It is widely rumored that several years ago the property was offered to the city as open space/habitat and that only Houlihan was interested in considering the idea.Is this rumor total BS? Was there a record of that vote? (I haven't had time to check this out, and I figure some of you might already know)
Links:
NCT Article
Planning Commission Agenda
Term limits are needed! Stop the BS of current council bankrupting our City.
ReplyDeleteThe City should cut Pension Costs. Roll back pensions to 1998 levels.
ReplyDeleteF*ck. I have watched this town go from a rural paradise to a yuppie fortress. Is it really necessary to destroy the last vestige of chapparal in the county? Can't they sell that land to the Nature Conservancy and be done with it?
ReplyDeleteNo expansion of La Costa Glen either. Bring back El Rancho Charro! I can remember seeing the smoke from the cook-fires rising during the evenings.
I wish the land could be preserved somehow - but I don't see where the money could come from.
ReplyDelete19 house lots plus open space on 51 acres seems like just the low intensity project we want. If we don't allow some minor development with restrictions, we may end up with multi-story mixed use with density bonus.
15 years ago those 40 acres belonged to a mysterious religious group called the Mazdasnans. Well, mysterious to me anyway since you don't hear anything about them and there's never been any other churches with walls in Leucadia (as spiritual as we all know we are). Joseph Steinberg was president of the stock market company Leucadia National at the time, and probably still is. He was Leucadia Merchant's Association's most affluent member as his company was worth nearly 5 billion dollars.
ReplyDeleteMr. Steinberg named the stock company after Leucadia because he'd travel 5 daily, saw the signs and liked the name. Anyways, I thought the 40 acres would make a nice anchor for his biz, and what? A drop in the bucket for him and a hell of an investment for the asking price; only 3 million dollars at that time. But New York is where he'd rather stay. He's alergic smelling hay. At least he paid his twenty five bucks to LMA so we could brag about it to one local business group that belittled us.
I didn't know Maggie ever pushed for the city buying it. Good for her. Good for us. It's a lofty chunk of Leucadia for sure.
19 homes with cactus yards as conditions would be the most acceptable to me. Better then the old folks home gobbling up more land and parking the land of the living death out there.
ReplyDeleteHow can they build more homes when there is not enough water for the entire southwest? Isn't that irresponsible? where is the water meter moratorium on the entire county?
Water meters are not available, there is a condition of approval now being used that allows approval, but does so knowing water is not available.
ReplyDeleteBut really, that's not the point of this exercise. The real goal for the developer is entitlement. That is all we will see for quite a while.
No developer intends to build anything in this environment. The whole point is to gain the rights to develop, thus making the dirt considerably more valueable to a future buyer.
Most planning efforts we are seeing now are exactly that.
Kevin: There are no records of anything controversial, or of importance kept in Encinitas. Surely you have figured that out by now, after the great Leucadia Tree Debacle and other such wonders? These records seem to just disappear, if they were there at all. I have requested several public documents that have mysteriously disappeared.
ReplyDeleteThere is money for the purchase of habitat through SANDAG. Don't know if this site qualifies.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can tell Encinitas is the ONLY city in San Diego County that has a moratorium on new water meters. Encinitas has a growth rate of just over 1%, one of the lowest in the county.
The owner is being prudent by increasing the value of the land through entitlement. Either to get a purchase for preservation or for future development. I believe entitlements are only good for 3 years with an option for an extension.
It's true. Around 6 years ago Christy, Jim, Jerome and Dan voted against Maggie when she wanted to put a 1.8 million dollar grant toward that property to acquire open space for the city.
ReplyDelete