[quote=The-Shoveler]This is one example but there are many smaller (but still fairly large housing and planned communities) happening all along the I-15 corridor in IE and San Diego county.
YIKES! Okay, I’m going to take a stab at the proposed Newland Merriam development first (in SD County), which is currently not a whole lot more than a figment of Newland’s imagination:
WOWZA! First of all, according to your linked article, Newland RE Group (the *new* developer) somehow acquired (or hasn’t actually acquired yet?) this (unusable) land from Stonegate Dev Group, who couldn’t get approval from SD County just five years ago to build 2630 units on it. Newland’s plan calls for 2135 units which isn’t slated to be before the Board of Supervisors until the end of 2016 (at the earliest). Except for District 3 (NCC) all those same supervisors who were present for the vote five years ago will still be present at the end of 2016 to vote again on a slightly smaller version on 435 acres on the south end of the Merriam Mtns with community parks and trails on 1200 acres in the north end.
This area borders the Deer Springs Road area/exit of Escondido, which for many years was heavily sandbagged for several months per year due to road erosion from rain. But this did nothing for the occasional landslide or rockslide onto the road, which blocked Deer Springs/Mtn Meadows residents from entering /exiting their homes from I-15, until the debris could be removed.
There are burning questions in my mind as to how a development of this magnitude (or any development, for that matter) is going to “pencil out” for a developer in this very rugged, hilly terrain.
Was/is Newland aware that a portion of Deer Springs/Mtn Meadows residents (directly to the south of their proposed development) and a good portion of Valley Center residents (directly to the east) do not have access to sewer? How do they propose to bring sewer lines into these 445 acres to build 2135 homes on?
How are they going to remove all this big rock (average 1500 – 2000 lbs apiece)? With a helicopter?? What about the rest of the rock partially buried that we can’t see in the picture? How are they going to carve out a road wide enough to get heavy equipment up there and how are they going to park it to do its work? How are they going to prevent rock(s) tumbling down onto a “real” road or someone’s land below while they’re working and hurting or killing somebody? If they’ve got all this figured out, how much is all this “rock excavation” going to cost them?
Assuming Newland is able to get a road and sewer up there and pads in for the first phase, how much will each house cost? If they have to charge over $800K each for a <=2000 sf one-story home (due to extensive prep work of the land), who is going to pay that much to live in a smaller-lot subd in Esco/Fallbrook when they can buy an acreage in Deer Springs/Mtn Meadows or Valley Center for the same price or less?
Where is the school bus stop going to be? On the I-15 ramp?? How many miles away will the assigned elem school be before the new school is finally completed (the plans only call for an elem school to be built up there). How many homes out of the 2135 planned have to be finished before construction on the school has started? (I see construction slow-going due to several obstacles.)
How many minutes away are groceries and gas until Newland can get some services in there? 25 minutes? More? Will a resident have to use I-15 if they need anything at all?
What if the demand isn’t there (due to location, price or both) after 1-2 phases are built and Newland decides not to build any more? Will they still build the elementary school and parkland shown in their community plan . . . or some of it? Or will they leave the first 300-400 units up there isolated in their own little “ghost town?”
How are these new homeowners going to get fire insurance and how much is it going to cost? How much will Newland pay for fire insurance while it is building and are they going to pass this (exorbitant) cost onto homebuyers? I see from the article, that, in Newland’s plan, the new fire station was scrapped (it was present in the former Stonegate plan). I think that’s a very bad idea. I don’t see fire hydrants (if installed) working very well up there, lol, and I don’t see fire trucks from below being able to get up there very quickly. The way I see it, their only option is fighting fires from the air. How much is this "standby service" going to cost on a homeowner's tax bill .... in addition to MR (and HOA dues?)
Sorry, I just don’t think this project is viable. It’s going to be interesting to see how far Newland gets with it. They must be very desperate to develop subdivisions if the Merriam Mtns is the only land in SD County they can come up with in their proposal.
