Thursday, November 19, 2015

Safari Highlands Developers Threaten Water Board

There's more bad behavior to report from developers in North County.  Representatives of Safari Highland Ranch sent a threatening letter Safari Highlands Letter to Regional Board to local water regulators.
While the letter is uninformed and has no real viable legal basis, it does demonstrate the kind of recalcitrance and reliance on bullying tactics seen more and more in North County developers.  See related story on Lilac Hills troubling-article-in-voice-of-san-diego.html

Community residents objected to this attempt to intimidate the Board and spoke out at the meeting raising the following points:

  • The developers do not have an approved project, environmental documents, annexations, or other decision related to the project. 
  • The $500 million of value is purely speculative
  • SHR doesn't even have entitlements for the  27 homes allowed under the applicable County General Plan 
  • The 'value' is limited to the $7 million they appear to have paid for the land. 
Thankfully, the Regional Water Board members were unimpressed.  One Board member noted that he found the letter 'offensive' and that the Water Board is not out to take land value but rather to do their job to protect water quality.  
We agree.