Farm-Worker Housing OKd : Government: San Marcos council approves spending of redevelopment funds for complex, despite protests from area residents.

The San Marcos City Council has given final approval to construction of a housing project for farm workers.

The council on Tuesday night voted, 4 to 1, to provide $500,000 in city redevelopment funds to the $4.2-million project--an apartment complex of two- to five-bedroom units for 38 low-income families of agricultural workers. Councilman F.H. (Corky) Smith cast the lone dissenting vote.

Concerns about how the project will affect crime, traffic and gang problems were voiced by residents in the San Marcos’ Richmar area.

The San Diego County Department of Housing and Community Development, which is sponsoring the housing project, rebutted neighborhood concerns, pointing out that the complex will have 24-hour security, strict rules on tenant conduct and screening guidelines to assure that apartment occupants have no criminal or drug-use records.

Michael McGuigan, project manager for the county’s Farm Worker Housing Project, said about 200 residents will occupy the 38 units. That is not enough of a population increase to cause traffic problems, he said.

Bob Paxton, who with his wife, Kelly, have led a neighborhood protest against the housing project, challenged the City Council Tuesday to put the proposed low-income project to a vote of San Marcos residents but received no response.

Kelly Paxton said the neighbors’ attempts to have the council’s approval overturned was derailed by a ruling from San Marcos City Atty. Dan Hentschke, who said the council action was an administrative matter that is not subject to referendum.

“It looks like we’ve come to the end of the line,” Paxton said Wednesday. “We looked into a recall, but most of the people gave up.”

Protest against the project paid off in one way, she said. The neighborhood--west of Twin Oaks Valley Road and north of Mission Avenue--will be assigned two more sheriff’s deputies on bicycle patrol.

“The city has ignored us for years,” Paxton said. “Now they are recognizing that we have problems.”