By Aaron Burgin

REGION — A proposed 1,700-home master planned community near Valley Center is headed to the County Board of Supervisors, after the County Planning Commission voted June 8 not to rehear the project.

But opponents of the project said they likely will sue to have it reheard by the planning group.

The commission voted 5-0, with two commissioners absent, to advance the Lilac Hills Ranch Proposal to the supervisors, despite staff’s recommendation that the body hold additional hearings to address what they called “substantial changes” to the project. The Valley Center Community Planning Group and a group of residents who have opposed the project since its inception urged the commission to side with its staff.

By J. Harry Jones

The decision whether to allow construction of the controversial Lilac Hills Ranch housing development in Valley Center will be made later this year by the county’s Board of Supervisors following a hearing last week.

The county’s Planning Commission unanimously decided Thursday that plans to build 1,746 dwelling units on 609 acres just east of Interstate 15 near W. Lilac Road had not changed enough in the past several years to require another time-consuming hearing before the commission which had approved a similar proposal in 2015.

​The project will now go to the supervisors for a final decision in the fall on a date yet to be determined. Supervisor Bill Horn, who lives on a ranch a couple miles from the Lilac Hills site, will likely recuse himself from the vote based on a ruling made three years ago by the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission, which said the proximity of his property presented a conflict of interest.

By 5-0, the San Diego County Planning Commission voted to support the New Lilac Hills Ranch community. The project will now go to the Board of Supervisors for final approval.

For several years the development has been a target for environmentalists who claim the project is too large for the community and will be detrimental to the environment.

​The Planning Commission didn’t agree with that assessment.

Eighteen years ago, California was faced with rolling blackouts and a major energy crisis. It may not seem like it, but another energy crisis is brewing – this one caused by cities getting in the business of buying and selling electricity.

It was a lack of oversight and poor deregulation that led to those blackouts, when bad actors such as Enron saw an opportunity to game the system, manipulate energy markets and ultimately crash power grids.

​Now, government-run energy programs – also known as Community Choice Aggregation – are unraveling the centralized planning and service California needs to keep the lights on.