Opinion: California wildfire risks make judge’s rejection of Otay Ranch housing project no surprise

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The state of California appears to be in a new era when it comes to housing projects in remote rural areas. The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has long been supportive of new housing construction to bring down the cost of shelter, and has criticized NIMBYs who use environmental rules to thwart projects they don’t like. But a series of recent rulings blocking locally approved construction were based on substantive arguments about fire risk, environmental damage and inadequate provisions to limit climate impacts with carbon “offsets” that green groups have long faulted.

On Oct. 7, San Diego Superior Court Judge Richard S. Whitney cited these reasons and more in rejecting San Diego County supervisors’ 2019 approval of Adara at Otay Ranch, a 1,119-home project east of Chula Vista on Proctor Valley Road.

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups who sued to block the project got a boost earlier this year when state Attorney General Rob Bonta, appointed in April, joined the lawsuit.

The frustration of developers who successfully navigated local approval processes only to have courts reverse approvals is understandable. But it has become clear that a decade of awful wildfires in California is leading to much more skepticism about adding homes in fire-prone areas — even if reputed experts say it can be done safely. There have been seven fires that burned 130,000 acres in the area of the now-stymied Adara project since 2003. That may have been the only evidence that project critics needed to get Judge Whitney on their side.