Concordia Homes proposes to build seven separate neighborhoods within a gated community in the mountains north of the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park

Five years after Concordia Homes first went to the City of Escondido with a bold plan to build 550 luxury homes in the rugged hills of the San Pasqual Valley, the developer has undertaken a major rebranding that includes a project name change and a partial redesign.

Safari Highlands Ranch is now Harvest Hills, a change of not just a name, the Solana Beach development firm says, but a philosophy that takes advantage of the popular farm-to-table trend and honors Escondido’s agriculture history.

Other changes to the project include creating a net-zero energy community where every home will be built using the latest technology to reduce energy use, and solar panels will sit atop every roof. It will be the city’s first carbon-neutral neighborhood, the developers say.

The number of homes Concordia wants to build has not changed, but the footprint of the development has been reduced by 50 acres so as to place the houses a bit further to the east so only a few rooftops will be visible from the neighboring communities of Rancho San Pasqual and The Ranchos at Vistamonte, which sit hundreds of feet beneath the mountains to the west.

The amount of grading that would be done to build the seven separate neighborhoods within the gated community over a five-year period has been reduced as well.

Concordia’s Don Underwood and Jeb Hall, both principals of the development firm, say they are excited about the changes which they say are not a marketing gimmick but a direct reaction to concerns expressed by opponents, supporters and city planners.

“The catalyst was the feedback we got from the community,” Underwood said. “We’ve made changes to address some of those concerns and as we began to make changes, including going in the direction of an agri-neighborhood, we got really excited about it.”

Underwood said Concordia has always had the philosophy that they don’t want to just build houses. “We want communities where people love to live,” Underwood said. “One of the exciting things to us is how this has the potential to bring a community together.”

Plans now call for the construction of 13 parks spread out within the neighborhoods of the gated community. Each park will contain community gardens. “People like to garden together,” Underwood said. “They like to compete with each other. They like to trade secrets. It’s about the camaraderie of it.”

The main community center near the entrance has been redesigned and named The Farm House. The architecture will reflect a farming community and will feature a one-acre farm where vegetables and herbs will be grown for the residents.

The Farm House will also double as a fire evacuation site. It will “be bomb proof and bullet proof,” Underwood said, designed to protect residents should a wildfire approach the community as it has many times over the years, including in 2007.

Just last year, three fires burned in the San Paqual Valley, though none reached the open area of the project site.

In 2014, Concordia first went to the city for a public pre-development conference to gauge the willingness of the City Council to consider allowing what would be by far the largest new master-planned community in the city in decades. Roughly 200 people attended the hearing to urge the council to reject the plans before the lengthy planning process could even begin.

Those opponents are still very active in the form of a nonprofit called the San Pasqual Valley Preservation Alliance, which not only claims many members from the nearby neighborhoods to the west but also has been joined in opposition by just about every environmental group in existence.

“A rose is a rose and sprawl is still sprawl,” said Everett DeLano, an environmental attorney working with the alliance, reacting to the name change.

“New lipstick. Same pig,” says the alliance on its website.

The 1,098 acres owned by Concordia, of which 762 acres will remain open space, is located within the unincorporated county north of the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park.

But it is the Escondido City Council that will have the final say because the plan is to annex the land into the city should it be approved by the city. That process was begun years ago, but won’t be completed unless the okay is given.

Concordia, perhaps optimistically, hopes a final decision can be had by the end of this year. The environmental report, in development for nearly two years, must first be finalized and a hearing before the city’s Planning Commission will precede a council vote.

Some have wondered if the Harvest Hills moniker and the other changes are designed to impress one man: Escondido’s new mayor, Paul McNamara.

Based on comments that have been made over the years, both during council meetings and during recent political campaigns, it appears the council is split on the project.

Councilwoman Olga Diaz has made it clear she would never vote for the project calling it sprawl development and citing fire risk. Councilwoman Consuelo Martinez, during her successful campaign that put her into office last November, has also made it clear she does not favor the project.

Meanwhile, most think Councilmen John Masson and Mike Morasco are future yes votes for Harvest Hills, leaving McNamara as the deciding vote.

McNamara has been non-committal as of late. He says he likes some of the changes that have been made, but still has concerns.

NeySa Ely, the chief executive officer of the nonprofit preservation alliance, said the overwhelming majority of people who live in the roughly 700 homes to the west of the proposed development are opposed to it.

She said the direction Concordia appears to be taking is positive, but she and alliance secretary Scott Graves point out that so far it’s just talk and nothing has been put down officially on paper.

“I think if your having to rebrand before even publishing (responses to comments made during a public reaction period which closed more than a year and a half ago) that seems a little desperate,” Graves said.

Added Ely: “Until they produce documentation supporting these claims, well, my first take is there are a lot of buzz words and spin and things they think might catch the attention of people that might look at this project in a negative way. But we haven’t seen anything publicly addressing the numerous issues.

“To have net energy homes and to reduce your carbon footprint, those are laudable goals that all developers should be expected to strive towards. It’s great they are taking that on, but they haven’t addressed the issues that made up the majority of the public comment period feedback.”

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