Parts of Valley Center Plan OKd : Growth: Two country-town neighborhoods and greater housing density than community leaders wanted are in the plan approved by county supervisors.

Major components of a community plan governing the growth of Valley Center were adopted Monday by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, which took what was billed as a growth/no-growth compromise and added greater housing density than community leaders wanted.

In its single most critical ruling, the board agreed in concept with the community’s advisory planning board to establish two country-town neighborhoods in Valley Center--a southern village, where Valley Center Road intersects with Woods Valley Road, and a northern district, at Valley Center Road and Cole Grade Road.

But, in defining those districts, Supervisor John MacDonald, whose district includes the rural farming community northeast of Escondido, preserved several elements of an earlier, growth-oriented 1984 community plan that called for residential density of up to 7.3 units per acre along parts of Valley Center Road.

The country-town concept proposed by the community planning advisory board would have allowed no more than two homes per acre at its most dense.

“This is leading to the urbanization of Valley Center,” groused Keven Mahan, chairman of the planning board. “We brought a plan to the supervisors that reflected a compromise between the two (factions) in the community, and the board further compromised it. The board made us bargain with ourselves. I felt like I was dealing with a used car salesman.”

The board also adopted a policy that calls for the installation of sewers to the central part of Valley Center--a 3,000-acre area where a building moratorium has been in effect since 1980 because of failing septic tank systems.

County officials say the sewers are still at least three years away from serving Valley Center.

Supervisor Susan Golding also tried to calm the fears of sewer opponents that the system signals runaway residential growth.

“Residential densities should be based on whether it makes sense, not just whether sewers are available,” she said. “Sewers are a public-health issue, not a land-use issue.”

The question of whether Valley Center Road will become the spine of a singular town center stretching from Woods Valley Road to Cole Grade Road had concerned some residents, who feared it would lead to one long commercial strip.

But Supervisor Brian Bilbray, who some had feared endorsed such a plan, made it clear Monday that he wanted nothing to do with high-density residential and commercial uses from one end of Valley Center to the other, because of a winding curve along the mid-section of the highway and a steep hillside leading down to it from one side that make development impractical.

Bilbray did win a concession from MacDonald, however, to include both sides of the intersection of Lilac Road at Valley Center Road in the southern country town. The actual residential densities to be applied on those parcels remained unresolved by the board, however.

Among other issues still to be tackled by the board is the amount, if any, of low- and moderate-income housing to be provided by Valley Center, how it can be required through land-use conditions, and whether its current efforts to provide farm-labor housing will meet state requirements.

Bilbray complained at one point in the discussion that “it looks like there’s a conscious effort to eliminate even the possibility” of low- and moderate-income housing. Supervisor George Bailey countered, “It must be recognized, there’s no area in San Diego County, with today’s land prices, that lends itself easily to low-income housing.”