City Encourages Growth Where It Was Sued for Snarling Traffic

The city plans to encourage growth on Ynez Road, despite being sued for encouraging growth there before.

The Temecula Planning Director is set to hold a hearing Thursday on a plan to break up a 98-acre lot on Ynez just north of Date Street, next to a site that was slated for a water park.

The lot is almost impossible to sell intact because of its size, said Stuart Fisk, a senior planner with the city. Breaking the property into smaller pieces should make it easier to sell.

The city was sued in 2006 for potentially snarling traffic when it approved plans for a water park just south of that site on Ynez Road at County Center Drive.

Local business owners sued the city, saying the water park would clog traffic at an already busy intersection.

If a water park was barred from the site, then more conventional businesses will go there, city officials responded. These businesses would make worse traffic than the water park because people would be at the water park mostly on weekends. At a business park, people would be driving to and from there during rush hour.

The judge sided against the city and the water park abandoned its plans at the site.

Dividing the lot on Ynez and Date will likely attract a variety of developments, said Fisk.

"This area is intended for different uses. It's unlikely you would get one single retail developer, let's say, to develop this many acres. It's almost 100 acres," Fisk said. "Usually a retail development might not even be 15 acres. This is a very large lot. We can definitely anticipate it's going to be developed in phases and most likely by multiple developers."

Some of these kinds of developments would snarl traffic worse than the water park, city officials said in 2006.

The applicant, John Tanner III of RBF Consulting, representing property owner Steve Bieri, wants to subdivide the land into 17 lots.

The lot split is for financing purposes only; no development or construction is proposed at this time. The smaller lots would range from 3.67 acres to 10.38 acres, with an average lot size of 5.65 acres, according to a city report.

The lot split would also let the landowner sell a portion of the property if he wanted, and possibly use those funds to finance his own project, Fisk added. Or, the landowner could sell or keep all or part of the property.

The proposed map of divided parcels is consistent with the city's General Plan, the development standards for the Service Commercial zoning designation and the Harveston Specific Plan, the report said.

The lot split is not expected to hurt the environment or wildlife. Before building, an applicant must get approved by the Temecula Building and Safety Department.

The Planning Director's hearing is set for Thursday at 1:30 p.m. at City Hall, 41000 Main St. in the Great Oak Conference Room.