Developer Stops Bulldozing Hill at Lake Miramar

A developer Friday halted the bulldozing of a hill north of Lake Miramar, a day after he began an unexpected attempt to prepare the picturesque terrain for construction, that had prompted a citizen protest and an unsuccessful effort by city officials to stop him.

Corky McMillin, president of McMillin Development, and District 5 Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt announced Friday morning that McMillin had voluntarily agreed to cease scraping vegetation off the hillside for at least a week to allow further negotiations over the fate of McMillin’s huge Miramar Ranch North project.

But, even as the two spoke, the gulf between McMillin and citizen activists who oppose construction of even a single home on the hills above the lake was apparent. Surrounded by a knot of hostile protesters who occasionally heckled him while he tried to answer reporters’ questions at a news conference at the lake, McMillin said he must build homes on the hills north of the lake to make his project economically viable.

“I am eager to finish this project,” McMillin told reporters. “I am eager to build Route 8A,” the badly needed east-west link between Poway and I-15 that would run through the project. “I am eager to build the schools and the parks. And I am eager to build the houses to support that.”

The activists oppose construction of the homes and a four-lane road on the hills north of the lake, which they claim is one of the last unspoiled lake areas in the city. They also fear that runoff from lawn fertilizer will foul the lake, which is a city reservoir.

Bernhardt, elected in November with heavy support from the Save Miramar Lake Committee and other Scripps Ranch-area citizens eager to slow development along the I-15 corridor, said in an interview later that “I am not going to let him build on that ‘viewshed.’ ”

“That project is worth a fortune,” she added. “He doesn’t need to build in the viewshed to make a hefty profit.”

The 1,200-acre project, a joint venture between McMillin and BCE Development, which owns the land, has been the source of acrimony and a symbol for the slow-growth movement since the Save Miramar Lake Committee faced off a year ago against BCE and former District 5 Councilman Ed Struiksma, a longtime backer of the project.

The group collected enough signatures on petitions to force a citywide referendum on rescinding BCE’s “development agreement,” a guaranteed contract that would have allowed the developer to fully build the project in return for early construction of roads, schools, parks, a library and fire stations that McMillin says will cost $65 million. The public facilities include Alternate 8A and the Mercy Road interchange at I-15.

The San Diego City Council rescinded the agreement rather than hold the referendum, stalling construction. The guarantee to build is considered critical to McMillin’s ability to attract loans for the project.

A task force established to work out a compromise stalemated when the developers and slow-growth activists could not agree.

On Tuesday, Bernhardt will ask the San Diego City Council to impose a moratorium on the entire 1,200-acre development north of Scripps Ranch, a building ban that would prevent construction of more than 400 homes on the hills above the lake, and about 2,500 more planned for the rest of the project.

Bernhardt conceded that a moratorium cannot halt development of the westernmost hill that McMillin began to scrape Thursday, slated to house a 53-acre industrial park for which McMillin has the needed permits to begin construction. But she said she is seeking to halt work there based on her belief that McMillin lacks the proper permit to remove the dirt.

She also said she will be seeking rescission of McMillin’s exemptions from city ordinances that protect hillsides.

At Bernhardt’s request, city staffers spent Thursday and Friday attempting to find a legal reason to halt the bulldozing, which denuded about 15 acres around the crest of the hillside, but came up empty, said Deputy City Manager Severo Esquivel.

“At this point, the lawyers don’t give us much hope with anything we come up with,” Esquivel said Friday afternoon.

McMillin officials said Friday that, after delaying grading for the industrial park for months, they decided to begin bulldozing Thursday morning because of an unexpected opportunity to sell the dirt to the developer of the adjacent Scripps Midlands project.

William Hoover, vice president for Scripps Midlands developer Brehm Communities, confirmed that the contractor on his 404-unit development north of the industrial park found himself unexpectedly short of fill.

McMillin officials said they warned Bernhardt and other City Council members Tuesday that they would begin bulldozing Thursday. But area residents who found the bulldozers at work Thursday morning claimed that McMillin had violated an informal agreement not to bulldoze the hills until a solution was worked out.

They were out protesting Friday morning, but Bernhardt had worked out the informal agreement with McMillin late Thursday night.