Seems as though the Irvine Company is at it again, developing more land in Orange Cou... err, I mean Carltas, the Ecke land development company from Encinitas. Ever notice that big piece of land that houses a bunch of run down greenhouses on the east side of Saxony Road (a couple doors down from the YMCA)? The one that Ecke said he
wouldn't develop into homes
IF he'd let the city and voters let him develop Encinitas Ranch and the golf course instead? The one a few years ago he said he needed to sell for capital to stay competitive in the floral growing business but voters shot it down in Prop A? The one that's zoned for 1 home per 10 acres? That one. The original plan in Prop A was to sell 38 of the 68 acres and make 101 homes (that's about 1 home per a 15k square foot lot- 1/3 of an acre- not too shabby). Looks like they want to now divide it up basically into 5 parcels and sell 3 of them (a total of 36 acres). What's not entirely understood is if these new parcels (roughly 13, 12, and 10 acres) would create a loophole and houses could be built on them- i.e. more than 1 home on 10 acres. Since the 3 small parcels aren't technically being sold as a bigger chunk of land, voters don't have a say in what happens with the sale- as they did with Prop A. I guess you could call this new deal for Ecke Plan B. Now here's my take: I have two views on development. If it looks like this:
DON'T TOUCH IT
And if it looks like the current Ecke greenhouses:
DO SOMETHING WITH IT
Now I'm not claiming we should pave over the greenhouses with strip malls, Sam's Clubs, and put 10 people per home. But some nice single family homes and some landscaping (like Poinsettia Park across the street)
sure beats graffiti, chain link fence, rats, and concrete bunkers. And it sure as heck doesn't hurt the value of the area the way the current land does.
