Crossing Upgrade Plan Gets Homeowners’ OK

The Crestline Homeowners Assn. has agreed to let the city construct retaining walls on its property when the Moulton-Alicia Parkway intersection is widened, but in exchange the city must build four extra accent walls at the community’s entrances.

The City Council last week approved the arrangement with the Crestline community, located on the southeast side of the busy intersection.

The additional walls will cost about $43,000, which the county is expected to reimburse the city as part of the $1.6 million in improvements planned for the intersection. Acquiring the right-of-way from the homeowners association without an exchange was expected to cost roughly $100,000, double the cost of the accent walls.

The improvements include double left-turn lanes in all directions, and exclusive right-turn lanes in all directions but one. The right turn from northbound Moulton Parkway to eastbound Alicia Parkway will be a free turn in which drivers do not have to stop.

The Crestline homeowners also requested a three-foot landscape planter between the seven-foot sidewalk and the retaining walls, another detail approved by the council.

The council decided all the intersection’s retaining walls will be made of concrete and covered with grayish-white cobblestones. The same walls probably will be built at other Moulton intersections during future widenings.

A request by the neighboring Lomas Laguna Homeowners Assn. to install earth retaining walls that would blend in with the current landscaping was denied. Council members cited the need for consistency as well as irrigation problems of so-called “green” walls as the reasons for choosing concrete.