North County Growth Means Problems, Challenges : Transformation: How the region handles the demands and problems of growth in the next decade will have a major impact on the quality of life.

Once, in this very generation, North County was a vast openness surrounding remote communities so placid and bypassed that they seemed almost like private little universes.

Slowly at first, people began coming here to raise kids and animals in peace, to forsake the urban rush and congestion for a place where they could still hear sparrows, see infinite starry nights and afford homes with pastoral or ocean views.

Lucy Gross left San Diego in 1961 for a hamlet of roughly 2,000 people called San Marcos.

“We moved up so our kids could have horses and dogs. You never heard an airplane in San Marcos,” Gross said.

But the San Marcos she first knew reached a population of 33,835 last year, a 93.6% increase just since 1980. It was a clear sign, duplicated to varying degrees throughout North County, that paradise had been discovered.

Now, in the 1990s, the area once regarded as San Diego’s drowsy back country will push onward with its fast evolution into a dynamic bastion of housing, jobs, transportation and recreation. Here’s what regional planners, school officials and private consulting firms see happening in North County:

* North County’s 1989 population of 810,414 is expected to reach 1,046,901 by 2000, a 29.2% increase in little more than a decade.

* The number of kindergarten through high school students in North County will rise from its last official enrollment of 117,611 in 1988 to 196,089 in 2000, a jump of 67%. That’s far above the 46% increase expected in South County and the 40% hike seen for metropolitan San Diego.

* North County is expected to dominate countywide housing development during 1991-92 as 7,418 approved homes and attached units go on the market. An additional 17,240 dwellings are planned for North County between 1993-95.

* Forecasters predict an additional 550,000 jobs countywide by 2010, with the biggest share, 182,000 jobs, going to the North City area. The second largest share, 138,000, is destined for North County.

* Vehicle trips on Interstate 5 north of the intersection of Interstate 805 are expected to increase from the current 200,000 average daily trips to 380,000 trips in 2010. Yearly ridership on the Express Transit Route, serving the California 78 corridor between Oceanside and Escondido, went from 233,000 riders in 1985 to 486,000 in 1988. By 2000, there will be 1.8 million round trips a year.

In short, the next decade will see North County’s transformation from San Diego suburb to largely self-sufficient subregion, with its own new state university, cultural arts centers, mass transit systems, redeveloped downtowns, commercial centers and parks.

People will be able to enjoy plays and concerts, hold jobs and find fashionable shopping in their own communities. But at the same time they enjoy the conveniences of urbanization, they will face the plagues: classroom overcrowding, as school districts try to cope by switching to year-round schedules and launching construction; and continuing traffic congestion, despite a freeway expansion and two new commuter rail lines.

“What’s fueling the growth is the phenomenon we call ‘suburbs of suburbs,’ ” said Mark Baldassare, an author and a professor of social ecology at the University of California, Irvine.

Baldassare sees North County as a place with many small economic centers that have as much in common with southern Orange County as with San Diego. “What it is destined to become is another major high-tech center, in terms of employment base and an increasingly industrialized suburb,” he said.

In the long term, Baldassare predicts North County will evolve “into a self-contained region, ultimately becoming another Santa Clara County or Orange County.”

As for its relationship with San Diego, Baldassare believes that eventually, North County will more forcefully seek its share of county resources and “become isolated from the issues and problems of the big city.”

Whatever North County’s future holds for commerce and industry, it will remain fundamentally residential in nature.

“North County has successfully assumed the mantle of a high-quality neighborhood environment,” said Ken Lounsbery, former city manager of Escondido and now vice president of the Lusardi Construction Co., based in San Marcos.

He hastened to add, though, that “if growth were to become unchecked, we could ruin our pockets of open space, the canyons, the slopes, the wetlands, the beaches. It would be shameful.”

Another concern is that rising housing prices in North County--which now meet and often exceed those elsewhere in the county--will keep many aspiring residents out.

“If the price to live here continues to escalate, it’s going to become the center for the rich and famous, and the rest of us will have to find somewhere else to go,” Lounsbery said.

That North County’s coming of age will not be without strain and struggle is obvious to Gross.

“We’re losing the rural atmosphere, and, educationally, we’re getting schools that are large and difficult to manage,” said Gross, who serves on the San Marcos Unified School District board and, ironically, is trying to solve the problems she innocently helped create simply by coming to live here.

There are so many students that the board is considering a plan to reorganize grade levels. Yet Gross, who said she gets “real distraught” over the city’s changing profile, still manages to be circumspect about growth. “You have to be pragmatic. What attracted us here is attracting others.”

That certainly has been so for the past 10 years. In the 1960s, there was a steady trickle of growth, followed by a flow in the ‘70s and a torrent in the ‘80s.

Understandably, the larger cities with land have grown the fastest. During the ‘80s, San Marcos grew by 93.6%; Carlsbad swelled by 74.8%; Oceanside’s population went up 53.3%; and Escondido edged slightly ahead with 53.8%. During the next decade, Escondido is expected to top Oceanside as the biggest North County city.

