SAN MARCOS — As plans advance for the next phases of the 195-acre North City project in downtown San Marcos, a local family is fighting developer Urban Villages San Marcos in court to retain their rights to an easement running next to their properties.
Gloria Santos, 82, and her family have owned the two next-door duplexes at 134 and 140 East Barham Drive since the 1980s. Gloria’s husband, Jose, originally used the rear of one of the homes as a storage business, and the family has rented the homes to various family members and friends over the years.
The two residential duplex properties are in the middle of a quickly changing landscape. They are located on a lot at the northeast corner of Twin Oaks Valley Road and Barham Drive, surrounded by parcels that were once other homes but are now owned by Urban Villages San Marcos and are planned for development as a continuation of the North City downtown.
Simultaneously, the city of San Marcos has indicated that it will need to partially acquire the two Santos properties to widen Barham Drive, a process that will require demolishing the homes.
Gloria Santos hopes to rebuild the two homes to whatever level the city will allow. She said her goal is for the properties to continue being used by future family members.
“We work for those two properties. We work hard for our family, for the future,” she said.
Since 1959, a 60-foot-wide easement has been shared among the two Santos parcels and five other parcels, all now owned by Urban Villages. It runs north from Barham Drive through the center of the lot for a few hundred feet and was originally established to allow access to Barham for landlocked homes on the site.
Urban Villages is currently suing Gloria Santos for full rights to this easement via a quiet title action. The company’s president, Gary Levitt, also president of Sea Breeze Properties, argues that the Santos family has abandoned the easement and has no legal right to use it, and that the company needs it to proceed with the site’s development.
“While providing no beneficial value to the trust parcel, the continued existence of the easement creates harm to the Urban Villages parcels in that its existence is negatively impacting plaintiff’s ability to obtain certain entitlements from the city of San Marcos for and/or to develop and finance development of the Urban Villages parcels and neighboring parcels,” their lawsuit, filed in 2023, states.
Gloria Santos and her family argue that they retain the right to their easement, which they say they have historically used to move vehicles, equipment, and materials into and out of the family property.
They also deny abandoning the easement, claiming that Urban Villages has installed fencing, boulders, and grading that have restricted their full access to the shared easement.
Liz Santos, Gloria’s daughter, said Urban Villages had never contacted them about the easement prior to filing the lawsuit, although they had reached out several times about buying the two properties.
She believes Urban Villages is retaliating against them for refusing to sell their two homes and is attempting to take away their access, pushing them out.
“I like to see development, but not them taking our rights from under us,” Liz Santos said. “Don’t take it away from the little guy.”
A jury trial in the case is tentatively scheduled for September.
A representative for Urban Villages declined to answer a list of questions from The Coast News, stating that the company does not comment on pending legal disputes.
Site plans
The lot containing the Santos homes and Urban Villages parcels is planned for development as part of the city’s larger 195-acre North City area, which stretches south of state Route 78, north of Barham Drive, overlaps Twin Oaks Valley Road to the east and west, and is bordered by CSU San Marcos and Kaiser Hospital.
While no official project has been approved for this lot, referred to as Block 4, planning documents from Urban Villages outline a vision for a 500,000-square-foot office park.
In some conceptual renderings of the Block 4 project, the Santos homes have been replaced entirely by new office buildings.
“On the maps, they put buildings on top of our property,” Liz Santos said.
San Marcos officials emphasized that no project has been approved for the property, nor have any permanent developments been approved for the easement itself. They also stated that if a project is submitted, the city will ensure that access to the Santos properties is maintained.
“If the city receives a project application, we would work to ensure access to the properties affected is provided. The city cannot approve a project that cuts off access to another person’s property,” said city spokesperson Nikki Matosian.
In 2019, the city approved a tentative parcel map consolidating Urban Villages’ 24 parcels on the Block 4 site into two larger parcels, with the final map still pending approval. The city has extended the original 2021 expiration date for the tentative map multiple times, and most recently agreed to extend it until 2028 while Urban Villages is involved in the lawsuit with the Santos family.
The Santos family said they began to notice their easement access being restricted in 2019, when Urban Villages began grading and other construction on the nearby properties. This made it more difficult for them to navigate cars, and in some cases, caused their cars to bottom out, the Santos’s said in court documents.
They complained to San Marcos officials several times, particularly about fencing that cut off a large part of the easement, and said Urban Villages eventually moved the fencing farther from their property.
In a November letter, an attorney representing the city reiterated that the easement is shared between the Santos’s and Urban Villages. However, they emphasized that the easement is a matter for the courts to determine, and that the city cannot be responsible for enforcing it.
There have been other issues as well. Last year, while crews were completing construction on the easement, a piece of concrete struck Gloria Santos’ car, breaking the window as she was exiting the vehicle.
Liz Santos said there have also been aggressive interactions with workers completing construction for Urban Villages.
In January, Liz Santos said she lay down in the easement to block a bulldozer from entering the site, believing they were illegally making changes to it. She also stood in front of another construction vehicle and said they backed up and struck her, causing her to hyperextend the back of her knees.
During this interaction, law enforcement was called to the scene. Liz Santos said she also spoke with Darren Levitt, vice president of Sea Breeze Properties, and the situation eventually de-escalated.
Urban Villages did not answer questions about this alleged incident.
Frustration with the city
The city’s eminent domain is also putting pressure on Gloria Santos and her family.
In 2021, the city of San Marcos reached out to them regarding a partial acquisition of their property for the planned Barham Drive road-widening project. This project would move up the existing street line 26 feet north onto their properties.
This would require demolishing the two homes as they currently exist. Under state law, the Santos family would need to be compensated for the value of the lost property and any reduction to their overall property value.
Liz Santos said that after the road widening is complete, they want to rebuild on the remaining lots. When discussing driveway access during negotiations with the city about the partial acquisition, Liz and Gloria Santos told the city they could continue to access both properties using the easement.
All negotiations with the city stopped once Urban Villages filed their quiet title lawsuit in early 2023, seeking to take full control of the easement, Liz Santos said.
San Marcos city officials said while the lawsuit doesn’t involve the city, the issue over the easement needs to be resolved before they can continue negotiations with the Santos’s.
“The city is not a part of the lawsuit, but the outcome of the dispute will affect the property’s appraised value, which is needed to complete the negotiations,” Matosian said.
San Marcos officials also said the outcome of the easement lawsuit will have no bearing on the approval of the North City project on the land, despite Urban Villages saying otherwise in their lawsuit.
Liz Santos said she is concerned that her family’s property rights are not being respected, and that the city is prioritizing Urban Villages’ projects over their eventual rebuild.
On several occasions over the past year, Liz Santos has raised these concerns before the San Marcos City Council. In December, the City Council agreed to amend the University District Specific Plan to include the Hampton Inn on Carmel Street in its boundaries and to establish a storage overlay zone for the creation of a Cubesmart Storage along Carmel Street.
While the Hampton Inn and storage site project is on a lot different from Block 4, Liz Santos said the continued approval of Urban Villages projects in the University District Specific Plan could make it harder for them to rebuild their homes in the long run.
“We have been here for the better part of 50 years. The applicant presenting tonight has controlling interest in the University District Plan,” Santos told the City Council.
