Ecke Ranch Opposes Encinitas Plan to Reroute 680

Plans by Encinitas to detour a major east-west North County highway through the 900-acre Ecke Poinsettia Ranch and away from residential neighborhoods have led the ranch’s owners to make overtures to Carlsbad about preventing the rerouting of planned Route 680.

Attorney Chris Calkins, president of the holding company for the ranch, approached Carlsbad city leaders this week, seeking their support for placing the massive undeveloped acreage within the Carlsbad sphere of influence.

The Ecke property, the site in 1923 of the first flower-growing operation in what has become a major San Dieguito-area industry, remains unincorporated and undeveloped, an island between the cities of Encinitas and Carlsbad. Calkins seeks to shift the ranch from Encinitas’ sphere of influence into Carlsbad’s. Sphere of influence is a planning term for areas expected to be annexed to a city sometime in the future.

Herman Rosenthal, county transportation planning chief, said that Encinitas city planners working on the city’s first general plan have recommended that Route 680 be detoured northward through the Ecke flower fields to link with La Costa Avenue instead of taking a direct route to the coast. Route 680 is a regional highway planned to link Poway and Interstate 15 with Interstate 5 on the coast at Leucadia Boulevard.

Ranch officials do not oppose the county’s adopted east-west route directly across the ranch property and linking with Leucadia Boulevard, Rosenthal said.

Under the Encinitas plan, a road off El Camino Real would extend westward into the center of the Ecke property, then connect with a north-south extension of Via Cantebria northward to La Costa Avenue on the Encinitas-Carlsbad border.

The Local Agency Formation Commission would have to approve any transfer of the Ecke property from one city’s jurisdiction to another. The state agency, which has authority over all changes in local boundaries, has not been contacted about the proposal.

Encinitas City Council members have been debating the detour of Route 680 for several months. Several city officials, including Councilwoman Marjorie Gaines, campaigned for office on a pledge to keep regional traffic routes out of the residential areas of the coastal community.

Calkins could not be reached for comment Friday but earlier told reporters that the Encinitas traffic plan would endanger the Ecke poinsettia growing operations. The sensitive plants, which the Ecke ranch markets worldwide, could be seriously damaged if a major road, carrying 30,000 to 40,000 cars a day, was routed through the area, Calkins said.