Carlsbad Wants Sammis to Deliver on Batiquitos Lagoon Project

Carlsbad community support, once strong for plans to develop a graduate university and residential area atop the bluffs of scenic Batiquitos Lagoon, is waning fast as its developer struggles to get the troubled project under way.

More than three years after the City Council unanimously approved the ambitious, 168-acre “Batiquitos Lagoon Educational Park,” developer Don Sammis has made little progress toward creating what was supposed to be a self-contained community, anchored by an elite educational institution.

Sammis won rave reviews from community leaders for the proposed educational park that was to house a law school, graduate schools, a training center for the U. S. Olympic volleyball squad, a hotel, restaurants and 600 residential units.

Unusual Project

The project along Batiquitos Lagoon--the city’s precious environmental resource that forms the southern border of Carlsbad--concerned slow-growth advocates and environmentalists, but even they seemed attracted by the complex’s unusual educational theme.

When council members blessed Sammis’ plans in October, 1985, they set a three-year deadline for the developer to lure an academic institution.

During the past year, as many schools declined Sammis’ invitations and as other aspects of the project experienced difficulties, community members started grumbling about unkept promises. And, to the anger of slow-growth advocates, the only construction has been on 70 expensive, single-family homes.

Since Sammis failed to meet the deadline, the council must now decide whether to grant the developer an extension, tell him to redesign his project or tell him he can’t go forward.

Sammis maintains that he can still complete the project as first proposed and is asking for more time, according to Michael Holzmiller, city planning director.

“In the meetings I’ve had with Don Sammis, he has indicated that it has taken longer than he ever thought it would to get an educational entity,” said Holzmiller, who said he spoke to the developer in early January. “He still believes he can do that, but he also told me that no one has signed up or committed.

‘Want Him to Deliver’

“He’s talking to a number of different institutions,” said Holzmiller, who did not know the names of the specific schools Sammis is pursuing. “Over the years, we’ve heard so many different names we don’t care who he’s recruiting. We just want him to deliver.”

Robert Bruenig, a spokesman for the San Diego-based Sammis Properties, said: “We’re presenting the status of the project to the Planning Department. We’ve been discussing with them on an ongoing basis.”

Asked if the developer is making progress in recruiting an educational institution, Bruenig replied, “We’re not ready to go public with that information.”

A majority of the council members say they will not allow Sammis to proceed with the commercial elements of his original plans unless he can attract an academic institution.

But, whether development of the total 600 planned residential units can actually be halted is now in question and may evolve into a legal dispute, Holzmiller said. Recently Sammis submitted plans to begin work on all the residential units provided to him under the original proposal, Holzmiller said.

The Planning Commission is tentatively scheduled to review Sammis’ project this month. And whether he will receive an extension will be decided by the council, most likely in March.

Although council members are reluctant to say whether they will give Sammis more time, several have expressed their disappointment in what was first perceived as a “dream” project.

‘On the Hot Seat’

“He’s on the hot seat,” Mayor Bud Lewis said of Sammis. “Either he’s going to produce or go belly up. It was a beautiful dream, and so far that’s all it has been.”

Councilwoman Ann Kulchin had hopes that the project’s graduate program would complement the undergraduate courses that will be offered when California State University’s San Marcos campus opens in the early 1990s.

“Especially with San Marcos getting the new university, I thought Carlsbad would be an ideal place to have a graduate program,” Kulchin said.

Councilman Mark Pettine added: “I do not recall a project that received so much community support as this one. But I can tell you that support is dwindling rapidly. Very rapidly.”

Pettine, along with Lewis and Kulchin, served on the five-member council that unanimously approved the project in 1985.

With the benefit of hindsight, some critics say the council never should have given Sammis permission to build. But council members say the city was not irresponsible in approving the project.

“Sammis was offering an innovative plan that was exciting to the city and its residents,” Pettine said. “To the city’s credit, if the developer failed to follow his plans, we gave ourselves the legal opportunity to review the project.”

Series of Setbacks

But, about a year after his plans were approved, Sammis returned to the council to announce the first of several setbacks: He said he could not deliver a law school.

Without securing the project’s most important element, Sammis then asked the council to approve his plans to begin construction on 129 of the 600 residential units: 70 single-family homes and 59 condominiums. Sammis said he needed to build the residential units to obtain revenue to finance the rest of the project.

To reassure council members, who became skeptical about the developer’s intent to establish the educational theme, Sammis brought to a council meeting several representatives from educational institutions and letters from other officials stating their desire to come to the “educational park.”

“He brought these letters and paraded all these officials who said, ‘Look, we want to come here,’ ” Pettine said.

The Sammis presentation persuaded council members to exempt the developer from a Carlsbad building moratorium that had been approved as a stopgap while the city’s growth-management plan was being implemented.

Nearly 70 single-family homes have already been built, but construction on the 59 condominiums has not begun, Holzmiller said.

It remains unclear whether Sammis will be allowed to begin work on the remaining 471 residential units, said Holzmiller.

Legal Questions

“He acknowledges that he cannot go forward with any part of the educational complex, for example, or the restaurants or the offices that were to serve the educational institution,” Holzmiller said. “But it’s his belief that he can go ahead with the residential units. If the city pulls the rug out from underneath him, several legal questions may need to be answered.”

According to Holzmiller, Sammis argues that, as long as he complies with the city’s growth-management plan, which demands that construction of public facilities keep pace with development, he should be allowed to complete the project’s residential development.

Councilwoman Kulchin, however, disagrees.

“My understanding is that, after three years, if he failed to get an educational institution, the master plan is to be completely opened up,” Kulchin said.

Until the council decides on granting Sammis an extension, Kulchin said, “he’s not getting anything else. He has to come back before the Planning Commission and the City Council.”

Mayor Lewis, however, acknowledges that Sammis is entitled to build the remaining residential units as long as he conforms with growth-management standards.

Council members aren’t the only ones eager to take a hard look at the project.

“He promised us Harvard West,” said environmentalist Delores Welty, a Leucadia resident who lives across from the project site.

“He promised us a volleyball team. . . . I’m sure people were hoping to see Tom Selleck running around in Carlsbad,” she said. “Well, none of those things have been forthcoming.”