Rancho Santa Fe Residents Oppose Cityhood, Poll Shows

Rancho Santa Fe residents, who on Tuesday will cast ballots on whether to give birth to cityhood, overwhelmingly favor retaining their unincorporated status, according to an independent survey commissioned by the local newspaper.

Of 332 registered voters surveyed in a Rancho Santa Fe Review poll, 70% said they opposed incorporation. An even larger number, 77% (including some who favored cityhood), said they would not vote for any of the 12 candidates running for the proposed city council.

Only 25% of those polled favored incorporation, and 5% were undecided, according to the telephone survey, taken May 15-17.

The results were published in the May 27 issue of the Review. It and another weekly, the Rancho Santa Fe Times, have both come out in favor of incorporation. The survey was conducted for the paper by Facts Consolidated of Los Angeles.

Resistence to Change

Opponents of cityhood applauded the results, saying they confirm their beliefs that the exclusive estate community is already well-served by its own homeowners association and the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, currently Rancho Santa Fe’s governing body.

“It’s a relatively minor number of people pushing very hard for something most of the people don’t want,” said Al Teetzel, who opposes cityhood. “A persuasive case has not been made . . . by the proponents.”

The survey did not daunt Dick Scuba, president of the Rancho Santa Fe Assn. and a candidate for City Council. “The only poll that counts is the one taken on June 2,” Scuba said.

Rancho Santa Fe residents fear change more than anything else, according to the poll. When asked why they were for or against incorporation, 49% of those polled stated that they like Rancho Santa Fe “the way it is” or because of the “rural atmosphere” and “quiet.”

For more than 60 years, the community’s rural identity has been protected by “the covenant,” a document that defines the community and places strict controls over virtually all land-use matters within its boundaries.

“One of the things that has truly kept the rural environment and property values is the covenant rules and restrictions,” said Mary Ann Brady, a former cityhood advocate who turned against incorporation. “Once we are a large City of Rancho Santa Fe, we are concerned that the identity of the covenant will be diluted.”

Specifically, opponents cannot bear the thought of being forced to annex other wealthy communities such as Fairbanks Ranch and Whispering Palms. Under incorporation guidelines laid down in November by the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), the City of Rancho Santa Fe’s “sphere of influence” would include several other communities that would be eligible to petition for annexation. Residents of Fairbanks Ranch and Whispering Palms, which are also estate communities, have made it clear that they would prefer to be annexed by Rancho Santa Fe rather than by the City of San Diego.

Opposition Group Formed

If such annexations occur, registered Rancho Santa Fe voters living under the covenant will find themselves in the minority, Brady said, and “outsiders” could decide the fate of the city.

Brady studied cityhood while serving as vice chairman of the community’s Study Committee for Home Rule. When LAFCO, in approving the community’s petition for cityhood, expanded the future city limits and its sphere of influence outside the boundaries of the covenant, Brady and several others resigned from the committee and formed “No Inc.,” a group opposed to cityhood.

No Inc. has raised several issues, including a mistake in LAFCO’s arithmetic that put the future city’s budget surplus at 12.7% rather than 9.8%. Teetzel, a certified public accountant, pointed out that LAFCO considers a surplus of 10% “marginal” and prefers a 15% surplus for a new city.

LAFCO planner Mike Ott acknowledged the error but said it did not “affect the fiscal feasibility” of incorporation at all.

“We felt that 15% would provide a sufficient cushion,” Ott said. When surpluses are less than 15%, LAFCO looks for “other factors” related to incorporation, he said. Ott cited Rancho Santa Fe’s strong property tax base, which grows as property changes hands and is reassesed under Proposition 13.

Ott said that economic projections also indicate slow but steady growth in population and retail tax revenues. “Some areas have declining populations and declining sales tax revenues. We feel this area will steadily show small gains in both of those areas,” Ott said.

Cityhood was initially proposed as a measure to preserve the community’s sylvan environment in the face of North County’s runaway growth.

Scuba said that cityhood is the only way to control the booming growth in the area and the steadily increasing traffic burden on Rancho Santa Fe’s roads.

He cited traffic safety as an example, pointing out that there have been two traffic deaths in recent months. As a city, the community could patrol its roads and better enforce speed limits, Scuba said.

“Poway had 13 deaths the year before it incorporated. They got it down to one in the next year. We could do the same,” he said. “The problem is we have a lot of people making a decision based on misinformation.”

Scuba and cityhood proponent Ed Foss said that the covenant can no longer be counted on to protect the environment.

“We’re trying to run the thing with the covenant, and we’re finding it won’t stand up in court,” said Foss, a member of the home rule committee. “We had a regulation that said you can’t build within 50 feet of a property line. That was thrown out of court,” in a case in which a county regulation requiring only a 15-foot setback prevailed, he said.

The real issue, both sides say, is boundaries.

“Boundaries is not a logical reason to oppose incorporation,” Scuba said. “It’s emotional.”

Teetzel agreed: “It may be a boogeyman that really isn’t there lying in the weeds. But (something’s) there and you don’t know what it means.”