View from Stowe Trail near Santee during the winter. Photo courtesy of PreserveWildSantee.org
By Karen Pearlman / San Diego Union-Tribune / Aug. 25, 2020
A long-awaited vote on a highly contentious East County housing project has been delayed at the request of the developer, who apparently sensed the 3,000-home development faced some headwinds on the Santee City Council.
Home Fed Fanita Rancho LLC, the applicant for the latest version of the plan for housing off Fanita Parkway above Santee Lakes, asked the city last Thursday to cancel a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday. Jeff O’Connor, HomeFed vice president of community development, said the decision to pull the item after years of planning was made to satisfy concerns about traffic and to free up Councilman Rob McNelis, who could have been barred from voting on the original submission.
In a press release, Home Fed said it would redirect the $5 million it planned to use to extend Magnolia Avenue, a road that leads into the development, into improving state Route 52 instead. It will be added to the $10 million already earmarked by the developer for SR-52.
Santee Mayor John Minto said he shared residents’ concerns about the additional traffic Fanita Ranch would bring to the city, potentially adding more than 8,500 people to the current population of about 58,000. He has indicated that the project could be in jeopardy unless attention was paid to the freeway, and its associated traffic snares on the city’s main arteries of Mission Gorge Road and Mast Boulevard.
For the balance of this article, please go here.
See Colleen Cochran’s excellent background piece, on the OB Rag, “You Better Hike the Stowe Trail in Santee Before Fanita Ranch Is Built and It’s Too Late’.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Whom do they think they are kidding? Not one Santee neighbor I have talked to wants Fanita Ranch. Just NO!
Well, you didn’t talk to me. I am 100% in favor of this development. You can’t stop progress and you shouldn’t try. This is what Santee needs. Which is a bigger tax base. And it will help improve the existing Santee streets and schools. If you don’t like progress and want to live in a small rural horse and buggy town then move further east.
Santee residents voted NO over 20 years ago. The people had spoken. Check the ballot. I guess the citizens are not being heard or just straight out ignored.
I really had not thought too much about this until recently. Having witnessed BLM movements in developed areas and seen China CCP dictating to the people of Hong Kong over loud speakers all over the city, I would say, the less development, the less intrusions into the peaceful lives of the people of our community. I get it, at some point someone is going to accept a very large some of money and it will happen, but the more we can slow that down, the more peaceful and safe we will be.