On Wednesday, November 8th, the Encinitas City Council voted to declare the city owned parcels of land known as L-7 as surplus. The parcels of land are located at 634 Quail Gardens Drive located south of Via Zamia and north of Quail Gardens Lane. These are currently undeveloped, zoned RR-1 and are comprised of two separate lots that are approximately 10 acres in size.

There was considerable discussion on this agenda item but in the end the council voted 3-2 to declare the land surplus.

Fox News Channel 5 was at the council meeting and created a spot on TV that summarizes the meeting. Here is a link:

https://share.newsbreak.com/5deu4pmz

This action was done in accordance with the California Surplus Lands Act (SLA) and approved by the city attorney. In doing so the city will next develop and distribute a Notice of Availability (NOA) and solicit responses from interested parties to lease the land for open-space purposes. These interested parties (primarily state or local parks and land related departments) have 60 days to respond. If there are proposals submitted then the city must enter into good faith negotiations. If no proposals are submitted the city can dispose of the property. A notice would then be issued to solicit proposals from other interested parties such as  developers to lease the property.

A number of residents spoke in opposition to this action and a number were owners in Encinitas Ranch. There are a number of reasons that residents advocated to oppose the action:

1. Quail Gardens Drive is already going to absorb over 1100 housing units between Encinitas Blvd. and Leucadia Blvd. These housing units represent over 40% of the affordable housing units in the 2018 city housing element.
2. Selection of this site for housing does not align with California HCD guidelines that are meant to be used by local governments to help select appropriate housing sites. These guidelines direct local governments to distribute housing equitably across their jurisdictions and housing sites should be in proximity to transportation and services such as grocery stores. L-7 does not meet these criteria.
3. It would appear that the council chose not to follow the steps outlined in the Kosmont Companies contract approved by the city in June of this year.
4. This process of declaring property surplus land is totally untested in Encinitas and it could have negative unintended consequences.
5. The council apparently made building a 100% affordable housing development in Encinitas a top priority without communicating that effectively to the residents of Encinitas and then decided that it had to be on L-7.
6. The city has not yet developed any financial models or plans that would make this property worth developing for affordable housing.