ENCINITAS -- The Public Works Department is on the move, first to a temporary home, and then, Encinitas officials hope, to a permanent one.

To make way for construction this summer on a long-awaited library, the department next month will vacate its building at D Street and Cornish Drive and move six blocks west to an interim site, the former Pacific View School campus at E and Third streets.

Meanwhile, planners and a Del Mar architect are designing a permanent facility to be built on Saxony Road, even though the city has yet to obtain the property through a proposed land-swap.

The swap, between Paul Ecke Ranch and the city of Encinitas, is the subject of a Planning Commission hearing set for June.

For years, officials have searched for a suitable site to consolidate several locations used by the crews and equipment that maintain everything from sewers to signposts. Having workers and their gear at a single spot would make for a more efficient and productive workforce, officials say.

Finding the right place, however, has stumped officials for years.

Concerned about noise and traffic, neighbors have objected to earlier proposals for public works sites, and on Saxony Road, where the facility would be built on land occupied by greenhouses and a flower field, the same objections already have surfaced.

"There's far, far too much traffic on Saxony Road right now," said Arnold Ruskin, a 19-year neighbor.

One source of that traffic, he said, is nearby Magdalena Ecke Family YMCA, where the membership is nearly 20,000.

The city should look elsewhere for a public works facility, Ruskin said.

"They're not familiar with the traffic," he said. "All they want is a place for their people."

One neighbor enthusiastic about a Saxony public works facility is Mayor Maggie Houlihan, who lives about four blocks away on Union Street.

The facility, Houlihan said Thursday, would be more than a public works yard. It would be an "Environmental Services and Educational Center."

"If you call it a public works yard, that's all it will be," Houlihan said. "We have a commitment to make it beautiful."

Officials unveiled sketches of the estimated $5 million center at a meeting last week.

A site plan shows a dozen buildings scattered across the Saxony site, with entrances opposite Saxony Place and Silver Berry Place. A 2.4-acre park also appears on the plan, opposite a driveway north of the complex.

The plan shows earth berms wrapping around the buildings and parking closest to Saxony Road. Also near Saxony are basins where run-off could settle and seep into the ground.

Buildings would total 31,600 square feet; garage space would total 29,710 square feet.

One building would house offices and another would be home to an educational center, where residents could learn about such things as recycling and composting. Another building appears on the plans as a caretaker's quarters.

A crescent-shaped driveway would wend through the complex, which now is home to greenhouses and a poinsettia field.

Many other greenhouses are nearby, because the 10 acres proposed for the public works facility and park belong to the Paul Ecke Ranch.

City and ranch officials are negotiating a swap in which Encinitas would obtain the 10 Saxony Road acres in exchange for 8 city-owned acres on Quail Gardens Drive.

After the swap, ranch owners hope to subdivide and sell the Quail Gardens Drive property to raise money to modernize portions of the 80-year-old nursery.

That same Quail Gardens Drive acreage once was once a leading candidate for a public works yard. Before that, it was earmarked for a park. Years later, in 2002, the property was the subject of a ballot initiative, in which voters rejected a proposal to build the library there instead of on Cornish Drive.

Back on Saxony Road, on Paul Ecke Ranch, a separate proposal would bring 201 dwellings to 38 acres of the nursery, just north of the planned park and public works yard. That proposal could require a public vote and take years to complete.

Well before that, as soon as next month, the public works department will set up shop at Pacific View School.

Citing costs, Encinitas Union School District officials closed the six-classroom campus last June.

The city and school district are sharing the campus to house their respective maintenance departments, and the city is paying the school district $1 a year in rent for three years.

In recent weeks, crews have removed the turf where generations of children played ball. Asphalt, decomposed granite and parking for oversized vehicles will cover the former field.

Builders are framing a dozen offices, a tool room, conference room, lunchroom, restrooms with showers, and a waiting room and reception area into six former classrooms.

Bryce Wilson, public works management services coordinator, said Wednesday that about 30 employees will operate out of the Pacific View facility, which the school district plans at some distant date to develop into offices to rent.

In recent years, ideas about where to build a permanent public works facility have come and gone.

One year ago, staffers considered 18 sites and identified Quail Gardens Drive as the top pick, to the dismay of some neighbors.

A second proposal would have moved the facility out of Encinitas entirely onto land owned by the Olivenhain Municipal Water District in Carlsbad. That plan died because the location was too far from Encinitas' geographic center.

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