Supervisors accept Meadowood, Horse Creek Ridge park donations

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors accepted the donation of real property and public park facilities for six residential subdivisions including the Meadowood and Horse Creek Ridge developments.

A 5-0 board of supervisors’ vote Aug. 7 accepted the real property while also authorizing the director of the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation to execute park acquisition and improvement agreements with the developers of four of the subdivisions including Meadowood.

“Public parks are a great addition,” Supervisor Jim Desmond said.

The county’s Park Land Dedication Ordinance provides for fees from developers to fund park improvements in the area of the development. The ordinance includes a provision that developers can provide park land in lieu of the ordinance fee.

“Dedication of these parks is the result of board-approved residential projects,” Desmond said.

In January 2012, the board of supervisors approved Pardee Homes’ 384-acre Meadowood development. The original approved map included 397 single-family homes, 447 multifamily dwelling units, 13 acres for an elementary school which will be built by the Bonsall Unified School District, four acres of park land, 128 acres of biological open space, 47 acres of agricultural open space, 5.9 miles of trails and a wastewater treatment plant.

In order to avoid impacts to sensitive environmental resources, a public park was relocated, and the project has been redesigned. Because the deviation was less than 10% of the total amount of the previously approved plan the change was found to be in substantial conformance with the map, and no additional hearing was needed.

The expected number of units was reduced to 825 but has since been restored to 844. The public park size increased to 9.1 acres but is now 8.8 acres.

Horse Creek Ridge is part of the Campus Park project approved by the board of supervisors in May 2011. D.R. Horton purchased the residential component from Passerelle LLC. Horse Creek Ridge includes 751 residential units consisting of 521 single-family and 230 condominium dwellings, although only 741 of those have been recorded.

The map includes an 8.4-acre public sports park and a 1.0-acre staging area, and that park land was accepted by the county with the Aug. 7 board of supervisors’ action. The six neighborhood parks and the community center were not transferred to the county.

The 1% property tax will not be sufficient to cover county services including parks which will be needed to serve Horse Creek Ridge and Meadowood, so for both developments a community facilities district which includes a special tax to pay for services not funded by the regular property tax was formed.

The board of supervisors approved the Horse Creek Ridge CFD in February 2014 and the Meadowood CFD in May 2019. A park acquisition and improvement agreement had previously been executed with D.R. Horton for Horse Creek Ridge.