Cardiff Homeowners Fear Strawberry Fields Aren’t Forever

When Gary Hahn bought his Cardiff home overlooking picturesque San Elijo Lagoon and rows of crops in the sweeping valley below, his expectations for a back-yard vista resembled something out of a Beatles’ song--”Strawberry Fields Forever.”

Now he says that reverie has been shaken by the possibility of suburban development. The owners of the property next to his home along Interstate 5 at Manchester Avenue--which includes the lines of sweet-smelling strawberries--have applied with the city of Encinitas for a zoning change for 45 acres of coastal property from residential to mixed use.

One of the owners of the land proposed for development said Monday that the city is insisting on such severe restrictions that he doesn’t think anything will be built. But nearby residents point to documents submitted to the city that call for a major hotel-resort complex next to the lagoon, with a 150-room hotel and restaurant, swimming pools, tennis courts and a scattering of bungalow-type hotel rooms.

Plans for the possible project, called The Inn at the Strawberry Fields, have been submitted to the Encinitas planning commission by an architect hired by the two property owners.

For Hahn and scores of other neighbors in his housing development, the building of the hotel complex would shatter the bucolic suburban lifestyle they say attracted them to Cardiff in the first place.

They also claim that such a development would be harmful to the environmentally sensitive San Elijo Lagoon County Park and Ecological Reserve nearby, and might upset the delicate balance of hotel-motel business in the North County coastal community.

On Monday night, scores of residents from Sandy Point, a gated community of more than 100 single-family homes overlooking the lagoon, met with Encinitas planners to voice their displeasure over the project--the night before the planning commission holds a public hearing on the proposed zoning change tonight.

“When I bought the property, I was guaranteed that the land below was permanently deeded as open space,” Hahn said. “Now we’re told that the bulldozers can move in anytime, and do as they like.”

Ben Yasuda, one of the two landowners whose family grows strawberries on about 18 acres of farmland just east of Interstate 5 at Manchester Avenue, said that, although he believes the location would be perfect for such a resort, he doesn’t believe the project will ever be built.

Yasuda says the city has instituted a list of requirements that include requiring project-builders to widen Manchester Avenue to six lanes as well as dedicate land on either side of the road.

As a result, he says, the homeowners have nothing to worry about.

“Forget it,” he said. “I’m just going to farm the land for the next 20 years. I’m not even going to press for the zoning changes. This whole thing is for my kids anyway--so they can have something in years to come.

“But, with all the restrictions the city has put in place, I’d have to give up all the land I’ve got. I might as well dump it all into the ocean. So, I’m just going to back off this thing.”

Craig Jones, a senior planner for the city, said Monday that he plans to meet with residents to clear up any misconceptions about the zoning change or any future project.

For example, he said, the lagoon itself is not in danger from the project. Although the lagoon is indeed open space and not subject to construction, the land on the opposite side of Manchester Avenue is privately owned and can legally be developed under certain circumstances.

The rezoning proposal, he said, calls for changing the property from single-family residential to “a mix of visitor-serving commercial and ecological resource.”

He said his staff has recommended that the planning commission approve the zoning change if the developers agree to a specific plan overlay--conditions that include keeping any future project to a scale that would not endanger sensitive coastal bluffs or create traffic problems for the area--already home to the San Elijo Campus of Mira Costa College.

Before the zoning change receives any final go-ahead, it must be approved by the City Council and put to public vote, Jones said. And then, any specific plan drawn up for the property would also have to go through the same lengthy approval process.

“We’re talking about a very long-term thing here,” he said. “The plans we received, if ever built, will obviously go through numerous revisions.

“The planning commission staff’s stance is that it’s OK to change the zoning on the property, but that change has to be controlled. That’s something that has to be worked out.”

Gary Hahn and his neighbors don’t want to wait to long for answers. They believe the city has already short-circuited their appeal by notifying them only last week of an application received last fall.

And the city only notified about 200 homeowners of Tuesday night’s public hearing. Hahn said he almost threw away the announcement, at first thinking it was junk mail.

“Why didn’t they notify everyone who lives in sight of this thing?” he said. “There’s people in Solana Beach and Rancho Santa Fe who are going to have to live with it. And nobody was told.”

Residents also are critical of the fact that the city has not done a study to see how any new hotel might affect existing hotel business.

Doris Thurston, former Escondido mayor and a Sandy Point homeowner, said that if the report was done for “my city, I’d send it back. It’s not complete. They didn’t do their homework.”

All Gary Hahn knows is that nights in his back yard spa just won’t be the same with a hotel spoiling his view.

“Once they approve something like this, what’s to stop them from approving other development in the area,” he said. “It’s like saying, ‘Get out the blacktopper. There goes the bluffs. There goes the neighborhood.’ ”