ESCONDIDO -- The state of some vacant housing projects became a political issue last week in Escondido when City Council challengers questioned whether enough is being done to protect the downtown from blight.

"If we're going to have to stare at those things for 10 years, can we at least do something with those properties?" candidate Olga Diaz said after raising the issue at a candidates forum last week.

Of particular concern is the City Square project at Second Avenue and Centre City Parkway. Barratt American built four town houses at the site before filing a notice of default, the first step in the foreclosure process, in August. Now in receivership, the property is the responsibility of a court-appointed third party.

While the completed townhouses are in good shape, they share a parking lot with a green tarp-lined fence that conceals an abandoned construction site intended for the development's second phase. Scattered wood, a sand pile and tall stalks of weeds that snake through crisscrossed rebar foundations are among the debris spread across the lot.

Diaz said another lingering eyesore in downtown Escondido is the vacant lot intended for the Paramount condominium complex, which was under construction at the Signature Pavilion shopping plaza between Centre City Parkway and Escondido Boulevard when it was destroyed by a fire in January 2007.

"The Paramount property doesn't have the same problem, but there's no plan to move forward right now," Diaz said. "What I was trying to convey was, those big developers, in essence, have changed the landscape of that area and have now walked away."

Debris at the site was cleared within months of the fire and the site is an empty, clear lot today. Developer D.R. Horton has submitted plans to rebuild, but is waiting for the housing market to rebound before construction begins.

Escondido City Councilman Sam Abed, an incumbent who also attended the forum, said last week that the city should be vigilant in addressing blight, but that that shouldn't be interpreted to mean the current council has been negligent.

"Image and appearance is a priority for this council and me personally," Abed said. "We don't want to use the bad economy as an excuse."

Abed also said the council does not need to take additional action to keep the lots clean because existing laws in the city already address the issue.

"Under the present ordinances, we can go after the property owner, whoever it is, to make sure there are no health and safety issues," he said.

"We are staying on top of it. The city manager said we don't need to do anything more. The existing rules allow us to take action."

But Diaz and fellow council challenger Richard Barron, who also attended the forum, said the city could do more to anticipate such problems. The city could, for instance, insert clauses requiring developers to be responsible for the appearance of their property if construction stops.

"A council … could say that if something falls through the crack and does not go through, you have an obligation to do a certain amount of things before you walk away," Diaz said. "Those properties are eyesores, and they do sort of overwhelm the landscape."

While the Paramount site is relatively clear, it could be years before the market rebounds and construction begins, leaving downtown with a large dirt lot, Barron said.

"It was an unfortunate set of circumstances, but I would have liked to have seen the city be far more aggressive with the owners of the property about what's going to be done with the property," Barron said. "What we're left with is two great big lots downtown that will just be growing weeds until somebody decides what to do about them."

Since the properties may be vacant for years, Diaz said the city should consider doing something with the land in the meantime, such as using the lots for temporary parking or creating grass fields.

Abed is not opposed to beautifying the property and said he had been approached by an East Valley Parkway resident who suggested putting artwork on the fence around the vacant Barratt American site.

For now, Code Enforcement Manager Leslie Milks said the city has followed up on complaints about the sites' appearance, and the people responsible for them have been cooperative.

"They have been pretty compliant with us," she said about D.R. Horton's Paramount site. "We just had contact with them last week or the week before. We had some weeds coming up, and they took care of it right away."

The Barratt property has been more of a problem because construction already had begun on the site when it entered foreclosure. Milks said the remnants of the project are being removed.

"We have had some progress," she said. "It's going to involve some different things. They've had SDG&E out to remove their utilities. They have a contractor they've hired who will begin the demolition of the plumbing, and then as soon as they're done with some of those, they're going to take out the underground plumbing. And once they have that done, they're going to start on the weeds and the removal of the large pile of sand they have out there."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.