| The Santee Quality of Life Coalition is committed to reducing traffic congestion, sustainable growth and sustainable land use that benefits Santee and our entire region. |
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| If you are not already a member of the Santee Quality of Life Coalition, please join us in the ongoing effort to protect Santee's quality of life.
Email SanteeQualityofLifeCoalition@cox.net
Tom Abshire, Chair
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| Land Use Decisions are key to Santee's Future |
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Santee, with a current population of approximately 53,000 is expected to add another 15,000 residents by 2020. Santee has over 600 new housing units approved for construction in 2004 and projects atleast several hundred more houses for 2005. Citizen inputs about how Santee grows and mitigates for growth impacts are key to protecting our quality of life!
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| Is Home Sprawl Putting People in Harm's Way? |
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Firestorm 2003
Is home sprawl putting people in harm's way?
By Lori Weisberg
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
November 4, 2003
They come to San Diego County's rural outposts in search of open spaces, a peaceful lifestyle and an escape from the traffic snarls of cities. But these urban refugees also must confront one of nature's biggest foes: fire.
With swaths of countryside charred and hundreds of homes reduced to rubble, the wildfires have reinvigorated the debate over the county's future development. There are those, such as planning experts and preservationists, who see it as a warning to reverse the county's sprawling ways. Others say there is no escaping the appetite – and need – for housing.
Advocates of "smart growth" say it is no longer only the mantra of land-use academics. Redirecting housing construction to urban areas closer to the city core is a strategy for self-preservation when the next disaster strikes, they say.
"A sprawl-style pattern of development into areas of high fire risk makes people very vulnerable to fires, which will happen," said Sierra Club activist Eric Bowlby.
"Some property-rights proponents are pointing their fingers at us and saying, 'Look at the chaparral and all the fuel sources of fire that environmentalists are trying to preserve.' My question for them is, do we pave over everything to get rid of our ecosystem? Fire is a natural occurrence in our backcountry, so we need to inhabit our areas accordingly."
Developers say the more relevant issue is how to make housing more defensible against fire, not to limit its construction in rural areas. With so much of the county's land subject to development and environmental regulations, they warn the region will find it increasingly difficult to accommodate the 1 million more people expected to live here by 2030.
"Developers, large and small, embrace the concept of smart growth but not all housing consumers can live in cities," said Michael Pattinson, president of Barratt American, which hopes to build houses on the 2,600-acre Fanita Ranch on Santee's northern fringe. "We have to provide a mixture of houses, from urban to rural, attached to detached.
"We're going to have a lot more people living here, and we have rules that take good land out of development for birds and rats and flies. What's more important? Human beings or animals?"
Scan any map documenting the wildfires' scope, and it could double as a map of housing sprawl. Homes nestled in the foothills and mountains, canyon-rim subdivisions, estate housing built far from country towns and city centers long have defined California's landscape.
Clearly, much of the housing lost to last week's fires in San Diego County was older stock, not homes in new subdivisions. Much of it might not be allowed today.
Living in the city is no guarantee against fire. The Normal Heights blaze 18 years ago, which destroyed nearly 80 homes, was located in an urban neighborhood just miles northeast of downtown San Diego.
Joel Hirschhorn, author of the forthcoming book, "Sprawl Kills – Better Living in Healthy Places," sees a cautionary tale in the destruction.
"What California illustrates is that uncontrolled sprawl has meant building subdivisions in exactly the wrong places and putting people in harm's way," said Hirschhorn, a former director of environment, energy and natural resources for the National Governors Association.
"Decades ago, we rode through the canyons and hillsides and it was enough to see the beauty instead of living in it. I think we have to change because we're headed for disaster. We have to shift the population growth back into the urban areas."
In March, voters in San Diego County likely will have a chance to voice their sentiments on the issue. The countywide Rural Lands Initiative, which would sharply limit development in the backcountry, has qualified for the ballot and is scheduled to go before the county Board of Supervisors tomorrow.
The board can send the measure to the electorate without comment or delay its decision until Dec. 3.
Initiative leader Duncan McFetridge, whose home was threatened but not damaged by fire, said the blazes buttress his contention that sprawl is a financial drain.
"It proves our point because of the waste of resources. Sprawl homes strain normal resources and they strain firefighting resources," said McFetridge, whose home is in Descanso. "Sprawl development in the wild lands puts people in harm's way, and then we spend money pulling people out."
He noted that 10 years ago, his group, Save Our Forests and Ranchlands, won voter approval of an initiative aimed at keeping development out of the forest by establishing a 40-acre minimum lot size on privately owned land within the Cleveland National Forest.
"If we had sprawl subdivisions in the middle of the forest – think about it – what an incredible tragedy that would have been," McFetridge said.
County planners also are tackling future housing development as they devise a 20-year blueprint intended to tame and manage growth in unincorporated areas. Property owners have appeared in hearings before county supervisors, railing against proposed zoning rules they say would reduce significantly the development potential of their holdings.
More efficient fire protection for housing in the unincorporated areas definitely will be addressed, said Ivan Holler, deputy planning director.
"Where folks have lost their homes, we're certainly going to allow them to come back and rebuild, but I do think it's appropriate to take into consideration how development can go on the ground so we can do the best job of creating a defensible perimeter around subdivisions and make sure folks have defensible space around individual homes," Holler said.
"We are looking at reducing development potential in a number of areas because it's harder to provide services there to support the development."
The 3,000-home San Diego Country Estates, about five miles east of Ramona, is an example of the sort of leapfrog development that probably would not be permitted under current planning guidelines, Holler said. Early last week, about 90 houses in the 30-year-old master-planned community were destroyed.
Country Estates resident Keith Hansen, whose home was not damaged, bristles at the Rural Lands Initiative.
"Screw the tree-huggers. They're a bunch of city people telling us what we can do with the land we pay taxes on," said Hansen, publisher and owner of the Ramona Sentinel. "We have to live somewhere, and I'm not going to live like a bunch of animals in the high-rises downtown.
"There are other people like me who don't like city life. I say leave people alone, let them live their life without government intervention."
Just 2 1/2 months ago, county supervisors were presented with a report on reducing wild land fire risks that today almost seems prophetic. The San Diego County Wildland Fire Task Force, which crafted the report, was formed at the request of Supervisor Dianne Jacob after last year's Pines fire just east of Julian.
County Agriculture Commissioner Kathleen Thuner cited a warning in the report that 80 percent of the county's wild land areas could burn if exposed to wind-driven flames. The report pointed out the risks inherent in the migration from cities to rural areas.
"They often do not understand that their homes and possibly their lives are at stake," the report states.
Thuner said rural residents must take responsibility for protecting their homes by clearing the surrounding land so that it doesn't fuel wildfires.
While some property owners and the building industry said last week that environmental regulations deter people from clearing land, Thuner said the county requires residents to maintain a 100-foot "fuel barrier" or clearance around the perimeter of their homes.
Despite the warnings and the pleas to rethink the county's growth, Southern California likely will have no choice but to keep developing outlying areas, said Virginia Tech demographer Robert Lang.
"You're out of land, so that's where you're going to have to put it," Lang said. "Some of this development is there because it's aesthetically pleasing to live on mountainsides and some of it's there for lack of space.
"You just accept the risks when you build in these areas and you try to build better."
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Lori Weisberg: (619) 293-2251; lori.weisberg@uniontrib.com
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