Aiming to bring higher-paying jobs to Escondido, city staff and a citizens committee have crafted a proposal to rezone nearly 2,300 acres to make it more appealing to developers planning office complexes and technology business parks.

The proposal, which would change zoning in 15 separate neighborhoods mostly along freeways and transit corridors, will be presented to the public Sept. 15.

City officials say the changes would help alleviate a shortage of "employment" land in Escondido, where a much greater percentage of the land is zoned residential than in neighboring cities.

But they concede that simply rezoning the land won't increase Escondido's median income, which is the lowest among the nine cities in North County.

Developers and high-paying employers will have to embrace the changes, they said.

Cities have had mixed results with attempts to attract better jobs by rezoning land, a Cal State San Marcos economics professor said recently.

The professor, David Brown, said success would probably vary by the particular piece of land and how appealing it may be to developers.

He also said such efforts often fail to boost median income because many of the new workers choose to live elsewhere.

"It will be interesting to see how it plays out," he said.

The changes are among an array of revisions the city is proposing to its development blueprint, or general plan, which hasn't been updated since 1990.

Residential neighborhoods surrounding downtown Escondido were the focus of the previous revisions, so this is the city's first opportunity in two decades to comprehensively address land use in its central core.

City officials plan to present the revisions to voters for approval in November 2012. But they must first seek public feedback and analyze possible environmental effects of the changes.

The proposed changes include rezoning 450 acres of mostly undeveloped residential land as commercial or industrial.

But the plan would increase the number of housing units planned for the area from 54,500 to 63,100 by adding condominiums and denser housing in many areas, especially downtown.

Some of the zoning changes aim to increase density along the state's proposed high-speed-rail line, which is slated to have an Escondido stop where Interstate 15 meets Tulip Street or where Centre City Parkway meets Valley Parkway.

Other changes would address plans to extend the Sprinter rail line down Centre City Parkway to Westfield North County mall, city planner Jay Petrek said.

Other key features would be an educational district between Palomar Medical Center and Palomar College's Escondido campus, and an "urban village" of offices, retail shops and mixed-use residential near the intersection of Valley Parkway and Ash Street.

Local business leaders have said the proposed changes are crucial to spurring economic growth and helping Escondido increase its median income.

According to a 2009 study by the county's regional planning agency, the percentage of industrial land in Escondido compared with residential land was 3.4 percent, which was well below Poway at 5.1 percent, Vista at 10.2 percent, San Marcos at 10.3 percent, Oceanside at 10.8 percent and Carlsbad at 22.9 percent.

Escondido would have to increase its industrial acreage, which is about 1,000 acres now, by 1,946 to match the ratio in Oceanside and by 5,150 to match the ratio in Carlsbad.

In addition to boosting median income, Petrek said, adding higher-paying jobs in Escondido would ease traffic congestion by reducing the number of city residents who must commute to jobs outside the city.

Some changes controversial

But one area proposed for zoning changes has already spurred some controversy, with Harmony Grove residents questioning plans to rezone 121 acres near their community for medical offices that would serve the new Palomar Medical Center.

"We want Escondido to respect the rural character of Harmony Grove," Melanie Fallon, chairwoman of the Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove Town Council, said recently.

But Fallon said Harmony Grove residents might be OK with the proposed changes if city officials agree to restrict any rezoning to the northeast side of Escondido Creek.

Community activist Lisa Prazeau has raised concerns about plans to increase development densities southwest of the Target plaza and the Escondido Auto Park.

The area is already too congested, said Prazeau.

But she said she supports many of the proposal's other attempts to attract high-paying employers by rezoning land to accommodate them.

Prazeau was among 15 people appointed by the City Council to a citizens committee that has met more than a dozen times since last year to help city staff craft the proposed zoning changes.

Alfredo Velasco, chairman of the Escondido Chamber of Commerce and another member of the committee, said chamber members strongly support the zoning changes.

"These changes are exciting because they will give city staff flexibility to spur more economic activity in our community," Velasco said.

Dave Ferguson, a local land-use attorney who was chairman of the citizens committee, said residents should keep in mind that the final proposal would probably recommend less ambitious changes.

He said a particularly aggressive list would be given to consultants hired to study the environmental effects of any changes, so that those consultants would have more choices.

"We made the study areas over-inclusive to get more options," Ferguson said. "They'll probably end up proposing new zoning for a lot less acreage."

Ferguson said he was generally pleased with the proposed changes.

"The two main goals were to accommodate more smart growth in Escondido and to add employment lands, and I think city staff came up with the most logical choices," he said.

The areas where zoning changes are proposed include:

-- 170 acres south of Highway 78 near the city's border with San Marcos;

-- 163 acres just south of where Centre City Parkway and I-15 intersect in north Escondido;

-- 122 acres near Highway 78 and Lincoln Avenue;

-- 296 acres south of Highway 78 and east of I-15, which includes the area proposed for a ballpark district;

-- About 300 acres on Centre City Parkway between downtown and the Westfield North County mall;

-- about 140 acres near Felicita Avenue and I-15;

-- 106 acres near the Auto Park; and

-- 77 acres near the Westfield mall.

The Sept. 15 forum is scheduled from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

Petrek said 16,000 notices about the forum were sent to all residents and property owners within the areas proposed for zone changes or within 500 feet of those areas.

City officials have made the proposals available in Spanish, but Petrek said the city had received less than 10 requests for such translated information.

Maps and descriptions of the proposed changes are available at www.escondido.org/gp-update/index.html.

Call staff writer David Garrick at 760-740-5468.