filing or trick the public, she said.

“To accuse Roger Revelle of conspiring against the community is highly inappropriate,” she said.

Revelle, one of three officers for the trust, is in Switzerland for scientific meetings before going to Africa to continue his work in alleviating famine. He was unavailable for comment.

Last weekend, a pro-Henderson mailer was sent to San Diego voters entitled “An Important Message for Democrats from Dr. Roger Revelle (Co-Founder of UCSD).”

In it, Revelle praised Henderson for “a proven record of managing growth and protecting the environment.” The mailer lists much of Henderson’s resume but does not include his work as attorney for the San Dieguito Trust.

Environmentalists Critical

The San Dieguito Trust has owned 340 acres in the lower valley for three decades without building anything. Much of the land is leased out for tomato and bean farming.

The trust includes several people associated with UCSD and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, including Revelle, the institution’s director emeritus; Walter H. Munk, professor of geophysics and planetary physics, and Gustaf Arrhenius, professor of geological research. Munk’s wife, architect Judith Munk, is also a member.

The trust has had several skirmishes with environmental groups because of the grading and filling done by its farming tenants. The trust property is seen as the gateway to the San Dieguito River Valley, the last undeveloped coastal river valley in San Diego County.

At last week’s press conference, environmentalists complained that Henderson wrote several “boisterous” letters to the California Coastal Commission and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeking to have the property exempted from land-use protections.

A comment by a trust representative last August that the property might be a good spot for a scientific research and business park brought immediate opposition from preservationists. Judith Munk later said no development plans were being prepared.

In its application, signed by attorney Silverman and builder Roy Collins, the trust is seeking approval for 30 homes in the southeast portion of its property, while reserving the right for further development on the remaining acreage if it is ever deemed ready for development by the city.

“We’ve tried to be as sensitive as possible to the land,” said Collins, known primarily for building research and development parks in Carlsbad and San Diego.

“I’m sure there will be people who won’t like it,” he said. “But I’m not sure they’re going to like anything. We’re certainly not going to design a product to be offensive.”

Currently, the trust property is largely zoned agricultural, which allows for one home per 10 acres.

The application seeks approval for 30 homes on lots as large as one-third of an acre, under a land-use process known as clustering, which takes into account the trust’s ownership of 340 acres. The homes would range from 1,900 to 3,400 square feet.

The application also says the trust will provide an easement if San Dieguito Road is extended to a new interchange with Interstate 5--an idea that environmentalists strongly oppose as a step toward opening up development in the San Dieguito River Valley.

Since no rezoning is necessary, the decision on whether to approve the subdivision application rests with the city planning staff, unless an appeal is filed. If that happens, the issue will be forwarded to the Planning Commission and then the City Council.

“This will be opposed all the way,” Wilson said.

The evaluation process will probably take three to six months, said senior planner Nick Osler, who deals with land-use issues involving North City West and the San Dieguito River Valley.

“We don’t want a fight,” Collins said. “If we had wanted a fight, we would have designed our project further down” in the wetlands area.

Alice Goodkind, president of the Friends of the San Dieguito River Valley, said her group will study the trust proposal closely. She said it may also be discussed at a meeting today of a San Dieguito River Valley task force put together by Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer.

At Odds With Council

Goodkind noted that the proposal appears to be inconsistent with a motion passed unanimously in April by the council’s Transportation and Land Use Committee to preserve the western portion of the lower valley by not allowing any increased density.

Goodkind was among those environmentalists attending last week’s anti-Henderson press conference, held on a spot overlooking the area where the San Dieguito Trust now wants to build the 30 homes.

Henderson, in a pre-election interview, said his actions as a council member will be made in the interests of the public, not those of a former law client. But he added that he firmly believes in property rights and the duty of government to either allow owners to develop their property or to compensate them.

On the issue of whether he will vote on San Dieguito River Valley matters, Henderson said he will wait until the city attorney determines whether he has a conflict of interest.

Chief Deputy City Atty. Jack Katz said that a lawyer-turned-councilman cannot vote on an issue within 12 months of having received more than $250 to represent one of the parties. Henderson resigned as the trust’s attorney in June.