August 23, 2006 - Top Stories
Three land owners in the South Node of VC Road want to do a private sewer plant expansion to make way for a Major Market within a couple of years. VC water district directors seem to like the idea. Monday they asked the staff to schedule a vote on it early in September.
Sam Logan, who is NOT one of those property owners, but who owns Major Markets in Escondido and Fallbrook, told the Valley Center Municipal Water District board Monday, “We want to be part of this. We’re ready and with the staff to do it. I think it would fit Valley Center very well.”
He envisions a 35,000 sq. ft. market (his Escondido market is 41,000 sq. ft.) to fit into the South Node, which under General Plan 2020 is called the South Village.
Logan and representatives of the Alti, Bell and Olson properties, who own between them 200 acres, made a presentation to Monday’s meeting of the board.
Speaking for the proposal was Steve Flynn of the Bell family, Barbara Olson speaking for herself and husband Allen, and Wayne Hilbig representing the combined Bell and Alti properties and Bill Lewis, engineer for the group.
This group has been frustrated since 1997 waiting for an expansion of the Woods Valley Ranch sewer plant. They form what is called “the core group” of land owners who need the water treatment plant to carry out their business plans. The last straw for them was when mega-developer D.R. Horton recently withdrew from the Orchard Run development. This created another delay in forming an assessment district to serve the properties along VC Road south of Lilac.
After listening to a staff presentation on the changes needed to the district’s plans now that Orchard Run is delayed (recounted below), they presented their own proposal.
Hilbig, representing the “core group,” said that if they privately fund an expansion, the plant could be online by 2008, instead of 2010, which is staff’s earliest estimate of a plant going online. The core group needs about 150 EDUs (equivalent dwelling units).
Flynn commented, “The Bell family has had that property for 25 years and about all we’ve been able to do is pay property taxes on it. We have a plan for a neighborhood shopping center, something we’ve had a lot of community support for. Something that really fits Valley Center well. It’s our intention to get this in as fast as possible and meet a serious demand.”
Mrs. Olson told the board: “We own a couple parcels for which we have been trying to obtain a sewer hook-up for a long time. I’m here to request that you gentlemen consider this presentation. We don’t have a lot of time. We’d like to see our property bear some fruit.”
Water district Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant, who hadn’t heard the proposal before Monday, said, “You’re saying we should approach this as a private project, a consortium?” They agreed that this is what they want.
Since the Orchard Run development has stumbled, this would slide the core group into its slot. Phase II was to have been the plant’s expansion to accommodate the 300 unit Orchard Run. According to Hilbig, the core group land has 2.25 acres of open space that could be used as a storage pond for reclaimed water. Seasonal storage is a requirement for a treatment plant. He asserted that, aside from the “core group,” the district has no firm commitments from other land owners to be part of an expansion.
Instead of waiting for the district to gauge interest and get commitments from other property owners, the core group proposes going ahead alone. “We’re committed to take the risk and pay all the money,” said Lewis.
Horton drops the ball
Since the last update on the South Village Water Reclamation Project, D.R. Horton has pulled out of the Orchard Run Project, a planned development between Bets-worth, VC Road and Lilac Road. John Belanich, who has been trying to build here for two decades, is seeking another development partner.An immediate problem raised is who will now sponsor a combined 1,750 ft of wastewater pipeline and reclaimed water return line from the intersection of Mirar de Valle and Valley Center Road to the entrance of the Woods Valley Ranch Treatment Plant.
The plan was to build an effluent line from Orchard Run to Woods Valley Ranch and a reclaimed water line back to their property. These lines are needed to provide service to the properties of the South Village area, west of Valley Center Road. It is considered critical to install them before the road project is finished since the County will allow no cutting of the road for three years after it’s finished.
The district is getting an estimate from Archer Western, the contractor for the second phase of the road widening, to put in the lines. “Our goal,” said Arant, “is to get those lines in as part of the VC Road project. Even though there is no urgent need now, it would be prudent to get them in now.” He added, “But we need to find someone to pay for that. That’s something we’ll have to take up with property owners on the west side who are looking for sewer service.”
Note: However if the district adopts the “core group’s” plan, this might not be necessary. Sewer service for the South Node is related to when General Plan 2020 is finished said Arant.
The County has completed traffic studies and will begin the environmental impact report for GP2020. The County has said that this could be done in a year. “We are less optimistic,” said Grabbe. “It could be a year, it could be next year, it could be longer.
“Our master planning had been based on GP2020,” said Arant. “If we continue to do that, it creates issues for us in terms of timeframe and environmental process of an EIR that hasn’t been approved yet.”
If the district proceeds with the expansion prior to the adoption of GP2020, it would have to do traffic studies and EIRs that would normally be part of the GP2020 process. “Normally we don’t do those because they are the purview of the County,” said Arant.
