ESCONDIDO — A controversial Escondido property located in the San Pasqual Valley could be among the first land returns to the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians, according to tribe chairman Stephen Cope.
For over a decade, the Harvest Hills (formerly known as Safari Highlands Ranch) property has sat undeveloped, largely because of concerns from residents, local environmental groups and other agencies.
In 2014, Concordia Homes, the property’s current owner, proposed building 550 luxury homes on the 1,100-acre site just north of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in unincorporated San Diego County. The vacant property lies east of Rancho San Pasqual and northeast of Rancho Vistamonte.
“This will be a high-end neighborhood that we are confident is going to be a benefit to city, to the community, and to the people who live here,” said Don Underwood, president of Concordia Homes, during a 2014 City Council meeting.
A draft environmental impact report for the project was released in October 2017.
However, the project stalled after community agencies and environmental groups warned of threats to native species and the region’s high fire risk, according to NeySa Ely, founder and CEO of San Pasqual Valley Preservation Alliance.
“The fire danger becomes exponential, the damage to the habitat becomes exponential, and you really rally a lot of people to work very hard to stop (Concordia),” Ely told The Coast News. “That’s where we’ve been for the last decade.”
Development would also have affected the San Pasqual tribe’s ancestral lands, which encompass the entire property and the broader San Pasqual Valley, according to Cope.
In 1891, the federal government passed the Mission Indian Relief Act to establish reservations for the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians and other Mission Indian tribes located in Southern California. The act tasked a commissioner with restoring, as far as possible, the tribes’ original lands and villages.
However, a clerical error made by the federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs resulted in the displacement of the San Pasqual tribe, a member of the Kumeyaay Nation, from their ancestral lands, Cope said.
As part of the Mission Indian Relief Act, the BIA designated the San Pasqual Valley as a township. As a result, the San Pasqual tribe was assigned to a separate township in the Lake Wolford area.
“We’re just trying to correct a wrong,” Cope said.
In February 2024, Oswit Land Trust, a Palm Springs-based nonprofit land trust dedicated to environmental preservation, signed a legally binding purchase-and-sale agreement with Concordia Homes, according to Bettina Rosmarino, Oswit’s director of land acquisition.
After the purchase, Oswit plans to transfer the full property to the San Pasqual tribe, while retaining a conservation easement to help prevent future development, Rosmarino said.
The property is home to many of the San Pasqual tribe’s former villages and cultural artifacts. The San Pasqual Valley itself contains a cemetery where the tribe’s elders were buried in the early 1800s, Cope said. By preserving the region, Cope said he and many others in the San Pasqual tribe hope to “get back our history.”
“It’s significant to the heritage and preservation of San Pasqual (tribe) as a whole,” Cope said.
The final step is securing the funding needed to purchase the property. However, the process has taken several years, and Concordia has granted several extensions to allow more time, Rosmarino said.
Oswit is seeking funding from the California Natural Resources Agency, Wildlife Conservation Board and California State Coastal Conservancy, according to Rosmarino. The nonprofit hopes to secure tribal land return grants by year’s end to strengthen its application for a third grant from the Wildlife Conservation Board.
“If the property does not get conserved — if we can’t align the funding — then the current landowners will develop it,” Rosmarino said.
Although the Preservation Alliance is not involved in the negotiations, Ely said the organization strongly supports the purchase. However, Ely said she thinks Concordia may be overestimating the land’s market value, resulting in a higher asking price that is taking longer to secure funding to meet.
“If we can close that gap and we can get a little bit more funding and Concordia to be a little bit more reasonable, I can foresee that land potentially being acquired,” Ely said. “That would be the best outcome for everyone.”
Rosmarino declined to disclose Concordia’s asking price for the property. However, the property, if Concordia were to develop it, was valued at over $500 million, according to a 2015 letter Concordia’s lawyer sent to David Gibson, executive officer of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, asking the agency to not proceed with sediment regulations.
Harvest Hills isn’t the only property in San Diego County that has the potential to become the first land return for the San Pasqual tribe. On Aug. 30, a bill authored by Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego) would return ancestral lands located at the San Pasqual Battlefield State Park to the San Pasqual tribe.
The San Pasqual Land Repatriation Act, or Assembly Bill 2770, unanimously cleared the second chamber of the California Legislature and now awaits the governor’s signature. The Escondido City Council also voiced its support for the legislation returning the city- and state-owned parklands to the San Pasqual Band.
Concordia’s project application to develop the property is currently considered inactive, according to Assistant Director of Development Services Veronica Morones, who oversaw the project as a city planner at the time.
The city has not received communication from Concordia on the proposal in roughly three years and, if Concordia were to continue with the development project, a new draft environmental impact would need to be conducted, Morones said.
Concordia Homes did not respond to multiple requests for comment by email, phone and text from The Coast News about the purchase agreement or the property.
The property is home to several native wildlife and plant species, which Oswit hopes to protect from development, Rosmarino said. The area is home to southern California mountain lions and the California gnatcatcher, both of which were listed as a “threatened” species under the state’s Endangered Species Act in February.
If the land is successfully purchased and conveyed to the San Pasqual tribe, Cope said he also hopes the property can be left untouched and eventually be used to share the tribe’s history for education purposes.
“We want to keep it as sacred as possible and make sure it’s not disturbed,” Cope said.
