Board OKs Minimum Lot Sizes Near Forest : Land-Use: Compromise between positions of developers and environmentalist requires property lots near Cleveland National Forest to be at least 20 acres.

Culminating a longstanding debate on how to protect rangeland around the Cleveland National Forest in the face of suburban sprawl, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has voted to establish minimum residential lot sizes of 20 acres in the East County backcountry along California 79, north of Interstate 8.

The land-use decision struck a middle ground between private developers and environmentalists, and left each side less than elated over the compromise.

Much of the property affected by the decision is now zoned for residential lots as small as 4 acres, and some property owners hoped those sizes would be maintained so they could develop long-held family properties as country estate lots.

But wildlife lobbyists, including the U.S. Forest Service itself, had hoped for minimum lot sizes of 40 to 80 acres, if not larger, so natural habitats could be protected from residential development.

The board voted, 3 to 2, for the compromise after a three-hour debate Wednesday. The plan will come up for a final vote Oct. 30 when the board will consider updating the entire general plan for the so-called Central Mountain Region of the county, which includes the communities of Descanso, Laguna, Pine Valley and Lake Cuyamaca.

Supervisors John MacDonald and Susan Golding each voted against 20-acre lot sizes. MacDonald supported a 40-acre minimum lot size as was recommended by the county’s Planning Commission, and Golding wanted to delay a final decision for a year or two for more study and, in the meantime, limit residential development to minimum 80-acre lots.

“This is a special area, and it needs to be treated specially. It’s not like we’re making land-use decisions in the city of San Diego,” Golding said. “We have an opportunity to do something really right in a biologically diverse area of the county, and it needed more study.”

But Supervisors George Bailey (in whose district the forest is situated), Brian Bilbray and Leon Williams voted to adopt the new zoning guidelines in the 210,000-acre planning area.

Within that region, about 57% is U.S. Forest Service land, 12% is in the Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, 10% is in agricultural preserves and 5% is Indian reservation--leaving just 16% of the area privately owned and affected by the zoning decision.

J. Michael McDade, an attorney representing owners of properties ranging from 60 acres to 4,000, criticized the board decision as a “blanket action without regard to individual property characteristics.”

“The only fair way to make a decision is to analyze each of the properties and make a decision based on the characteristics of each. And that’s exactly what the citizens planning (advisory) group did, but the board threw all that work down the toilet.

“The board was trying to apply a simplistic formula to a very complex and diverse area of the county,” he complained.

McDade argued that even large lot sizes wouldn’t necessarily guarantee the protection of wildlife environment. “I’ve seen nothing that indicates that lot size is a great determinant in how hostile the environment is to wildlife,” he said. “You could own 1,000 acres, put a fence around it and run a four-wheel-drive off-road vehicle over it to your heart’s content until there’s not a blade of grass left standing. Zoning, per se, is no protection to the wildlife.”

Bilbray said he didn’t see any need for across-the-board, 80-acre minimum size lots in the backcountry because other county land-use restrictions already in place will still restrict wholesale residential development.

“There are so many other regulations in place, including our sensitive-lands ordinance, that zoning itself shouldn’t really be the issue,” Bilbray said.

Still, he said, he favored the 20-acre lot sizes because “that’s a philosophical statement of how the land should be used. I don’t think we should have lots as small as 4 or 8 acres” on property adjoining a national forest.

Danny Johnson, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service, which sought 40-acre lot sizes, said his agency had “mixed reactions” to the board’s decision.

“We’re pleased that the board has considered it to the extent that they adopted 20-acre lot sizes, but we would have liked to see 40-acre lots. We want large minimum lot sizes. It’s necessary to allow for the protection of habitats that are critical for the wildlife and plant resources of the region, such as wetland mountain meadows and the associated oak woodlands that are a very limited resource in San Diego County.”

Duncan McFetridge, founder of Save Our Forests and Ranchlands, said he would have preferred 80-acre lot sizes but nonetheless applauded the supervisors’ decision “as movement in that direction.”

“We need to take an entirely new direction in resource conservation,” he said. “Until now, we haven’t had a planning philosophy to protect the important resources that we have here in San Diego. At least we’ve made a shift.”