Meanwhile, the smaller coastal enclaves with limited land for development showed slight gains. In Del Mar, the population increased only 2.3% during the ‘80s.

Despite its growth, North County remains less expensive and more expansive than neighboring Orange and Los Angeles counties, and, as a result, will continue to entice affluent refugees from the north, as well as families elsewhere in the county who are ready to trade up.

Although a soft real estate market has caused overall prices to drop, North County housing prices have caught up with other areas.

“North County used to be the affordable part of the county,” said Peter Reeb, vice president of The Meyers Group, which specializes in real estate research. “Oceanside and Vista were cheaper. Over the past two years, prices have increased significantly in those areas. They’re on a par with the rest of the county.”

In the last quarter of 1989, the median base price in San Diego County was $239,900 for a detached home and $143,990 for an attached unit, according to The Meyers Group.

In coastal North County, the median base price for a detached home was $259,900, compared to $251,990 in San Diego and $214,990 in inland North County.

Reeb predicts North County prices will become “increasingly out of reach for most people,” especially first-time home buyers.

Such comments bode the inevitable continuation through the ‘90s of the growth war in North County, where effective growth-control movements have sprung up in Oceanside, Carlsbad and Escondido.

Reeb blames growth limitations for exclusivity in the housing market, as developers build fewer units on larger lots, driving prices beyond what he says much of the market can afford.

His argument is dismissed by slow-growth advocates, including Oceanside City Councilwoman Melba Bishop, who insist development controls are not responsible for the trend toward upper-end housing in North County.

Rather, she argues, pro-development city councils have simply let builders do what they want instead of requiring a broad range of housing stock.

“We had lots of years when there weren’t growth controls, and they didn’t build a housing mix,” she said.

Bishop envisions no letup of development pressure and expects more vocal opposition from North County residents who see the hills crowded with new homes and the strain on city services, such as police and fire protection.

“There’s a sense of urgency among the people. They’re tired of it,” she said.

Meanwhile, huge residential developments waiting in the wings demonstrate the appetite for large-scale housing in North County. In Carlsbad, a 2,800-unit community with a resort hotel, sports complex and golf course is taking shape on 1,000 acres near El Camino Real and La Costa Avenue.

Farther inland, what would be Escondido’s largest development ever is proposed for the 3,200-acre Daley Ranch. If approved, it could one day be home to as many as 13,000 people.

Farther south in North County, a massive residential-commercial-

industrial development is slowly appearing. Sabre Springs, on 1,540 acres east of I-15, near Rancho Penasquitos, already has 721 new units and should harbor 5,290 dwellings by the late 1990s.

These projects and scores of smaller ones are adding up to a demand for jobs, new schools, better transportation and cultural centers. As Oceanside Councilwoman Bishop said of newcomers, “they’re going to expect a quality of life to come with the high price tag on that home.”

When it comes to employment, North County residents have traditionally commuted to San Diego and returned at night to their semirural abodes amid the crickets. That commuter work force has caused traffic congestion and air pollution.

However, the distance between houses and jobs is expected to shrink this decade.

“Jobs will go where the residential population is going, and that will reduce traffic congestion and limit traffic time to work . . . persons living in North County should be able to find jobs in North County,” said Kim Buttemer, associate vice president of Economic Development Corp.

The relatively cheaper and more plentiful land in North County is attracting manufacturing, research and development firms that recognize the higher cost of doing business in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“They’re looking to North County as an alternative,” Buttemer said. “They say they can still serve the California market, but reduce their costs and have access to an excellent labor base.”

While some observers disagree, Buttemer maintains that North County has enough variety in housing prices for industry to take notice.

“As long as North County continues to grow, the labor supply will continue to expand, and that’s attractive to these companies,” she said.

The San Diego Assn. of Governments (SANDAG) predicts the number of new jobs will keep pace with the population increase in the inland north, each growing 2.8% a year. In the north coastal area, new jobs are expected to surpass population growth by a rate of 2.5% to 2.1%.

Among the players in the grand employment scheme is the South Poway Industrial Park, an $80-million project expected to create 21,500 jobs by the time it is finished in 1995.

Naturally, more housing and jobs will produce liabilities as well as opportunities. Many of North County’s school districts are already overcrowded and struggling to make room.

While some San Diego schools have switched to year-round schedules, it has taken longer for North County to face the same option. Vista Unified School District and Encinitas elementary schools have already gone to year-round schools. Oceanside and Fallbrook districts are pondering the same move.

Meanwhile, Vista, Carlsbad and Encinitas voters will be asked this year to approve bonds for new schools or rehabilitation of older facilities.

But the specter of year-round schools is the most vivid illustration of growth’s disruption of families.

“The problem has been the change in life style,” said Charless Ballinger, coordinator of year-round education for the county Office of Education.

