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RCPG Chairman Sees Problems with Ramona’s Revitalization
By E.A. Barrera
On a cold December night in 2004, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County Department of Planning and Land Use spoke glowingly of the benefits of mixed-use development during a presentation in the auditorium of Ramona Elementary School.
Dahvia Locke outlined the benefits of mixed-use zoning, in which commercial and residential developments co-exist in the same space.
“We need to stop the hodge-podge development that has been happening in Ramona,” Locke said. “Mixed-use offers a solution — it creates a more pedestrian-friendly town center.”
She displayed pictures of small towns across America where three-story buildings blended commercial enterprises on the street level, with apartments and condominiums above them. She showed drawings and architectural concepts of what Ramona could look like in 20 years — provided the town was willing to accept a measurable increase in the downtown corridor’s population.
Yet with every slide and every mention of the term “mixed-use,” audience members that night asked the same question— where was the infrastructure?
“We need to limit the densities. We must keep the future population densities down if we are going to preserve Ramona’s community character,” said Patrick Uriell, chairman of the Ramona Community Planning Group, during the meeting. “We are living a lifestyle in Ramona that is disappearing.”
Yet one year later, Uriell characterizes the county’s infrastructure planning and improvements for Ramona as inadequate for any pending growth.
“The circulation plan that was established for Ramona in 1890 — before the invention of the automobile — was better than what exists today,” Uriell said in an interview for the Ramona Home Journal.
The county’s regional land use and property-zoning update plan, known as General Plan 2020, estimates that Ramona is facing a future in which 20,000 more people could be living in the area by the end of the next decade. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors is planning for the future using figures that project a population increase for the county of almost a million people by 2020.
In an October 2003 Community Development Block Grant application, DPLU project manager Ivan Holler said the revitalization project was a priority because of a re-evaluation of Ramona’s land-use regulations under General Plan 2020.
“The Ramona Village Revitalization Plan will define a regulatory framework and capital-improvement projects that will transform the partially blighted town of Ramona into a safe, walkable, vital community center,” Holler wrote.
“Implementation of the plan will...address some major traffic, safety and economic issues affecting Ramona's Main Street corridor. It will also reinforce and enhance the rural identity of a community facing heavy growth pressure.”
Locke said last month that the county is revising the draft Ramona Village Revitalization Plan and will send it out with public comments early this year.
But that might not satisfy some lingering concerns with local officials.
Uriell, who also serves as chairman of the Ramona revitalization group’s subcommittee on infrastructure, said the revitalization process has brought some improvements to the town. He pointed to these improvements as proof the revitalization process can work.
“We’ve seen the widening of Ramona Street at 16th Street and improvements to the pedestrian walkways. We’ve had improvements to Labrea and also at the Ramona/Montecito Road intersections. The trail between the San Diego Country Estates and Ramona has opened. We’ve gotten some important infrastructure work under way.
“But what worries me is that under the term ‘revitalization,’ what we are really headed for is ‘redevelopment’ — and that’s where the process becomes corrupt,” Uriell said. “There is just a lot of money to be made from people who own property in those redevelopment locations.
“Meanwhile, the county is still pushing for higher densities and the town becomes overbuilt while the infrastructure does not keep up. Densities collapse road infrastructure. While a person who can afford a large lot may often be able to work out of their home, 90 percent of those who live in apartments will almost certainly be commuting in and out of Ramona.”
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