Mountain Gate coming back to county planners

By: QUINN EASTMAN - Staff Writer | Monday, July 23, 2007 11:56 PM PDT ∞

HIDDEN MEADOWS -- On Thursday, residents of the Hidden Meadows area can get a look at redesigned plans for a 147-house development called Mountain Gate, which was first approved by county officials in the early 1980s.

Mountain Gate would occupy 694 acres south of Mountain Meadow Road and east of Interstate 15.

The Hidden Meadows Community Sponsor Group will discuss the Mountain Gate project at 7 p.m. Thursday at 10141 Meadow Glen Way East.

Stricter environmental and fire safety regulations that the county put in place over the last decade forced a redesign of the Mountain Gate project, said Escondido land broker David Shibley.

He is handling the project for the property owner, San Marcos businessman Arie de Jong. Mountain Gate was previously called Monte Cerno and was approved by the county Board of Supervisors in 1983.

Shibley said he hoped to take the redesigned project back to county supervisors in September and begin construction by 2009.

"The houses are shrunk more into the center," he said, adding that the number of lots was reduced from 159 to 147. The community will have one main gate, he said.

The concentration of houses freed up space for corridors that are supposed to allow wildlife to move through the area, he said. In addition, the lots were designed with "fuel-reduction" areas up to 250 feet away from the houses for fire-safety reasons, he said.

About a third of the project is now taken up by avocado groves. About 100 acres of groves would remain and 340 acres of hills surrounding the houses would become permanent open space, he said.

"We went through several iterations with the Deer Springs fire district," Shibley said. "It took a lot of work to do it."

A change that helped the project move forward was the addition of a second entrance and exit on Mountain Meadow Road, said Deer Springs Fire Marshal Susan Magdaleno.

In previous plans, there was one entrance on Mountain Meadow and an emergency exit via Lotus Pond Lane, where residents objected to additional traffic, she said.

The Deer Springs Fire Protection District's board has established a reputation for opposition to a much larger proposed development on the west side of Interstate 15.

In January, the five-member board voted to reject the fire protection plan for the 2,700-home Stonegate/Merriam Mountains development, citing concern that residents could not evacuate quickly enough in case of fire.

A majority of the board was elected in November on an anti-Stonegate platform. A month later, the other members resigned, allowing the new majority to appoint two new colleagues.

Board member Bruce Tebbs said the Mountain Gate project was a "much different situation" because it is proposed to have many times fewer houses than Stonegate, but added that the Deer Springs board had not voted on its fire protection plan.

-- Contact staff writer Quinn Eastman at (760) 740-5412 or qeastman@nctimes.com.

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