RMWD quitclaims easements for Vessels' project

The proposed conversion of the San Luis Rey Downs golf course into a mitigation bank will require the Rainbow Municipal Water District to quitclaim easements over the land, and on May 26 the Rainbow board voted 4-0 with Bob Lucy absent to quitclaim the easements in exchange for wider easements elsewhere.

"We have some narrow easements," said Rainbow general manager Tom Kennedy. "They're going to widen some of our easements, so it was a good deal for our ratepayers."

The Vessels family under the entity San Luis Rey Enterprises, LLC, closed the San Luis Rey Downs golf course Aug. 6 and has hired Conservation Land Group, Inc. (CLG) as a consultant to convert the golf course into a mitigation bank which will allow developers of property elsewhere to purchase mitigation credits which would fulfill those projects' off-site mitigation requirements.

CLG has filed an application with the Army Corps of Engineers to create the Moosa Creek Mitigation Bank. The property is approximately 185 acres, including the golf course, with approximately 38 acres of wetlands and 5.75 acres of non-wetland waters. If the land is approved as a mitigation bank CLG will rehabilitate and re-establish riverline and depressional wetland and non-wetland riparian habitat.

The Army Corps of Engineers is reviewing the application for a Banking Enabling Instrument, which approves the area for a mitigation bank, and will evaluate impacts to the public interest during its decision whether to authorize the land as a mitigation bank.

The Rainbow district has water and wastewater facilities located along the golf course, and easements of various lengths allow district staff or contractors to access, maintain, or repair Rainbow facilities when necessary.

An easement granted to Rainbow for wastewater facilities included language terminating that easement if it was no longer in use; since that easement was for a sewer line which sent wastewater to a treatment plant which no longer exists is it not needed by the district.

San Luis Rey Downs Enterprises requested a quitclaim of that 0.13-acre easement and also requested that they be allowed to do a shallow scrape over a portion of an easement and waterline during construction, which would enhance connectivity with the channel.

The waterline easement in which the shallow scrape would be performed would be increased from 10 feet to 20 feet, adding 0.16 acres to the easement area. San Luis Rey Downs Enterprise would also increase the width of a sewer line easement from 15 feet to 20 feet, which would be an addition of 0.24 acres of easement.

The mitigation bank, if approved, is expected to be split into three phases. The easement exchange approved May 26 only covers the first phase. The next phase is expected to be conducted two years later, and an easement exchange for the second phase will be finalized by 2017 if applicable.