Residents Protest Becoming Part of San Marcos : Expansion: Landowners favor coming under city’s wing, but homeowners renew objections to the proposal.

Although the property owners wanted to be included within the future city limits of San Marcos and city councilmen thought they had already approved the increase, approval of expanding San Marcos’ controversial sphere of influence proposal brought heated opposition Tuesday night.

About 250 acres of unincorporated land on the fringes of the city were added by unanimous vote to the 6,012 acres the city plans to annex in future years. The new properties were added at the request of the landowners, most of whom are planning residential and commercial development of the land.

However, residents in the neighborhoods included in the 10-square-mile sphere renewed the protests they voiced loud and long at previous hearings, and added a few new charges.

Elsie Mohler, an Eden Valley resident, charged the city council with dishonesty when they reinstated 221 acres of an area along the southeast San Marcos boundaries that had been dropped from the previous sphere.

“You told those people that they were out and that they did not have to come back to any more meetings to protect themselves,” Mohler said. “That’s dishonesty.”

She and other opponents of the city-initiated sphere of influence proposal asked that additional public hearings be scheduled to allow property owners affected by the 250-acre addition to have their say. Jim Simmons of Consultants Collaborative made the request for inclusion on behalf of several dozen property owners who want to be in the city’s sphere of influence, a prelude to annexation of the unincorporated areas to the city.

The decision came quickly, after short debate over the proper procedures, in sharp contrast to two earlier sessions when residents of a 9,000-acre area around the city opposed what they called the city’s “land grab.”

Simmons said that the requests of the property owners of the 261-acre area had been presented to both the council and planning commission but the record is not clear on whether the council’s action on expanding the city’s sphere of influence included the new properties.

“There’s no problem,” Simmons said. “All of this (261-acre) property is within the area of the EIR (environmental impact report) study.”

Local Agency Formation Commission staff said, however, that the addition of new areas to the original sphere of influence area could cause problems when the matter is sent to LAFCO. The commission is expected to hold hearings on the sphere of influence proposal in mid-May.

In earlier hearings on the issue, irate property owners from the unincorporated areas ringing San Marcos demanded to be deleted from the sphere study and threatened to defeat any future attempt by the city to annex their neighborhoods.

About 3,000 acres of land, mostly along Gopher Canyon Road to the far north of the city was deleted from the sphere of influence proposal after protests from property owners that their interests and allegiances lay with the unincorporated town of Bonsall to the west.

The areas included in Simmons’ request for inclusion are:

* A 22l-acre parcel to the southwest of California 78 and west of Country Club Drive which is within the sphere of influence of Escondido but is contiguous to the San Marcos city boundaries. The properties originally were included in the San Marcos sphere expansion request and later dropped.

* A 20-acre tract under single ownership to the south of San Marcos northeast of Elfin Forest Road.

* A 20-acre parcel on the western city boundary that is part of an already-approved San Marcos Highlands development in the hills near Palomar College campus was dropped from consideration after Jerry Backoff, San Marcos planning director, said that the small parcel had not been included in environmental studies required before a property can be included in a city sphere of influence.

Simmons said that residents and property owners who favored future annexation to the city of San Marcos probably remained silent during the stormy hearings in February and early March because of the large number of opponents and the emotional intensity of the opposition by residents in the Twin Oaks Valley, Elfin Forest and Bonsall areas.