County Votes to Buy Parcel to Keep It From Development

Down to its last $1.2 million in state parkland preservation funds, the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday chose a 520-acre parcel of prime open space atop Volcan Mountain near Julian from among three valuable tracts that activists hoped to save from development or destruction.

The board agreed to offer $1 million for the key parcel of the 11,000-acre Rutherford Ranch in an attempt to keep it off the development market, expand the 228-acre Volcan Mountain Preserve and connect with Bureau of Land Management-owned wilderness to the east.

The tract is envisioned as the eastern end of the San Dieguito Regional River Valley Park, a 55-mile-long wildlife preserve and greenbelt that the county is attempting to assemble from Del Mar to Julian.

“We ought to maximize our effort to buy this piece of property,” said Supervisor John MacDonald, who represents North County. “It will add to the total open space of the community significantly.”

County Supervisor Susan Golding, who favored attempting to save all three parcels, called the Volcan Mountain tract “an incredible piece of property, the kind that comes to a public agency only once in many, many years.”

The funds represent the last of the $30 million that the county received under the 1988 California Wildlife, Coastal and Park Land Conservation Bond Act. Under the terms of that measure, $20 million was spent on acquisition of land in the San Dieguito and Tijuana River valleys, and $10 million was divided up to buy county conservation areas and urban canyons.

Strapped for cash to pay taxes and debts, Rutherford Ranch’s owner has offered the 520 acres to the county for $1.2 million, warning that if he has no purchase agreement by March 1, he will put all 11,000 acres up for sale to developers.

Even at its current zoning of one home per 20 acres, the mountain tracts, some commanding views of the ocean, would be worth much more, officials said. The area is home to mountain lions as well as forests and meadows with Engelmann oaks.

Bob Copper, director of county parks, said he did not know if the $1-million offer would be acceptable.

The supervisors also agreed to devote $200,000 to help federal agencies purchase the 714-acre Roberts Ranch, located within the Cleveland National Forest.

But it was unclear whether the funds would be sufficient to protect the land from sale for development. Owner Julie Dillon, who is negotiating with the federal government and the nonprofit Trust for Public Lands to sell the land, said that she needs $880,000 to pay off a development loan by June 1, long before the federal purchase funds would become available.

Dillon, whose plans for a controversial housing development on the land were recently rejected by the supervisors, has said that she may have to apply again for development rights if she cannot arrange the sale. Under current zoning, Dillon has a legal right to build a less dense project on the land.

Jan Stevens, vice president of the Back Country Land Trust, which is attempting to preserve the parcel, said that federal officials want the county to make a financial commitment toward preserving the land, which has been appraised at about $8 million.

The big loser in Tuesday’s 4-1 vote was 500 acres of Border Highlands property in the Tijuana River Valley, which officials said will be “strip-mined” for gravel and sand if it is not preserved.

The 500 acres on the U.S.-Mexico border, owned by the CALMAT sand and gravel company, are adjacent to the Tijuana River Valley Regional Park and the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Supervisor Brian Bilbray, who represents the area and was the lone dissenter in Tuesday’s vote, was the sole supporter of the purchase.