LAFCO approves annexation of Meadowood land into Rainbow MWD

San Diego County's Local Agency Formation Commission has approved the annexation of the development originally known as Meadowood into the Rainbow Municipal Water District.

A 7-0 LAFCO board vote May 3, with no City of San Diego representative present, approved the detachment of the land from the Valley Center Municipal Water District and the annexation of the property into the Rainbow district. Tri Pointe Homes is now the parent company of Pardee Homes, and the development's name has been changed from Meadowood to Citro. An amendment to the sphere of influence, which determines the boundaries best served by a particular agency, was also approved to allow for the boundary changes.

"This is a friendly boundary swap," said LAFCO analyst Priscilla Allen.

In January 2012, the Board of Supervisors approved the 384-acre Meadowood development. The original approved map included 397 single-family homes, 447 multi-family homes, 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 residential component is now expected to consist of 473 single-family and 352 multi-family homes while the public park size has increased to 9.1 acres with the trail length reduced to 5.6 acres. The detachment and annexation covers 266.9 acres on 12 legal parcels.

When the Board of Supervisors approved Meadowood, the land was within the San Luis Rey Municipal Water District, which is not part of the San Diego County Water Authority. The Board of Supervisors conditions included annexing the property into the SDCWA.

Pardee Homes had entered into a pre-annexation agreement with the Rainbow Municipal Water District in 2004, but in April 2005 the Rainbow board instructed the district's legal counsel to work with Pardee on terminating the agreement and in December 2008 Rainbow's board voted to terminate that agreement.

In January 2011, the Valley Center Municipal Water District board voted to support the annexation of Meadowood into that district, and LAFCO approved the annexation of Meadowood into the Valley Center district in 2014.

Meadowood is not adjacent to the rest of the Valley Center boundaries. The plan when the property was annexed was for Pardee to construct water and sewer lines to Meadowood at the developer's expense. The nearest Valley Center facility is across Couser Canyon multiple miles away from Meadowood, and over time both the Valley Center district and Pardee realized that the lack of facilities in the area would make Meadowood difficult for the Valley Center district to serve.

Meadowood is adjacent to Rainbow facilities. "We have facilities that are immediately nearby," said Rainbow general manager Tom Kennedy.

Last year, Pardee and the Valley Center and Rainbow districts approved an out-of-area service agreement for Rainbow to provide water and sewer service to Meadowood. The April 2020 Rainbow action also directed district staff to prepare an application to LAFCO to annex the Meadowood area into Rainbow and detach that area from the Valley Center district, and the May 2020 meeting authorized Kennedy to submit the application to LAFCO.

"Everybody's on the same page," Kennedy said.

LAFCO chair Andy Vanderlaan, who lives in the Rainbow Municipal Water District, is the public member on LAFCO's board. "It's nice to see two districts getting along so well," he said.