Candidates: Ecke housing plan should go to voters

By: ADAM KAYE - Staff Writer | Saturday, August 21, 2004 8:58 PM PDT ∞

ENCINITAS ---- In the November race for City Hall, three incumbents and most challengers seem to agree on a key issue: Paul Ecke Ranch's plans to put houses on its Saxony Road acreage will need a blessing from voters.

In the course of 80 years, the Ecke name has become intertwined with Encinitas' history. Together with their flowers, the poinsettia pioneers have left a colorful path of philanthropy across Encinitas.

In public meetings, however, some residents clutching to Encinitas' agricultural heritage have rejected the notion of a crop of houses on the ground the Eckes have cultivated since 1923.

As the incumbents rally the electorate, their handling of the Ecke proposals could determine their political futures. The same is true of the stances challengers will take.

"Few things affect the city of Encinitas as significantly as taking away a big chunk of what had been the Ecke agricultural facility and making it into a fairly large housing area," said Robert Wilder, a challenger from Olivenhain.

In interviews last week, incumbents James Bond, Maggie Houlihan and Jerome Stocks agreed that the ranch plans could shape the tenor of the election. All three supported a public vote on the housing proposal. So did four of five challengers: Seth Cowen, Bruce Ehlers, Alice Jacobson and Wilder.

Challenger Donn Harms, in contrast, said Friday that City Council should exercise its authority to approve or reject the plans.

"(Residents) can always vote out the council members who don't vote the way they want," Harms said. "The buck has to stop somewhere."

Modernize or move

The housing plan would produce revenue to reinvest in the ranch, which needs modern greenhouses to remain competitive in the cutthroat potted-flower business, ranch executives say.

Over three generations, the Eckes have come to control 70 percent of the root stock used to grow the colorful poinsettias in North America. That market share stands to wither ---- driving the ranch out of Encinitas ---- unless Paul Ecke Ranch makes a significant investment in new facilities, they say.

In addition to the housing proposal, a separate proposal involving a land-swap also has drawn objections, especially from some neighbors. Under the land-swap proposal, Ecke Ranch would trade 10 acres on Saxony Road for 8 acres the city owns on Quail Gardens Drive. Ecke Ranch would build a 10-home subdivision on Quail Gardens; Encinitas would build a public works yard and 2.4-acre park on Saxony.

Last Thursday, over objections of neighbors, the Planning Commission handed a victory to the ranch and to the city's Public Works Department by approving an application to place a $5 million center on a poinsettia field.

Opponents questioned how a public works facility could be allowed under the voter-approved Encinitas Ranch Specific Plan, a document that paved the way for 853 acres of shopping centers, housing and a golf course. On Saxony Road, the plan set a permanent agricultural zoning status on the 77-acre flower farm. The same questions hover over the 38 acres of housing proposed for the agricultural land.

Past and present

In interviews last week, candidates said voters and voters alone should authorize revisions to a plan that voters themselves approved.

Last December, incumbents Bond, Houlihan and Stocks participated in a 5-0 vote to explore further the Ecke proposals. That vote opened the door to a dialogue, but in no way constituted an endorsement of the proposals, the incumbents said.

Bond, who is seeking a fourth term, is the only seated council member who was in office when voters approved the Encinitas Ranch plan.

"At that time, our understanding was that land would be agricultural in perpetuity," Bond said. "I think changing that needs to be decided by the voting public, not the council."

In 2000, the voting public received no such invitation to authorize a now-defunct ranch plan to build a 125,000-square-foot research campus on land now identified for the public works facility.

The Planning Commission approved the three-building research center; opponents appealed to the City Council, which upheld the Planning Commission's approval by a unanimous vote.

Ranch executives had hoped to forge alliances with an agricultural research community they expected to flourish in the region.

"It looked like the environment was very good for plant science," Chris Calkins, president of Paul Ecke Ranch, said last week.

The environment turned out to be not so good.

Novartis, the Swiss research giant, and other start-up companies pulled out of San Diego, he said.

Although a research campus never was built on Ecke Ranch, Calkins is quick to point out the approved plans would have allowed an industrial tenant and the traffic it would produce.

Houlihan, who was not in office at the time, opposed the research facility publicly.

Her objections had everything to do with an industrial project proposed for agricultural property, she said Thursday.

"To me, it felt like a zoning change without a proper process," she said. "That's why I opposed it."

Houlihan and Stocks often find themselves on opposing sides of land-use debates, but they share the view that voters should play a role in approving Ecke's present housing proposal.

Stocks said $250 contributions he has received from Calkins and Paul Ecke III will present no conflict when ranch proposals come before the council.

"I can only assume that anybody who is supporting me approves of the job I have done in terms of making good decisions for the city," he said.

Among the challengers interviewed for this story, Ehlers, a former planning commissioner, said he was concerned that the Public Works Department has received permission to build its facility under "interim" standards contained in the Encinitas Ranch plan.

Another challenger, Cowen, suggested that the best spot for a public works yard could be at the northeast corner of city-owned property in Cardiff that is planned for a park. The yard could operate inoffensively in a corner backed by a shopping mall and a freeway, he said.

Jacobson, a former planning commissioner who voted in favor of the research facility, said only the question of a public vote for the housing proposal could constitute a possible campaign issue.

"I really in my heart think the Eckes will always bring what is best to the city," Jacobson said. "You can't rightly complain about the advantages of the shopping center and the golf course the Eckes brought to us."

And this from Harms: "This could be a win-win as long as the citizens get fair compensation for what they're giving up."

Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 943-2312 or akaye@nctimes.com.