By DAVID ROSS
The owners of the property known for decades as Matics Field are moving forward with plans for a 71 unit condo, office and supermarket mall development to be called the Village Square at Valley Center.
This will be the first significant commercial development in Valley Center since the 1970s, when a building moratorium was imposed on the community.
The developers, Weston Valley Center LLC, which includes partners Irving Schaffer, Herb Schaffer and John Askar, are at the beginning of the planning process. They just filed an application for a site plan review with the County Dept. of Planning & Land Use on Wednesday.
The plans will probably receive the first go-around at the VC planning group’s January agenda, Gary Wynn, of Wynn Engineering, told The Roadrunner.
The 30-acre development will require a leach field on 44 acres in order to provide septic service. Sewage will be treated slightly before being pumped up into the leach field.
Twenty acres will be devoted to the shopping center and ten acres to the condo development. These will be two story buildings with tucked-under garages.
A street tentatively called Main Street at Valley Center will connect Cole Grade with Valley Center Road.
The developers plan 190,000 sq. ft. of commercial space, with spaces that could be used for restaurants, hardware stores, a drug store and other retail operations.
Also in the mix will be two two story office buildings of 15,000 sq. ft. each.
The developers are negotiating with several markets to be tenants at the 58,000 sq. foot space set aside for that. Another 26,000 sq. ft. have been set aside for a drug store. “Who the tenants are will be market driven,” said Wynn.
The “village” will include paths, plazas, meeting places, with pedestrian traffic encouraged, said Wynn.
The architectural style will blend pitched roofs with Spanish tile, said Wynn.
“I think it’s going to be a chance to bring the architectural style of the Valley Center Design Review Guidelines into play at last,” said Wynn. “It will bring some new life into the center of town.”
The three-member VC Design Review Board, which is tasked with the lion’s share of planning how the center will look, has already met with the developers on what Chairman Phil Geddes called a “preliminary, preliminary look before formal submittal.”
When the plans for the shopping center were initially unveiled in the spring, Geddes commented that they “didn’t suit the character of Valley Center” and said they were more suited to Oceanside or Hwy 76.
“I told them at the time that they needed to break up the massive monolithic buildings,” Geddes told The Roadrunner.
The developers seem to have gotten the message.
“The massive size of the supermarket appears to have changed,” said Geddes. They presented a totally different facade with slimmer proportions. It’s like a hollywood set. It’s just as big behind as before, but it doesn’t look it. The fact that it was still a very large store is muted. They changed and softened the appearance to make it much more acceptable.
“They’ve made it much more desiriable. They’ve made huge progress. They addressed our harsh criticisms from the first time around.”
Geddes added, “They also addressed the problem of the big bare parking lot by putting in tons of trees.
The developer also broke up the through road with stop signs and changed the layout of the residential area with additional landscaping, said the chairman.
“Of course,” he said, “many hoops remain to be jumped through.”
The design review board, which hasn’t had a whole lot to do since its inception, will suddenly have lots to do.
So will the VC planning group, which will begin reviewing the plans soon.
By DAVID ROSS
California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary William (Bill) J. Lyons, Jr. Sunday visited Valley Center groves hit by the Mexican fruit fly infestation.
He also had a meeting with about 20 local farmers and made them promise not to tell the press what the meeting was about and to stop making comments to the press about Mexfly infestation.
Farmers were told that they either had to agree to the conditions or leave the meeting.
Later Lyons toured a VC grove and answered questions for reporters.
So far, Lyons told The Roadrunner, no fruit fly eradication program has been approved to send to the governor for his signature. The ag secretary left open when such a program might be approved and what it might consist of.
He also left open when or if a state of emergency might be declared by the Governor.
Lyons said that he is personally working on an eradication program, which, he said, could contain elements of spraying, and, possibly later on, the release of mature sterile fruit flies.
Lyons, who was accompanied by Fifth District Supervisor Bill Horn and County Ag Commissioner Kathleen Thuner, held a meeting in a residence with several farmers hit by the quarantine, and then visited a farm on Keys Creek Road where over 100 members of the California Conservation Corps worked during the weekend to destroy grapefruit.
Lyons visited with members of the CCC and congratulated them for the job that they have been doing.
According to a CCC spokesman, Mexfly larvae had been discovered at the location. The discovery of larvae (maggots) is much more serious than the discovery of a male Mexfly. This discovery mandated that the fruit be knocked off the trees and buried.
Lyons noted that he is a farmer and so understands the frustration of local farmers who are confronted with lost crops and a quarantine.
He added that the fruit fly infestation threatens not only growers but businesses that doing business with growers, such as juicing operations.
“Obviously, I’m taken this seriously,” he said, noting that he was visiting the area on a Sunday when a 49ers Game was on TV.
The Valley Center High School Performing Arts Center Theater fund will end 2002 with $464,000.
Cash in hand totals $239,004, including many small, medium and large donations from various residents and organizations in town.
That also includes the Teachers and Friends Concert in October that raised $3899.66 for the fund.
The Staples Foundation has pledged another $225,000 in the form of $22,500 per year for ten years.
In addition to this amount there is an uncalculated amount that will go to the theater from the legacy of a Pauma school teacher, Jeanne Wright, who has left the fund in her will.
Some of the recent donors to the theater fund include: Bahais of Valley Center, $500; John B. Lyttle Family Trust, $250; the Schwartz-Baringer-Coyle Family, $500; Caroline Blakemore, $25; Alfred & Nancy Barrett, $150; Kent K. Schafer,$1001, in loving memory of Robyn Ericson and Ann Kunde and Joan Palmer, $556.
Patty Christopher was named Thursday night to be the new principal of the primary school as the current principal, Lydia Vogt, transitions to becoming principal of Lilac Elementary, which will be completed next fall.
Currently Christopher is assistant principal at the upper elementary.
In an announcement sent to district employees on Friday, Valley Center Pauma Unified School District Supt. Karen Jobe noted that “Patty has been a teacher and administrator in the district for many years, and we are very pleased to have her expertise available at the primary school. A plan for transition from her current assistant principal assignment at the elementary upper school will be developed next week. I anticipate Patty will begin to cover some duties at the primary school as early as January.”
Christopher has taught for a total of 21 years at VC, with 24 years in education.
She was assistant principal for three years at the old middle school and took off time to be with her family.
Then she went to Cal State San Marcos as a distinguished teacher in residence.
When she came back she taught for six years in third grade. At which point she decided to get back into administration because her children were old enough and her husband, Leslie Williams, works in the district’s technology department, giving them more flexibility.
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
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