Developer May Build Bypass on North County Shortcut in Exchange for Subdivision

A tortuous, rocky road that more than 2,000 North County inlanders use daily as a shortcut to the coast may be replaced by a straight, smooth route that bypasses suburban Rancho Penasquitos neighborhoods and avoids congested commuter routes between Interstates 5 and 15.

Black Mountain Road, the partly unpaved, east-west route between Rancho Penasquitos and Del Mar, was ordered closed last June by the San Diego City Council after city attorneys warned that the city faced fierce liability costs if the substandard roadway were allowed to remain open.

Since then, the proposed road closure has disappeared into the city’s bureaucracy while a plan to build a new road was quietly being formulated by city officials and Escondido-based Signal Landmark Co.

Approached by City

Signal Landmark spokesman Bob McNatt said that the firm was approached by the city of San Diego about building a replacement road to bypass the 2.5-mile unpaved stretch of Black Mountain Road and reconnect with the road where it becomes a major north-south arterial street in Rancho Penasquitos.

In return, McNatt said, the development firm would be allowed to build a 92-home estate community, Fairbanks Highlands, on a 400-acre tract within the city’s “urban reserve,” land restricted from development until after 1995.

The proposed development is permitted under existing zoning in the urban reserve, according to Jack McGrory, assistant city manager. He explained that, despite zoning that permits only one housing unit per 10 acres, a council policy allows relaxation of that zoning to allow one housing unit per 4-acre lot in the urban reserve.

Approval of Fairbanks Highlands would not require a citywide vote of approval, as dictated by a citizen-sponsored initiative passed in 1985 on development within the city’s urban reserve, McGrory said, because it does not require a change in zoning.

The Signal Landmark project has been before the city’s subdivision review board, where an environmental impact study was ordered, and is expected to come up for public hearings within the next few months.

McGrory stressed that details still must be worked out with the developer, including whether the bypass would be a two-lane or four-lane road and how it would be aligned, but he acknowledged that obtaining a paved route between the inland and coastal freeways is a “most interesting prospect.”

Would Cost ‘Several Millions’

McNatt said the bypass road, which would serve the Fairbanks Highlands development as well as east-west commuters, would cost the company “several millions.”

With the Black Mountain bypass completed, the 2,300 motorists who daily use the existing winding road--and probably thousands more who travel more congested routes--would have a paved direct access from Rancho Penasquitos to North City West and I-5, without any cost to the taxpayers, McNatt pointed out.

San Diego Councilman Ed Struiksma, who is concerned that closing the existing Black Mountain Road would make traffic in his district’s Mira Mesa area even worse, took a wait-and-see attitude on the development project that accompanies the offer to construct the bypass.

Struiksma opposes spending city funds on “temporary measures,” such as paving substandard stretches of the road, and favors the “ultimate solution” to the mid-county traffic woes: construction of a major east-west freeway--Route 56--already being designed by the state Department of Transportation. Right-of-way for the state route has been acquired and construction could begin as early as late 1990 or early 1991, Struiksma said.

San Diego Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, whose district includes the existing Black Mountain Road and the proposed bypass, said she has heard “a few things” about the proposal but has not been in on the negotiations.

She blamed the “holiday lull that always comes at the end of the year” for delays in closing the unpaved stretches of Black Mountain Road. Public hearings on the issue must be held in the communities affected.

Residents Complained

Before the council vote to close part of the road, Wolfsheimer’s constituents in the Woodcrest subdivision of Rancho Penasquitos had appealed to her for aid in slowing or halting the high-speed motorists and heavy trucks that zip down their narrow streets to reach the shortcut.

However, the protests have been reduced to a murmur with the installation of stop signs and notices banning heavy trucks, Wolfsheimer said.

Protests to the road closure and threats of lawsuits came from residents and nursery owners along Black Mountain Road, but McNatt said the planned bypass would serve most all of the property owners along the old road.

“We haven’t had any opposition yet,” he said, “although I don’t suppose that everyone will be in our favor.”