The Long Climb to Black Mountain Ranch

In 1998, Maas was back on the ballot with another measure to increase density to one house per acre. After the stinging defeat in 1994, he had stepped up negotiations with the city and community groups. He also initiated talks with the Sierra Club to resolve their concerns over environmental issues and, after three years of talks, won the club’s endorsement for the 1998 Proposition K.

“Fred was smart to go to the Sierra Club,” says Councilman Peters, who was a volunteer attorney for the environmental group in the 1990s. “They told him what they needed—clustered housing, preserved open space, what became a precedentsetting program for pollution runoff.” time.”

Maas also pledged $25 million to help complete State Route 56 and provide improvements on Interstate 15—the first time a private party had anted up money for a freeway.

This time voters approved the higher-density measure, and plans proceeded for the final 1,800 acres remaining in the original Black Mountain Ranch project, a development Maas named Del Sur.

WHEN COMPLETED, Del Sur will have 2,581 single-family attached and detached houses and 469 affordable apartments and homes, the latter for families earning below the median-income level. Prices for single-family residences will start at about $600,000, Maas says, and top out at around $1.5 million. A 500,000-square-foot business park will be built, and another 200,000 square feet added for retail space. A 300-room hotel and an 18-hole public golf course are planned, as are two schools and a fire station.

The community will have two transit centers and a van pool program linked to express buses planned for Interstate 15. Maas has agreed to spend $500,000 to educate Del Sur residents about mass transit opportunities for the area.

Neighborhoods are clustered around village greens, and the architecture reminiscent of homes found in Mission Hills. Nearly 1,100 acres—about 60 percent of the development—are dedicated to open space.

Two 800-foot parallel bridges are under construction —one north, one south—on Camino del Sur, the community’s main road. The structures cross what’s basically a “critter corridor,” an open-space connection between San Dieguito River Park and Black Mountain Regional Open Space Park.

Carolyn Chase, a Sierra Club spokesperson who was chair of the organization when Maas’ development went before voters in 1998, says all developers figure out a way to get what they want from the system. Maas, she says, negotiated with her group “up front, and [he] made and kept good-faith agreements and then some.

“Developers are required to pay a fair share” for infrastructure, Chase says. “Fred did that and some more.”

As the development prepares to open for sales, she adds: “I watch and I see. I’m pleased as far as it [Del Sur] has gone. These things take a long time.”

Maas admits many of the concessions he made “were practical, not altruistic.” Tradeoffs often helped expedite the project, he says, or helped him qualify for other dispensations. For example, affordable housing typically is available for families who make 65 percent of the median income. Del Sur will lower that to 50 percent, a move that makes the development eligible to obtain certain state-financing considerations.

And Maas will make money—probably a lot of money—from Del Sur. “There were many times between 1989 and 1998 when the project could easily have been liquidated at a substantial loss,” he says. “But this project will now make money and will certainly get a better return than the San Diego city pension plan.

“Seriously, we’ve been blessed with partners who are large public companies and institutional investors who are patient. Barring a calamity in the real estate market, we hope to equal or outperform other similar assets in their portfolios.

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