Firefighters, police officers, business leaders, local officials and even an avocado grower joined Tuesday to officially kick off a campaign to defeat a ballot measure they say would worsen the region’s housing shortage and cripple the economy.

At a news conference in front of the County Administration Center, backers of the No on SOS campaign vowed to fight the citizens initiative that would require public votes before large housing developments could be built in the unincorporated areas of the county.

“We are dealing with a serious housing shortage in this region and we should all be supporting new housing production, not putting up road blocks,” said Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas Salas. “If the SOS initiative passes, it will shut down housing projection in the county’s unincorporated areas. That’s the wrong approach.”

The SOS measure, which stands for Save Our San Diego Countryside, was placed on the March 2020 ballot after more than 110,000 signatures were gathered in 2018. It seeks to take final approval of large housing projects out of the hands of the Board of Supervisors and place it under the control of voters. When developers seek to amend the county’s General Plan to allow for far more houses on a piece of property than the plan allows, those amendments would require approval of voters countywide.


Fueled by what is expected by many to be millions of dollars from the development and real estate communities, the campaign decried what they contend is an ill-advised attempt to hinder future growth.

Proponents say special interests who fund political campaigns exert undo influence on the supervisors, who in 2018 approved several large developments in unincorporated San Diego County over the objections of many.

But No on SOS backers, which include the development community, civic leaders and public safety unions, say the measure would curtail much-needed future housing growth during an unprecedented housing crisis. They say it is unfair to have the entire county vote on projects that impact only specific communities in rural, unincorporated areas.

“The SOS initiative is the latest attempt at ballot box planning,” said Haney Hong, president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association. “We’ve seen countless examples over the years of the unintended consequences of these types of measures. This initiative takes away local control from taxpayers who reside in the unincorporated area ... If it passes, the SOS initiative will continue to increase housing costs at a time when many families are priced out of the market.”


Hong said delays and costs that would come about should the measure pass will only add to the cost of housing and would push the local workforce out of the county.

“When people are living in Riverside County, they aren’t paying property taxes, they aren’t paying sales taxes to support what it is we’re trying to do here in San Diego County,” he said.

Backers of the measure say the initiative simply maintains the status quo of the county’s General Plan -- a blueprint for growth in the county -- which calls for new homes to be built close to existing infrastructure. They say more than 60,000 new units can be built under the plan as it is now written in areas already pre-approved for such dense housing construction.

Instead, they say, developers are purchasing large swaths of land currently zoned for very limited growth because it is relatively cheap, then seeking permission to change the zoning through the political process.


Many backers of the initiative are the same as those who waged a successful and seriously underfunded social media campaign in 2016 to defeat a developer-initiated measure seeking voter approval to built a 1,700-unit development in Valley Center known as Lilac Hills Ranch. The group opposing Lilac Hills was outspent by more than 20-to-1, but won by a comfortable margin.

“We’re used to being outspent,” said Mark Jackson, one of the leaders of the Yes on SOS campaign.

On Tuesday, Jackson said the Yes on SOS campaign will concentrate on social media to get its message out, but noted that opponents have already started Internet advertising in earnest.

“The other side is coming that way, too,” Jackson said. “They clearly have done their homework and seen what we’ve done in the past and they are out there early with countermeasures. It’s really up to us to find the 735,000 people, again, like three years ago, and get this sold.”


The SOS initiative is one of two development measures to be voted on by all county voters in March. The other is also a citizen’s initiative that seeks to overturn the Board of Supervisor’s approval last year of the Newland Sierra development, a 2,135-unit project that would be built in the hills north of Escondido and just west of Interstate 15 near Deer Springs Road. Newland Communities kicked off its “Better Choice” campaign several months ago with many of the same arguments the No on SOS campaign is now using.

However, Tony Manolatos, a political consultant helping with the No on SOS campaign, said the two measures and campaigns against them are independent of each other and that there will be no cross-over advertising.