District engineer Wally Grabbe presented several options on how to proceed. Once again, if the district adopts the “core group’s” plan, these options could be moot.
Option 1
Continue on the current path. Obtain financial commitments by the end of 2006 in order to proceed with the programmatic EIR and preliminary project design. Plant expansion would be completed between late 2008 and early 2009.Option 2
Wait until the GP 2020 EIR is completed and certified to finalize the programmatic EIR. Meantime the district could seek financial commitments by the end of 2006. These funds could be used to proceed on the programmatic EIR, design the plant based upon how many properties have committed to sewer connections and do initial work on an assessment district.Option 3
Wait until the GP 2020 EIR is completed and certified to finalize the programmatic EIR for the South Village Water Reclamation Project. Once the EIR is completed, seek commitments from property owners who will now be certain of their land use designations and densities.In each option the main difference is timing, said Grabbe.
The advantage of Option 1 is that the district controls all aspects of the project. They don’t wait for the County. The problem is that property owners are asked to make decisions based on a county plan that is not adopted. “We would expect that the County would object to our traffic issues and there would be controversy,” said Grabbe.
The advantages of Option 2 is that the district could reference County EIR documents without doing its own. But the timeline would be extended and land owners would still be asked to commit now based on unadopted County land use designations.
The advantages of Option 3 is that the project would reference the County’s EIR. Property owners would be certain about land use designations and densities.
Grabbe presented a fourth option recently suggested:
Option 4
Similar to Option 1 except that it would use zoning and densities of the current General Plan. Once GP 2020 is adopted, it will supersede the old plan. The advantage is that the plant would be finished sooner.Directors asked whether it was possible that Belanich might still be interested in financing a plant, even though D.R. Horton has withdrawn. “That option has not been discussed,” said Arant. “Mr. Belanich is most concerned that the two lines get into VC Road as part of the Valley Center Road project. I think that indicates he is still interested in participating with the Woods Valley plant. “
The issue of Option 4, said Arant, is that it would ask the property owner to commit, at their own risk, for more EDUs (equivalent dwelling units) than are currently allowed.
“Do you limit them to the number of EDUs they can have with current zoning or recognize that sometime in the future GP2020 will allow more density?” asked Arant rhetorically. “While it may not be in force now it will be by the time we build the project. What we don’t want to do is downsize the project later on.”
The problem with doing environmental documents without the County ahead of the County is that the analysis could be challenged by people who disagree with its conclusions, said Arant.
“If we go forward now, we need to move forward based on current land use,” said Arant. “They key is we identify the maximum number of EDUs that can be served so that you don’t oversubscribe the number of connections,” said Arant. “We really don’t want to put the water district between the county and the planning group,” he said.
Board Pres. Gary Broomell asked if the planning group agrees with the density contemplated by the County. “Absolutely not,” said Arant.
The plant will be sized depending on who commits to be in the assessment district. To date they have only received a response from a handful of those owners. Said Hilbig, “Most people who are interested in this sewer expansion are in this room.” He predicted that not that many will be interested, “Not at $38,000 an EDU with no guarantees,” he said.
Arant was very interested in the idea that the “core group” presented that the two lines could cross on their property, which would obviate the need for such a long line, and cut expense considerably.
Saturday evening around 6 p.m. Cole Grade Road was closed because of a break on a 14 inch water main.
The VC Municipal Water District estimated that it lost five to six acre feet of water. One acre foot equals 326,000 gallons, so they lost between 1.5-1.8 million gallons of water. At $595/AF wholesale cost, it was worth between $3,000 (5 AF) and $3,600 (6 AF).
The break occurred just south of the Cole Grade & Miller Road intersection near the chicken ranch. The sinkhole was 8-10 feet deep and the water took out a section of roadway that was 30-40 feet wide.
The fire department, Sheriff’s deputies and Valley Center Municipal Water District workers all appeared on scene and closed the road, rerouted traffic and finally shut down the water main. It ran about 1-1/2 hours before it was shut down. A lot of water ran into the chicken ranch, according to a witness.
According to water district Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant, “In a period of roughly twelve continuous hours, twelve to fifteen employees, working in three separate crews, controlled the leak site, controlled traffic, rebuilt the roadbed, repaired the pipe and had the road re-opened by 6:15 a.m. the next morning.
“They worked very hard and efficiently to restore water service and the roadway, and I am very proud of them. We also want to extend thanks to the County of San Diego Road Department for hauling in the material to rebuild the roadbed, which helped to restore the roadway as quickly as possible.”
In response to a question from the water board Monday about the general condition of the pipe in that area, Arant said, "This is relatively old pipe in a high pressure area. We identified it to be replaced in our 2002 Master Plan. I fact, over the last several years, we have replaced about forty percent of the pipe in Cole Grade, from Valley Center Road to the high school.
