Carlsbad Rejects Forest Ballot Plan : Vote Thwarts Proposed Commercial Project in Hosp Grove

Eager to avoid a third election battle over the fate of a scenic eucalyptus forest, the Carlsbad City Council declined Tuesday to put a measure on next year’s ballot asking to lease a section of Hosp Grove for commercial development.

The council voted 4 to 1, with John Mamaux dissenting, to reject the ballot measure being pushed by a group that contends development of a 12-acre parcel in the grove is needed to help pay for the property.

Despite the setback, leaders of the Committee to Sustain Hosp Grove, the group advocating commercial development in the forest, said they will take steps to collect the more than 3,000 signatures of registered voters that will be needed to qualify the measure on the ballot next June or November.

“We’ll keep it low key and see which way it goes,” said Jim McCormick, chairman of the organization. “I don’t want it to tear the town apart.”

Divided City Feared

But several council members insisted that yet another election on the grove, which Carlsbad voters agreed in March to purchase for nearly $7 million after an earlier attempt failed, might only divide the city.

“The city has already gone through a painful process,” Councilman Mark Pettine declared. “We’re on the verge of reopening old wounds. I thought this issue had been decided.”

Pettine said the Committee to Sustain Hosp Grove should look to other methods for helping to purchase the trees, often called the gateway to Carlsbad because of their prominent spot near the junction of Interstate 5 and California 76. In particular, Pettine said hotel bed taxes or other fees could be raised to to pay for the grove.

Mamaux, the lone council opponent, said he would like to see the measure advocating commercial development in the 80-acre eucalyptus forest share the ballot with a rival proposition asking voters to fund the purchase of Hosp Grove by raising property taxes.

Financial hardships caused by purchase of the grove, a dense stand of eucalyptus trees that covers the hills rising from the southern shore of Buena Vista Lagoon, are “hanging like a sword over our heads,” Mamaux said.

Others, meanwhile, argued that residents had already thrown their support behind efforts to preserve the grove as it is.

“The Committee to Sustain Hosp Grove wants to save this park by destroying it,” said Dan Hammer, a leader of Friends of Hosp Grove, the grass-roots coalition that formed last year to save the trees from the developer’s ax. “They’re a fraud in name and purpose.”

Planted by nurseryman E.F. Hosp in 1907, the grove has been the subject of much controversy--and two heated election battles--during the past two years.

Residents Protested

In early 1986, the City Council balked at a 216-unit condominium development on 26 lush acres in the forest after a phalanx of concerned residents stormed City Hall to protest the project.

After months of negotiations, the developer agreed to sell the land and the council put a measure on last November’s ballot asking voters to fund the deal with the sale of bonds that would be paid off with increased property taxes.

More than 64% of the electorate backed the measure, but that solid showing at the polls fell just short of the two-thirds vote required for a tax increase.

Sensing that the community wanted to see the grove preserved, the council put a measure on the ballot in March asking voters to decide. The proposition, which needed only a simple majority vote, eked out a narrow victory after strong opposition surfaced from residents worried that the cost of buying the grove would drain the city of vitally needed operating funds.

Decided to Go On

Despite the setback, opponents of the March ballot measure decided to press onward.

On Tuesday, they brought their case before the council, arguing that yet another measure should be put on the ballot to settle the debate over Hosp Grove once and for all.

As McCormick and others see it, a long-term lease for a commercial development on a 12-acre section of forest at Monroe Street and Marron Road could help defray the $700,000 annual payment the city must make during the next two decades to purchase the grove.

McCormick said the plot being spotlighted for the commercial project is largely populated by dead or dying trees, some of which have fallen. If a high-quality commercial project were built on the land, it would probably produce about $400,000 a year to help defray the cost of buying the eucalyptus grove, he said.

‘Retaining Best Part’

“What we’re saying is let’s take roughly 10% to 15% of the grove, an area where there are not a large number of trees to begin with, and use that land to help pay for the entire grove,” McCormick said before the meeting Tuesday. “We’d still be retaining the best part of the grove for picnics, hiking trails and other uses.”

In addition, McCormick warned that the city faces a tight fiscal future if no relief is provided to pay off the big annual bill for Hosp Grove.

“My motivation is, No. 1, to insure that we retain the grove,” McCormick said. “No. 2, I want to make sure the grove pays for itself. No. 3, I want to make sure that other city services don’t suffer.

“I don’t believe that when people voted to retain the grove, they voted to retain it at the expense of city parks staff or police or other services.”

Voted in Support

Hammer argues that residents have twice voted in support of the forest. Moreover, he said, the annual payments for the grove will not inflict a lethal blow to city coffers.

The grove has long been prized by residents as a welcome visual amenity in a city fast becoming a patchwork of urbanization. Originally covering more than 200 acres, the eucalyptus forest is about a quarter of that size today, little more than a wooded curtain between the commercial swirl of Plaza Camino Real mall and the quiet neighborhoods to the south.

When first planted by Hosp, the grove was envisioned as a cash crop of sorts, producing long, straight timber that could be cut into railroad ties. But the entrepreneur later learned that the wood, soft when cut, soon hardens like flint, making it impossible to pound in railway spikes.

The trees were allowed to stand, but development nibbled away at the edges of the forest through the years. Nonetheless, the grove remains a sanctuary for numerous species of birds and other wildlife, including red-tailed hawks, raccoons, coyotes and possums.