Church’s Palomar Retreat Plan Stirs Protest : Hundreds Would Go Tell It on the Mountain at the Proposed Center

Palomar residents see a storm cloud hanging over pristine Jeff Valley atop Palomar Mountain that has nothing to do with Tuesday’s thunderheads.

The residents are bracing for yet another battle with a large, Costa Mesa-based church that wants to build a 560-acre retreat and conference center in the valley, which is next to a residential neighborhood on the mountain’s southern end.

The Calvary Church, which boasts 20,000 supporters in Orange County, wants to develop the site as a Bible study center for as many as 679 guests and staff members at a time.

The facility would include dormitories for children and students, private suites for adults, kitchens, dining and multipurpose rooms, chapels, athletic fields, volleyball and tennis courts, and two swimming pools.

But the Palomar Mountain Planning Organization is steadfastly opposed to the project--as it has been since it was first pitched two years ago--because of the harm it says it will cause to the mountain’s environment and ambiance.

“I’m sure this (valley) is Paradise Found for them, because it’s such a short distance from Orange County,” said George Ravenscroft, president of the Palomar Mountain Planning Organization. “But we don’t think there’s any way they can contain the impacts of this project to within the bounds of their landholding. We hate to see this be the one that got through the door.”

And Caltech officials who own and operate the Palomar observatories just a few miles to the north, including the world-famous, 200-inch Hale telescope, say they are concerned that the retreat center would sour the sky with a wash of light that would compromise their night work. The valley is situated just east of Crestline Road--one of the mountain’s residential areas--and north of county highway S-6 as it snakes down the mountain’s east grade toward Lake Henshaw.

The valley, as is virtually the entire mountaintop, is zoned for a maximum of one home for every eight acres. Were the 560-acre retreat site to be subdivided accordingly, it could accommodate a maximum of 70 home sites, for a resulting population of 150 to 300 people. In fact, significantly fewer parcels could be developed because of the valley’s terrain, leading critics to say the valley’s population would realistically not top 150 to 200 residents if it were developed as a housing subdivision.

The notion of allowing as many as 679 in that valley for weekend or weeklong summer retreats affronts mountain residents, who view it as a blight whose impact on access roads and ambiance could not be mitigated.

The proposal first went before county officials in 1986, when the church sought a facility for as many as 1,023 visitors and staff. The proposal was sent back to the drawing board by the county’s Planning and Environmental Review Board after an outpouring of opposition at a December, 1986, public hearing in San Diego.

Last February, Calvary Chapel’s project designer, Pacific Developments, scaled down the retreat center’s peak capacity to 679 persons from the original 1,023. Plans for a 10-acre lake and dam also were scrapped, and the amount of parking was cut to 250 spaces from the original 414.

Proponents of the retreat center say the reduction in the peak capacity of the facility should resolve most of the concerns expressed by the county’s staff. County planners say they have yet to decide whether to endorse the project, and Palomar residents contend the project will still overtax the valley, even with the reduction in capacity.

“The current proposed project is still outrageously too big,” Ravenscroft argued. “What would garner the support of the mountain residents would be a retreat center that would have no more occupancy than would a subdivision for the valley.”

A draft environmental impact report was prepared for the county’s review, and sent back for revisions. The second draft report is expected to be completed and forwarded to the county’s staff for another review by early or mid-September, said Michael Needham, president of Pacific Developments.

Given the time needed by staff to review the revised EIR, the 30-to-45-day public review period and another four weeks for the staff to prepare its own report and recommendations, the proposal probably will not go before the Planning and Environmental Review Board for a second hearing until December or January, county officials speculate.

Needham said Tuesday that he doesn’t realistically expect to win the support of Palomar residents, except for those who already support the Calvary Church and its mission of Bible study.

“The only way most of the residents would receive us is if we went away. I don’t think they want anything in the valley,” Needham said.

“They live up there because they like lots of elbow room, God love them. But they don’t want anything developed in Jeff Valley. I think they’d even object to a couple of single-family residences. They look over the valley and consider it theirs, even though they don’t pay for it.

“When people move to the mountain, they want lots of room,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll lift their objections.”

Ravenscroft said Palomar residents would likely support the project--as they have the Yoga Center and Spiritual World Society, which operates its own retreat center at the junction of S-6 and S-7--if the Calvary Chapel would completely redesign the project, which includes housing, multipurpose rooms and outdoor meditative areas and walkways.

“The theme of this center seems more to be recreation than meditation,” Ravenscroft said of the Calvary Chapel proposal. “They want to provide for softball, baseball, football, soccer, tennis and basketball, and seemingly very little resources are focused on the valley itself.

“If they were to design the center to be more reflective and meditative--and for far fewer people--the impacts would be significantly reduced and we could support it,” he said.

A spokesman for the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, which is independent of dozens of other Calvary Chapel congregations around Southern California, said the theme of the center’s activities would be Bible study, not recreation.

The spokesman, who asked not to be identified by name, said the athletic fields were sought to provide outdoor recreation breaks for retreat participants, who would range in age from junior high school students to adults.

County planner Ben Grame said his office would not decide whether to support or oppose the project until it reviews the EIR, now being prepared.

The proposed facility is similar in concept, and would be at the same site, as one proposed in 1968 by a Rancho Santa Fe developer who was issued a permit to build his project before strict environmental review laws were adopted in California.