Scripps, Miramar Ban Seeks to Phase In Homes

Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt, moving to address the overflow traffic and crowded schools that are the pre-eminent concern of many District 5 residents, won San Diego City Council support Tuesday to consider a building moratorium that would cover all of Scripps Ranch and Miramar Ranch North.

In a unanimous vote, the council directed city staff members to prepare an ordinance that would allow a moratorium, which theoretically could stop construction of much of the 3,360-home Miramar Ranch North project, 376 homes in the so-called “county island” that is now part of Scripps Ranch and other small Scripps Ranch developments. The ordinance is due back to the council in two weeks.

“I am dead serious when I talk about forcing developers in the Miramar Ranch North and Scripps Miramar Ranch planning areas to sit down and work as a team to come to some kind of resolution about the facilities and some kind of phasing plan” for development, Bernhardt said.

Although the council agreed to consider the notion, Bernhardt’s action attracted no words of support among her colleagues and may amount to little more than saber rattling, given doubts expressed by some of them about a blanket moratorium. Council members Judy McCarty and Ron Roberts expressed concerns about the approach.

Bernhardt handily defeated two-term incumbent Councilman Ed Struiksma last November after running a campaign that emphasized controlling growth along the Interstate 15 corridor and providing residents there the parks, schools and roads many say are lacking.

Bernhardt’s proposal grew from a resolution approved Jan. 2 by the Scripps Miramar Ranch Planning Group, demanding that the city stop issuing building permits for two residential projects in the “county island” because residents of the 676 new homes soon to be built there would tax the area’s overburdened roads, schools and water supply.

The council last April rescinded a development agreement for the adjacent Miramar Ranch North project, whose developers would have provided some of those facilities as well as a crucial section of the South Poway Parkway (Alternate 8A) that is slated to route as many as 25,000 cars daily from Poway to I-15.

With the project in limbo, the council should use its police powers to halt the county island developments being planned by the Donald L. Bren Co. and Brennan Katkov Development Corp., the planning group contends.

Also, the two developers are completing the widening and realigning of now-closed Pomerado Road, so Poway will begin pressuring the City Council to rescind its commitment to keep the road closed until South Poway Parkway is built, said Jon Clark, chairman of the planning group’s county island subcommittee.

But attorney Paul Peterson, representing the two developers, said they already have been issued 488 of the planned 676 development permits and cannot legally be stopped from building the homes. He said, however, that the developers might agree not to build all the homes this year.

Assistant City Manager Jack McGrory maintained that roads and water supply for the area are adequate. The city has no control over provision of schools.

Bernhardt agreed that the two developments cannot be halted, but proposed the building ban on an additional 376 homes in the county island, Miramar Ranch North and in-fill development in Scripps Ranch.