California is in desperate need of new housing. Once the cost of living is factored in, the Golden State has the highest rate of poverty in the nation, with more than one in five households living paycheck to paycheck. The prime reason is the extreme cost of housing. So this editorial board has fervently supported Gov. Jerry Brown’s efforts to streamline regulations to add housing stock — the only serious, long-term way to bring down rents and home prices.

You might then presume we’d be inclined to support Measure B, which asks county voters to clear the way for the Lilac Hills Ranch project in North County, which developer Accretive Investments says will bring 1,746 new homes to a bucolic 608-acre area of Valley Center just east of Interstate 15. It made the Nov. 8 ballot after Accretive funded a signature-gathering initiative.

But there are too many serious concerns about the Lilac Hills Ranch project to support Measure B — and it would set a precedent that could lead to an anarchic era in planning and land use.

The developers’ most basic claim about Lilac Hills Ranch — that what voters are being asked to approve is the same project that the county Planning Commission voted to support and that some county supervisors were enthusiastic about — doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. In a staff report prepared this summer for the county Board of Supervisors, the board was told that the initiative “removes and/or modifies county staff and Planning Commission recommended conditions” on several important issues. The list includes project phasing and timing of road improvements; improvements to West Lilac Road, a public road, and to Mountain Ridge Road, a private road; building a fire station capable of responding to a Lilac Hills blaze within five minutes; and construction of a K-8 school.


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Since the report was issued, Accretive has reached an agreement with Bonsall Unified School District to build the school. It has also aggressively challenged the idea that fire protections would be inadequate and other conclusions of county staff. But we are unpersuaded. It appears that Accretive is using the initiative process not just to sidestep normal obstacles to getting a project approved but to shift the cost of potentially expensive improvements to county taxpayers.


Beyond these concerns, there is something troubling about having the entire county vote on a project that threatens to have harsh consequences on a small slice of the county. In an election with so many ballot measures, there is a good chance many voters will base their Measure B decision on the slick, sugar-coated mailers that Accretive is expected to start sending out soon. If Lilac Hills Ranch is approved, other deep-pocketed developers will certainly take note, and we could face a deluge of ballot-box land-use decisions employing such tactics.

No, thanks. We urge a no vote on Measure B. It’s a bad proposal — and an awful precedent.

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