Supervisors set hearing for Mt. Olympus acquisition

A Nov. 9 hearing will likely approve the County of San Diego’s purchase of 86.43 acres, which would be added to the county’s Mount Olympus Preserve.

A 5-0 San Diego County Board of Supervisors vote Oct. 12 set the hearing date. The parcel would be purchased from Richard L. Oswald for the appraised value of $525,000.

The Nov. 9 hearing will also approve an easement purchase agreement between the county and the Department of the Navy, which will fund half of the purchase price. The Department of Defense has a Readiness and Environmental Protection agreement, which allows branches of the military to enter into agreements with eligible entities to share the costs of acquiring real property in the vicinity of military installations. The purpose of the program is to limit development, which is incompatible with military activities.

“It’s a savings to both agencies ‘cause we share in the acquisition costs,” said John Kross, the deputy director for the Real Estate Services Division of the county’s Department of General Services.

In August 2008, the Board of Supervisors approved an encroachment protection agreement to maintain a military buffer zone for a 37.8-acre site in Pala while setting a hearing the following month to purchase that property. Although Pala is not adjacent to Camp Pendleton, its value as a wildlife linkage corridor benefits the base’s environmental protection program. The easement agreement ensures that the property will not be developed and also restricts uses of the property to those which are compatible with Camp Pendleton’s operations.

The expected Nov. 9 acquisition would be the second utilizing the Department of Defense cost-sharing program and the county’s fifth acquisition of land for Mount Olympus Preserve. The initial purchase of 527 acres along with acceptance of a donation of 133 acres to create Mount Olympus Preserve was approved by the Board of Supervisors in October 1991. The Nov. 9 acquisition land would bring the total county-owned land to 835 acres.

Mount Olympus separates Pala from Rainbow, and the draft North County Multiple Species Program includes the land as a preserve both for its sensitive species such as the Rainbow Manzanita and for its value as a linkage and corridor for animals, including large animals such as deer, mountain lion, coyote, and bobcat. Because of the corridor linkage value of the Mount Olympus Preserve area, the site is considered suitable for the Department of Defense buffer zone program.

The county’s $262,500 share of the $525,000 total acquisition cost will be from the Multiple Species Conservation Program acquisition fund. The county’s acquisition costs will also include $34,000 for staff and appraisal expenses, $2,300 for escrow and title, and $90,000 for one-time stewardship activities including signage, gates, and fencing. The annual stewardship cost is estimated at $8,600, not including a $2,148 annual cost for fixed-charged assessments such as water stand-by charges and the vector control assessment.

The restrictive easement would not preclude passive recreational opportunities for the public such as non-motorized trails.

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