North County Developer Promises Smart Growth by Creating more Sprawl
Posted By Sam Ollinger on December 8, 2009
Our friends up in San Diego’s north county’s coastal region recently wrote about the Merriam Mountain project - a new housing development that is redefining what “smart growth” means.
The developers have rights to build 345 houses. They do not own the development rights to build 2,700 houses.
This project is along the I15 Corridor. Image from The Leucadia Blog
What the change in development looks like visually. Image from The Leucadia Blog
The developer, Stonegate Development Company, requested an upzone which the San Diego County Planning Commission granted with only two commissioners voting against the upzone, one being Peter Norby who wrote:
If we are to have confidence as a society in these General Plans. we need to uphold them and adhere to them.
To the extent we do so, citizens gain confidence and trust in our government and our planning documents. To the extent we don’t adhere to them, and upzone or do political favors, citizens (including planning commissioners) become skeptical and mistrust government and the planning documents. Done to an extreme, they can become worthless.
Like our constitution there is an amendment process call a General Plan Amendment Application…[The Merriam Mountain project] results in in 35,000 vehicle trips a day. More vehicle trips on Hwy 15 during peak hour than the entire NCTD Coaster removes from I-5 all day at huge tax payer expense.
A population of around 8000 in a urban development pattern with approx 1700 school age children. No schools, No library, no post office, and only freeway serving commercial down by I-15 at the off ramp.
The nearest schools elementary middle and high school, are 8 miles to 12 miles away (the exception is twin oaks elementary where 1/3 will go, it is 2 miles away)This is a development pattern that is typical of urban sprawl.
Stonegate''s rendering of the project
The developer, Stonegate, envisions that the planned community will look like the image above. Despite projecting a vision of smart growth for the community, there is not a mention of walkability or bikability for the new community. For example, the goal is to widen Deer Springs Road into four lanes:
Q: How will the project mitigate its traffic impacts?
A: The development of Merriam Mountains provides an opportunity to address some long-standing traffic problems in the community. Deer Springs Road is planned to be widened to four lanes from I-15 to Twin Oaks Valley Road, and improvements are proposed to the I-15/Deer Springs Road interchange. These improvements are designed to improve existing level of service as well as accommodate cumulative impacts from other planned projects.
In addition to the problems with creating more sprawl, there has been plenty of opposition from residents in the area strongly in opposition to the development.
To voice your concerns, the authors from The Leucadia Blog has urged readers to contact the County supervisors using the email addresses listed below:
Greg Cox – greg.cox@sdcounty.ca.gov
Dianne Jacob -dianne.jacob@sdcounty.ca.gov (who has also been stalling in taking action against Pointe Communities for blocking a one mile stretch of bike lane along Jamacha Boulevard).
Pam Slate – pam.slater@sdcounty.ca.gov
Ron Roberts – ron.roberts@sdcounty.ca.gov
Comments
7 Responses to “North County Developer Promises Smart Growth by Creating more Sprawl”
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walkable? it is commutable only. It is far from all of San Diego’s work and play centers. Worse, the developers are being GIVEN thousands of new lots and the windfall profit from that. As long as the public allows this sort of intellectual corruption and subversion of the public good all we are going to get is token projects to keep us occupied and distract us from what is really going on.
The best quote on the Leucadia blog is:
[The Merriam Mountain project] results in in 35,000 vehicle trips a day. More vehicle trips on Hwy 15 during peak hour than the entire NCTD Coaster removes from I-5 all day at huge tax payer expense.
This one project would wipe out the impact of the Coaster. Please don’t advocate for more mass transit if you let things like this go by without a fight.
I oppose the project because it will absolutely destroy our valley. We need to maintain our agriculture. I prefer to buy locally grown food. We grow vegetables, fruits, flowers. We use to have our own dairy until the environmentalists drove them out.
Yes Good Article – especially the info and commentary about what a general plan is for. Tyranny is here.
Ah yes, the wonderful ‘level of service’ policy. The problem w/ the ‘level of service’ policy is that it is a disservice to every commuter other than automobile commuters. The LOS policy, when implemented, is a true LOSS for commuters who travel via forms of transportation that are sustainable and create a sense of livable streets–i.e. cycling, walking, etc.
LOS, as it exists now, is a form of institutionalized bias which grades and rewards traffic engineers for engineering a road which serves a high level of automobile traffic while offering absolutely no rewards (in the form of a grade) for roads which serve a high level of bicycle traffic. There is no incentive for traffic engineers to facilitate bicycle ridership, yet there is a tremendous incentive for traffic engineers to facilitate automobile ridership.