Arant added, “For this particular section, lying between the library and Miller Road, we were trying to coordinate the pipeline replacement with the County road project which has been on the books for some time, but was recently removed.
“While we always try to do these projects in sync with the County, just like we did on Mountain Meadow Road and are doing on Valley Center Road, sometimes conditions dictate that we move forward on our own. This may be one of those cases where the condition of the pipe doesn't give us the luxury of waiting for the County. We will be looking at that option closely over the next couple of weeks,” said Arant.
For the first time in many years discussions between the VC Fire Protection District and California Dept. of Forestry over CDF’s management contract with VCFPD will happen behind closed doors.
The regular CDF contract with the district for the next two years has already been approved. It covers CDF management of the fire services. What remains to be ironed out are the service upgrades, which include an extra CDF firefighter on each engine company and the Amador Plan, which pays CDF to staff stations during the off fire season. An additional firefighter would bring up to three the number on each engine company.
Although the Brown Act allows governing boards to carry on contract negotiations in private, VC Fire Protection District has never done that in the past. It has always discussed issues with the contract in the open. However, on Thursday night directors indicated to CDF rep Alan Black, administrative officer for the San Diego Unit, and Chuck Maner, Chief of the San Diego Unit, that they wanted to bring some issues up in private.
The County Board of Supervisors several weeks ago voted money for the next three years to upgrade the fire service at Valley Center and several other fire departments. The fire board has already had a closed meeting with a County representative on the exact amount and how it will be spent. “We’d like to have a chance to sit down and discuss those issues,” said Director Weaver Simonsen.
Directors indicated they have some changes they would like to see in the County’s contract and staffing. Simonsen was told that the County had volunteered to take part in the negotiations with CDF.
Simonsen shook his head. “On the issues we want to discuss with Chief Maner I don’t see the County adding any value to that discussion. They’ve already told us what they are going to do for us.”
Board Pres. Mel Schuler suggested that if Maner was available he’d like to have a closed session as soon as possible. “I don’t think we want to drag this out month to month. It’s important,” said Schuler.
What complicates this process is that the district must hammer out an agreement with CDF and then go back to the County to get the money to pay for the additional service.
Additional Work for Fire Marshal
Fire Marshal Joy Justis is putting in extra work these days to meet new requirements of the County that each new development provide the fire department with a fire protection plan. This requirement was a direct result of the October 2003 fires. Before a new development goes in the developer must submit a fire protection plan. To keep up with these requirements Justis attended classes to bring herself up to speed.Oh, where or where can they be?
The fire board is beginning to wonder where SCI Consulting Group has gone. In May the board hired the Fairfield-based firm to conduct a study on an election for the district to raise its funding base. In May Gerard Van Steyn, president of SCI told what his company will do. This included a survey to see what residents look for in fire services.At the August meeting directors wondered why they haven’t seen anyone from SCI at any of their meetings since May. SCI did send a letter suggesting that the district hire it to do another sort of study. It also sent a letter suggesting that, in light of the district’s current negotiations with the County that it might want to wait on doing the survey until early next year. Director Dan Thornton said he would like to see the firm send a representative to the meetings.
Director Simonsen said that although he sees the wisdom of waiting until January to do the survey, that he’d like to see some of the questions ahead of time. “Where is the activity?” asked Simonsen. “We haven’t seen anything going on as to questions they are going to ask,” Thornton agreed.
Board Pres. Schuler said he’d like to see SCI come with a timeline and a project plan as to when they will have such and such things done. “When will the survey go out? How long will they need to massage the information. I’d like to see those things so that we feel comfortable with the process,” said Schuler.
“Right now I don’t have a sense of a timeline and I think with what they are charging us that they should be able to give us a timeline.” The board agreed to form a subcommittee of Thornton, Simonsen, resident Oliver Smith and district administrator Steve Mahady to work with SCI.
“I got to be honest, I’m kind of surprised that we haven’t seen them at meetings,” said Thornton “It’s not a shabby contract that they got from us. I’m surprised that no one has come down to directly talk to us about the things that they are writing to us about. I think you might want to express that to them,” he told Mahady.
New Station
Simonsen said he wants Mahady to give a report at the next meeting of what is required to build the district’s third fire station. He noted that with all of the permits required that “even if we started today and had plans today, by the time we got done with the process we’d be a year and a half down the road.”Thornton, who is the board’s financial officer, had earlier observed that the district has the land and the money to build and that the time is not too far off when they need to spend the money or lose it. “A factor in this is that we will have to go through all the County process, including the design review board, which could take several years.” He wondered if the district is subject to County TIF (traffic impact fees). “That could be pretty pricey for us,” he said.
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