The Official Town Council and Planning Group of Tierrasanta

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The San Diego Union-Tribune • Monday, June 28, 2004

New Navy housing near Tierrasanta

By Jeanette Steele

STAFF WRITER

The Navy's proposal to build 1,600 housing units near Tierra Santa took a step forward with the release of a final environ­mental report.

To ease a housing crunch for young service members, the Navy wants to put apartments, town houses and duplexes on 264 acres just north of state Route 52 at Santo Road. The land is on the largely undeveloped eastern side of Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

The environmental impact statement, released Friday, said community concerns about increasing traffic and overcrowding Tierrasanta schools all can be addressed at that site.

The findings mirror those in a draft environmental report that came out last July.

Meanwhile, a Tierrasanta community leader said he wasn't surprised by the report's findings but said neighbors are still worried the large project will mean clogged roads, schools and parks in their back yard

"If ifs as the draft was and isn't significantly changed ... this is as I expected and, I guess you could say, as I feared," said Tierrasanta Com­munity Council president Eric Germain, who hadn't yet received the report.

To ease the addition of 9,600 car trips from the project, the military would widen the Santo Road freeway overpass to add turn lanes, an off ramp and traf­fic signals, according to the re­port.

It would also contribute mon­ey toward adding signals and lanes to Kearny Villa Road and Miramar Way intersections.

The report describes Santo Road, which would be extend­ed, as the preferred entrance to the housing, while building a new exit off Route 52 is called an alternative.

Still, Tierrasanta homeowners fear the military residents will skirt the already-busy Route 52 by using side streets through their community.

Germain said his group wants to have a voice in how work out, like what actually gets put in up north, what the recreation facilities are," he said. "If ifs not done right, then they are going to use our facili­ties, and our facilities are pretty much overloaded as it is."

Two other sites were consid­ered for the complex: the north­west corner of the Marine base off  Pomerado Road near Scripps Ranch and east of Inter­state 15 via an extension of Mir­amar Way.

Navy representatives weren’t available to say how the project will go forward.

Some environmentalists have criticized all three sites. There's no reason to develop wild lands that are "one of the last large wild natural land­scapes anywhere in coastal Southern California," said Da­vid Hogan of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Hogan said the military has alternatives, such as increasing service members' allowance for housing or choosing more ur­ban military sites to build.