Urban Reserve Land Opened to Luxury Homes : Land use: Action by a divided City Council is criticized as violating the spirit of a 1985 initiative.

The San Diego City Council on Monday cleared the way for construction of luxury homes in the city’s northern fringe, despite complaints that it was violating the spirit of a 1985 initiative by prematurely opening up the city’s last frontier for growth.

Billing its action as a trade-off for gaining thousands of acres of parks and open space, the council voted, 5 to 4, for a plan that would permit developments with one home per 4 acres in the city’s so-called urban reserve, a 12,000-acre swath of vacant land stretching between Rancho Bernardo and North City West.

Under the council’s decision, developers will be required to contribute open space to the city in exchange for the right to build on some of their property, as well as provide affordable low-income housing in the area. The feasibility of blending luxury 4-acre homes with low-income units, however, poses some practical problems, most of which were left unaddressed by the council.

Supporters argued that the measure promotes growth management by guaranteeing low-density development, but opponents decried it as an elitist approach that will largely limit the city’s northern tier to million-dollar estates. Moreover, critics charged that Monday’s action violates Proposition A, a 1985 voter-passed ballot measure requiring public approval before most “urban-level” development can occur in the reserve.

“This undermines the spirit and the intent of Proposition A by opening it up to growth . . . without a vote of the people,” Councilman John Hartley said. “For me, it’s a sellout, a gutting” of the initiative.

Disputing that interpretation, Mayor Maureen O’Connor and other supporters contended that Monday’s vote permits no more development than could already occur, and will subject such proposals to more rigorous review and provide additional benefits to the city in the form of open space and affordable housing.

At the time of the 1985 vote on Proposition A, a longstanding, though little known, city policy permitted development at densities of up to one unit per four acres. Proposition A’s advocates, who had assumed that it would require voters’ approval of any project seeking to build more than one home per 10 acres, have criticized that city policy as a loophole that undermines the initiative’s intent.

Regardless, because developers already have the right to go before the council with one-home-per-4-acres projects, the council members who supported Monday’s proposal argued that it simply reaffirms existing policy while giving the city more leverage to secure open space and affordable housing from developers.

“This is an opportunity to close out this area to high density,” said Councilman Bruce Henderson, noting that the measure, proposed by Councilman Wes Pratt, would limit development in the urban reserve to no more than 3,000 units.

Councilman Ron Roberts and Councilwoman Judy McCarty joined Pratt, O’Connor and Henderson in supporting the proposal. Council members Abbe Wolfsheimer, Linda Bernhardt, Bob Filner and Hartley opposed it.

After the vote, Sierra Club spokesman Linda Michael said that opponents “will consider all our options”--including the possibility of another referendum or a lawsuit--in an effort to overturn the council’s action. Throughout the council’s debate, which began last summer, opponents had encouraged the council to adopt a comprehensive plan for growth in the urban reserve before taking steps that could permit development to occur on a piecemeal, case-by-case basis.

“This is an example of planning at its worst,” Michael said. “In the absence of a cohesive plan . . . the council’s going to be putting out little brush fires over the next few years.”

One potential major “brush fire” concerns a plan by Potomac Investment Associates, which owns about 4,600 acres west of Rancho Bernardo, to build about 1,000 luxury homes and two 18-hole golf courses designed to serve as a permanent home for the Professional Golf Assn.’s annual tournament in San Diego, the Shearson Lehman Hutton Open. Without the new courses, supporters have warned that the city could lose the PGA tournament, now held at the Torrey Pines Golf Course.

Under questioning from Filner, Potomac President Lance Burris acknowledged that those homes could range from $500,000 to $1 million--a concession that Filner used to press the argument that the council’s plan would make it all but impossible for average-income families to live in the approximately 20-square-mile area covered by the urban reserve.

“What the city does not need in 20 square miles is housing costing a minimum of $1 million,” Filner said. “The issue is planning versus no planning and whether to provide a comprehensive range of housing versus housing only for the super rich.”

In exchange for the right to build the estate homes, however, Potomac or other developers would have to provide low-income housing through one of several formulas: setting aside 20% of the units for that purpose, which in turn could qualify the builder for a 25% overall density bonus, or giving the city land of a comparable value to allow it to build the housing itself.

To be eligible, a family of four’s income could not exceed $25,000--65% of the median income figure of $38,000, according to city housing officials. Although the council voted unanimously that any development in the urban reserve should include low-income units, some members expressed doubts about the feasibility of accomplishing that goal side-by-side with seven-figure estates.

Rather than answering that question themselves, however, several council members said simply that developers will have to display “creativity” in addressing it.