Equality between cyclists and motorists will never exist as long as LOS is allowed to exist in its current biased state.
Last we heard, the California Bicycle Coalition is working to reform LOS so that cycling ridership is not ignored. If you’re interested in helping, please get involved w/ CBC’s efforts. http://www.calbike.org/
The above comment is in response to the following:
‘Q: How will the project mitigate its traffic impacts?
A: The development of Merriam Mountains provides an opportunity to address some long-standing traffic problems in the community. Deer Springs Road is planned to be widened to four lanes from I-15 to Twin Oaks Valley Road, and improvements are proposed to the I-15/Deer Springs Road interchange. These improvements are designed to improve existing level of service as well as accommodate cumulative impacts from other planned projects’
Note the auto-centric perception of ‘traffic.’ The question asks about ‘traffic’ yet the implication in the response is that automobiles are the only form of traffic…at least, the only form of traffic worth a response. Also, widening Deer Springs Road will only increase automobile capacity on the road. This will not ‘mitigate’ or ‘improve’ traffic. This makes traffic worse. Improving traffic by adding lanes is like fighting one’s own obesity problem by loosening one’s belt.
Ahhh, what a breath of fresh air from the folks at Merriam Mountains.
This is an excellent blog entry because it exposes the ill-thought philosophy of auto-centric sprawl and the failed planning, thereof. There is absolutely no indication, based on the info currently available that this Merriam Mountains development will uphold the principles of ‘smart growth.’ If Merriam Mountains claims that this is, then they’re spewing nothing more than greenwash.
Based on their website’s homepage picture (also posted above), Merriam Mountains will not be a walk, bike, or non-motorist friendly place. Note the narrow sidewalk on only one side of the street. Why not have two sidewalks? Note the faux-crosswalk that leads directly into a median and then, on the other side, leads directly into a block w/ no sidewalk. Speaking of blocks, notice how rounded the corners of the blocks are rounded. Rounded corners facilitate speeding motorists and increase the deadliness for innocent pedestrian standing/walking nearby. Also, there appears to be quite a bit of grass in this rendering. Can San Diego’s water supply afford more water-consuming lawns?
Richard Hogan wrote a hard-hitting academic book called “The Failure of Planning: Permitting Sprawl in San Diego Suburbs, 1970-1999.” Check it out.
There are many signs so far, that the Merriam Mountains development will be yet another example of failed planning.
Mind if we re-post this entry on Bic Control?
” Based on their website’s homepage picture (also posted above), Merriam Mountains will not be a walk, bike, or non-motorist friendly place.”
See the forest. Look at a bloody map of where this development is going. Nobody is going to bike to work from there.
‘See the forest. Look at a bloody map of where this development is going. Nobody is going to bike to work from there.’
W O, if this development truly upheld the principles of Smart Growth and New Urbanism, it would be a mixed use development–which means that there would be residential and commercial spaces close enough for residents to walk and bike to/from.
There are plenty of small towns located in forests which uphold the principles of Smart Growth, New Urbanism, and Livable Streets even before these expressions existed. Think of Julian, for example.
Did you read the quote by Peter Norby which said the following?: …’No schools, No library, no post office, and only freeway serving commercial down by I-15 at the off ramp.’
No schools, library, or post-office? This development is a failure from the drawing board.
Do you think that because this developer is building in ‘the forest’, as you put it, that that justifies their plan to a dangerous, auto-centric tract community w/ one sidewalk on a major road, a crosswalk which leads into a median, and rounded corners that facilitate speeding motorism?
biccontrol,
I fully understand you. My point is totally aligned with yours however I wish to make an ever generalizable point.
There is no school, library, or post office. WORSE is that this is far from the already sprawled out work centers of San Diego county. The single most important distance to care about in smart growth is distance to work centers because that is the trip almost every household makes every working day. You don’t have to go to the post office every day. This is the second fallacy of smart growth, which is if you zone for commercial on the ground floor and houses above that people drive substantially less. Poppycock. The first fallacy is if the city’s zone for mixed use that sprawl will be blunted. Poppycock number two.
Wow, sorry I missed this post when it first came out. I was really glad to see the Supes split and therefore denied the project for now. But it looks like Ron Roberts will be the tie-breaking vote, and he’ll also be the one who will have to bring the issue back before the Supervisors. You can bet the Merriam Mountain developers are all over him. So everyone get your keyboards clacking and send Ron Roberts a message asking him to let this sleeping dog of a development lie.
I’m e-mailing him right now!