On
Monday the Accretive Group filed its long anticipated PAA (plan
amendment application) with the County for a 1,745 unit development
adjacent to Old Hwy 395 and south of the Old 395 interchange
near I-15, that says its president, Randy Goodson, could transfer
high density from Valley Center Road’s Northern Node and
prevent VC’s roads from becoming unusable.
The proposal is called “Valley Center Sustainable Community,”
and it is, Goodson claims, “the only plan that makes Valley
Center’s roads work.”
The County has 45 days to react to the proposal. Whatever decision
it makes is subject to appeal to the Planning Commission and
Board of Supervisors.
Although Accretive controls 400 acres, according to Goodson
the County asked it to file a proposal for how the surrounding
neighborhood, which Goodson and the County call the “Western
Village” might be developed, including a commercial center.
“I’m uncomfortable telling other people how their
land should be developed, but the County is requiring it,”
said Goodson. On Monday he sent an “overall conceptual
plan” to the county Dept. of Planning & Land Use’s
director Eric Gibson.
So, for instance, the commercial center in conceptual plan would
have 30 acres, whereas five acres of commercial are set aside
in the actual Accretive proposal.
Click
here to download maps of both Accretive’s Conceptual Land
Plan and Project Description for its property and the overall
conceptual plan. (928kb)
The land there is zoned A-72, which allows
for one home for two acres. Accretive wants to change the density
to about four units to the acre, although there will be some
homes with two acre estates as well as a row of one acre estates.
Goodson told The Roadrunner that the project will be designed
by Peter Calthorpe of Calthorpe Associates, a Berkeley, California-based
designer who also designed the San Elijo Hills development in
San Marcos for Accretive.
Goodson obviously wants people to associate this new development
with San Elijo, about which he gets many positive comments.
“Calthorpe is thought of as the best land planner in the
world,” Goodson said. The designer was named one of 25
"innovators on the cutting edge” by Newsweek magazine
for his work redefining the models of urban and suburban growth
in America.
“What people like about San Elijo Hills is getting back
to the old time town, the small town feel,” said Goodson.
The development will include one town center and two “hamlets”
or villages, all within a five minute walk of each other on
interconnected trails.
The town center could have a fire station, store, coffee shop,
while one hamlet could have a school and recreation center.
As many as a dozen parks will be scattered throughout. The main
intersections won’t be dominated by retail operations,
says Goodson, but will have parks or a school.
“We think it makes the whole community more valuable,”
he said. “People will pay more for something of value.”
He anticipates it will provide housing not only for middle and
upper middle class residential, but also people just entering
the home market and those retiring.
“It will be a community that will accommodate all kinds
of lifestyles,” he says. “We will have homes for
when you leave the nest and when you retire. Right now Valley
Center doesn’t have anything for these people.”
This is Goodson’s fifth development with Calthorpe. The
proposal will be, essentially, “a new community,”
he says.
The subject of roads first brought this development to the attention
of VC planners last year, when they discovered that Road 3A
had been added to the general plan update for the area without
them being notified.
Goodson maintains he doesn’t have any connection to discussions
of such a road, which would connect Valley Center to I-15, although
obviously he would like to see such a road built.
Goodson’s relations with the Valley Center Planning Group
could, at best, be described as “chilly.”
He maintains that when he tried to make a presentation to the
group they “told me to go away and not come back for five
years.”
He thinks the reception he has gotten from the planning group
is based on its belief that he can do the development. “They
believe I can actually do it and that’s why they are so
hostile. I consider it flattery.”
For months Goodson has had an employee videotaping the group’s
sessions and collecting quotes that he can use.
Re: the group’s perceived opposition to his PAA, Goodson
comments, “We’d like to point out to the planning
group that your existing plan creates road failures.”
His plan to transfer density from the Southern Village, would,
he says, “make the roads work.”
He accuses the planning group’s leadership of deliberately
planning a road system that fails for the express purpose of
keeping the County from putting additional density in Valley
Center.
“They just want to make the density disappear,”
he says. “It’s more responsible for them to find
a place to put it where the roads will work.”
Asked by The Roadrunner if he plans to make a presentation to
the planning group. “I will if they invite me,”
he says. “I’ll come talk to anyone who invites me.”
Goodson has not yet had talks with the Deer Springs Fire Protection
District, the VC-Pauma Unified School District or the VC Municipal
Water District about providing services for his proposal. His
goal is to build a school that would provide classes for grades
K-8, although that decision would be up to local school officials.
He anticipates that details on the development will emerge over
the next two years—if the PAA is approved by the County
to move forward.
Accretive has been holding open houses for several months to
gauge public sentiment regarding the proposal.
Another open house will be held Nov. 11, 6:30-8 p.m. at Castle
Creek Country Club. The newest information will be made available.
