VALLEY CENTER – A plan that could allow 3,000-plus additional homes in Valley Center was kicked back for a do-over yesterday after residents complained that it would benefit a donor to county Supervisor Bill Horn.
The Board of Supervisors agreed that the update didn't go through proper channels and would be stripped – at least for now – from the county's proposed general plan, a guide for future growth.
About 150 Valley Center residents, including many who rode a bus to downtown San Diego, vehemently objected to the update at the daylong hearing. It would have allowed a new road and possibly would have added as many as 10,000 new residents to the community of 17,000.
While they claimed victory, residents – and Supervisor Dianne Jacob – never got a straight answer to the most obvious question: If it didn't go through proper channels, how did the update end up on a map?
The best explanation appears to be that there was a misunderstanding two years ago. Supervisors directed county planners to examine the possibility of building a two-mile road connecting West Lilac Road to Old Highway 395 and how to get a developer to pay for it. They did, but then created a plan with greater density and placed it on proposed planning maps.
Such plans are typically approved by local planning groups and supervisors, but that never happened.
“It just didn't go through due process. It just popped up,” said Oliver Smith, chairman of the Valley Center Planning Group. He began to raise questions in May after he noticed the plans allowed for as many as 10,000 more residents.
Since then, the community has been buzzing over the would-be developers' ties to Horn. Accretive Capital Partners started buying hundreds of acres in the area in 2006.
The company donated $5,000 to Horn's campaign shortly before the June 2006 primary to help pay for last-minute fliers. Horn narrowly won the race.
Horn didn't back down yesterday, despite constant criticism throughout the day.
“You know, I'm a big boy. I ran for this seat and I understand getting the criticism. At the same time, I don't appreciate my character being impugned,” he said.
Horn focused on the need for the new road, 3A, to give Valley Center an additional evacuation route in case of wildfires. The proposed road had been on planning maps as far back as 1968 before it was taken off in 2000, he said.
Horn requested that the road be included in the new general plan update in 2005 and, in August 2006, supervisors asked staff members to examine ways to pay for it.
Horn said he had only the best interests of Valley Center, where he lives on a ranch several miles from the proposed road, in mind.
“I don't want to destroy my community,” he said.
Critics had accused Horn of slipping the road into planning documents and using fear – the threat of fire – to get his way.
Jon Vick, a medical consultant who lives in Valley Center, said he had doubts about the road's use as an evacuation route.
“Something smells really funny here,” he said. “The 3A road is not a critical fire road. It is a trumped-up excuse to build 3,000 new houses and enrich a developer.”
In the end, Jacob led a charge to strip the Valley Center update from the general plan and have it come back as a separate item to the supervisors. It passed 4-0, with Ron Roberts absent. Horn argued successfully to keep the road – now without specific ties to development – on planning maps.
Craig Gustafson: (619) 293-1399; craig.gustafson@uniontrib.com