San Diego County has the highest percentage of students on year-round schedules in the country, Ballinger said.

To ease traffic congestion, 17 miles of California 78 between Oceanside and Escondido will be widened from four to six lanes by late 1993, and a commuter rail line will follow two years later. Another commuter rail route between Oceanside and San Diego is scheduled to begin service in 1993.

California 78 is now the only east-west thoroughfare in North County, but SANDAG’s regional transportation plan envisions another highway, Route 56, to link I-5 and I-15. By 2010, the nine-mile route is expected to carry up to 110,000 vehicles a day.

Growth analyst Sanford Goodkin believes that completion of an infrastructure such as transportation is the sign of a maturing region, and of North County he says, “we’re in a wonderful phase of implementing transportation.”

The area’s growth has also brought it the educational plus of its own university. Ground breaking took place in February for California State University, San Marcos, which expects 3,800 students when the first phase opens in late 1992.

The university strikes Goodkin as one of the best things that ever happened to North County.

He terms the university an “anchor” and predicted it will be “a classic changer of the society it influences.” He expects the university to infuse the area with intelligentsia and spark a demand for more retail and housing.

North County’s growth odyssey has been a mixed blessing for agriculture, which steadily lost to bulldozers during the ‘60s and ‘70s, but seems to have rebounded.

“It’s hard to farm, hard to plow and hard to spray when you’re next to neighbors,” said Kathleen Thuner, county agriculture commissioner. But for the most part, growers have adapted by producing higher yields on less land and planting higher-value crops such as herbs, specialty lettuce and baby turnips.

“Some of our growers cater to the restaurant trade rather than the produce markets,” Thuner said, adding that despite the growth spurt, San Diego County has the second highest number of farms in the state, behind Fresno County.

In addition to growing as a place to live, work and learn, North County is the center of ambitious plans for leisure activities.

Among the commercial highlights, a nine-square-block project patterned after Sea Port Village in San Diego is planned as part of downtown Oceanside’s rejuvenation. At I-5 and California 78, the 800,000-square-foot Zocola project of stores, offices and a hotel is being discussed. A few miles south, Carlsbad Promenade, an 800,000-square-foot regional shopping mall, is proposed at I-5 and Cannon Road.

A plethora of smaller parks is planned in North County, but perhaps the boldest park proposal is the San Dieguito River Valley Regional Park, stretching 43 miles between Del Mar and Julian. Another key proposed open space is the 450-acre Macario Canyon Regional Park by the Agua Hedionda Lagoon in Carlsbad.

While downtown San Diego is expected to remain the county’s mecca for the arts, North County is slowly achieving its own sophistication.

Escondido and Poway are building performing arts centers, while Vista and Oceanside are considering similar projects. And a citizen’s group has just recommended that a cultural center be built to serve both Encinitas and Solana Beach.

Lounsbery, the former city manager of Escondido, said “the last thing to mature is the arts community” and as such, North County hasn’t quite come of age.

But he said it has come far since the old days of being cast in San Diego’s shadow. “If there was an inferiority complex, it’s long since been dispelled,” he said.

GROWING CITIES

Escondido’s fast growth will push it past Oceanside in population during the next 10 years and make it the largest city in North County, population forecasters predict. However, its growth is expected to pall next to that of San Marcos, which is predicted to more than double its population from 1988 to the year 2000. Meanwhile, tiny Del Mar will have the smallest growth rate and remain the area’s smallest city throughout the decade.

Forecast Forecast Year of 1988 1995 2000 City Incorporation Population Population Population Carlsbad 1952 58,888 78,500 90,300 Del Mar 1959 5,120 5,200 5,300 Encinitas 1986 51,631 56,100 58,600 Escondido 1888 93,305 134,200 147,600 Oceanside 1888 107,882 130,700 144,100 Poway 1980 41,307 44,600 46,300 San Marcos 1963 26,300 54,100 62,500 Solana Beach 1986 14,480 15,700 16,000 Vista 1963 56,402 86,100 90,100

Growth, City 1988-2000 Carlsbad 53% Del Mar 4% Encinitas 13% Escondido 58% Oceanside 34% Poway 12% San Marcos 138% Solana Beach 10% Vista 60%

Source: San Diego Assn. of Governments Regional Growth Forecast, April 1989

CATCHING UP

Housing prices in North County have caught up with the rest of the county and, in the coastal area, surpassed them.

In thousands:

Median price Median price single-family attached housing housing Coastal North $259,900 $218,000 Inland North $214,990 $139,990 Central County $251,990 $139,990 East County $258,900 $134,990 Total County $239,900 $143,990

Source: The Meyers Group, figures from last quarter of 1989

SHRINKING SPACE

Much of the developable land in North County will indeed be developed by the year 2010, planners predict. In fact, the coastal area of North County is expected to lose more than half its open land that can be developed.

Coastal North County Developable acres 1986-2010: 54.4% change

Inland North County Developable acres 1986-2010: 32.8% change