OCEANSIDE - Commissioners approved plans to expand the Eternal Hills Cemetery, but not without making space to preserve what little remains of a historic Luiseno Indian Village.

The commission voted 4-1 to approve plans that would allow the cemetery to add 18 acres - enough room for seven mausoleums and more than 15,000 additional burial plots - to its existing operation at El Camino Real and Fire Mountain Drive. Managers with the private for-profit cemetery and mortuary say they will run out of space for new burials in less than two years if the expansion plans are not approved.

But neighbors, and the local Native American community, voiced their objections to the plans.

Many noted that, along a ridgeline on the western edge of the site, are traces of a Luiseno village that could have once supported up to 1,000 people. As the cemetery's expansion plans were originally drawn, the site would have been graded.

Mel Vernon, a member of the San Luis Rey band of Mission Indians, whose family history extends to native sites throughout the river valley, took affront to the notion that grading plans for the expansion would scrape away the remainders of the ancient village site.

"That's just basically erasing us from existence there," Vernon said. "We shouldn't be made to feel like we are foreigners in our own land."

Commissioners agreed, directing city staffers to work with Eternal Hills so that 1 acre of land along the ridgeline will be preserved.

Afterward, Vernon said he was pleasantly surprised with the commission's decision.

"I guess we didn't get buried by Eternal Hills," he said.

Neighbors also complained that plans called for the 18 new acres of land to receive a rough grading soon, even though the cemetery will not actually use the land for years to come.

Commissioners agreed and directed Eternal Hills to work on a modified grading plan that would clear 5- to 7-acre parcels of land as needed rather than all at once.

Eternal Hills managers went out of their way to work with the community, holding two public meetings and modifying their design to help preserve views from homes on Fire Mountain Drive. Twenty-foot-tall mausoleums that were to be built close to the road were pushed further north on the sloping site, making their bulk less likely to block views. Likewise, many landscaping plants, including tall trees, were removed from plans after neighbors complained that they would block views.

Many who spoke Monday evening supported Eternal Hills' expansion plans. Ann Mortland, who said she has live in the Fire Mountain neighborhood for years, said she would much rather have a cemetery near her home than other types of development.

"Please consider the kinds of dreadful development that could be put on that property," she said.

But others advocated an alternative design that would shift development to the site's eastern edge, away from most nearby homes.

Cemetery manager Debbie Allen reminded all present that the cemetery serves a vital need.

"Eternal Hills serves not only Oceanside, but all of North County," she said. "We are the only public cemetery in North County."

- Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.