Why this matters
The San Diego region is in the middle of a housing and affordability crisis, but in the face of a warming planet where extreme weather is more common, new developments will continue to face environmental scrutiny.
A legal settlement last month opened the door for a 450-acre development in southeastern San Diego County, including up to 2,750 new housing units as well as a fire station and elementary school.
The settlement marks the latest hurdle cleared by a Southern California developer and environmentalist groups, which filed the lawsuit in 2020 over concerns for wildlife, greenhouse gas emissions and fire safety.
Hailed as a win for all sides, the agreement spells out an opportunity for more housing on a smaller footprint, reducing environmental impacts and wildfire ignition risk. It also calls for fire surveillance and exterior sprinkler systems.
The proposed site is just north of where the Border 2 fire, aided by extremely dry and windy conditions, consumed more than 6,600 acres earlier this year — raising questions about development practices as global leaders grapple with climate change, which has led to warmer, dryer conditions and longer fire seasons, according to national climate studies.
“Considering fossil fuel emissions continue to set the planet ablaze, I don’t think anyone knows if the risk reduction measures are sufficient for the long-term,” said Van Collinsworth, director of Preserve Wild Santee — one of the parties involved in the settlement. Even so, he said he’s satisfied with the outcome because the area offers unique advantages to preventing and fighting wildfires should they occur, including proximity to the Lower Otay Reservoir.
“The developer has built into the settlement feasible risk reductions for the site.”
In 2020, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved the development, known as Otay Ranch Village 13, for an area that has been impacted by wildfires. A coalition of environmental nonprofits, later supported by the California Attorney General, filed a lawsuit under the state’s environmental law to challenge the location of thousands of new residents in the fire-prone area, which is home to endangered and threatened wildlife species.
The settlement reached last month with the developer, known as Baldwin & Sons, reduces the footprint by 40% while adding 300 acres of open space for habitat preservation, and creates an opportunity to apply for hundreds more housing units than originally planned. It also requires the developer to:
- Achieve a net-zero energy design for all single-family residential and commercial buildings.
- Make all buildings fully electric.
- Pay at least $15 million toward local greenhouse gas mitigation.
“For future development projects in California … we just shouldn’t be pushing new, low-density developments into wildfire-prone areas,” said Peter Broderick, a senior attorney and legal director for the Urban Wildlands Program at the Center for Biological Diversity — another party to the lawsuit. “But the county approved this project and we think that the mitigation measures … make this a better project than what the county approved.”
READ MORE on housing and fires
The development is still years down the road — after permitting and planning, the developer anticipates three years before building even starts — and the new proposal would need to be approved by San Diego County.
Supervisor Joel Anderson, a Republican who took office to represent this area in January 2021, declined to comment.
“We’re grateful that we will be able to achieve our housing goals while delivering a village that provides additional preservation of environmental resources and is built to standards that address the realities of climate change,” said Nick Lee, CEO of Baldwin & Sons. “We hope that this development can be a model for how we can meet the region’s housing needs while also being good environmental stewards.”
In a statement celebrating the settlement, Attorney General Rob Bonta said officials must account for wildfire risks when planning development.
“From Los Angeles to San Diego, we are seeing devastating wildfires ravaging our communities right before our eyes. We can no longer ignore the realities of climate change,” Bonta said in the statement. This “settlement recognizes that environmental protection and housing go hand in hand, aiming to create more resilient, sustainable homes while reducing wildfire risk and protecting our environment.”
Correction: April 16, 2025
This story has been updated to remove mention of a resort hotel, which was included in error on a publicly available project website.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
