In 10 years, Scott Fuller might look out a window in a luxurious
San Juan Oaks resort, staring over three golf courses and a
community of nearly 200 homes, remembering how close the project
came to never existing.
Or not.
Fuller, general manager of San Juan Oaks Golf Club, is also the
project manager of a plan by the company to build two more golf
courses and a 200-room resort-hotel, along with selling 186 lots
for construction of houses.
In 10 years, Scott Fuller might look out a window in a luxurious San Juan Oaks resort, staring over three golf courses and a community of nearly 200 homes, remembering how close the project came to never existing.
Or not.
Fuller, general manager of San Juan Oaks Golf Club, is also the project manager of a plan by the company to build two more golf courses and a 200-room resort-hotel, along with selling 186 lots for construction of houses.
While the project awaits verdicts by the San Benito County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors, Fuller has something else to brood over.
If the public approves the Growth Control Initiative during the March election, the density – or number of homes allowed on the San Juan Oaks property – would vastly diminish. It is agricultural rangeland, on which the current General Plan allows one housing unit per 40 acres. The initiative calls for a zoning jump to 160 acres.
“Actually, we comply with the Growth Initiative in every way except one,” Fuller proudly, yet warily, said.
That one aspect of the Growth Initiative would lower the allowable number of lots under the plan from the proposed 186 to about 40.
Otherwise, though, as Fuller said, the project abides by the initiative’s remaining slate of mandates.
The proposal’s intention to sell an estimated 25 lots a year would conform to the initiative’s 1-percent growth cap. Meanwhile, the plan includes 30 affordable lots, which would be exempt from growth restrictions.
The endeavor would also maintain much of the open space atmosphere for which San Juan Oaks has been distinguished since the course opened in 1996.
“A great, great, great majority of the project is open space,” Fuller said of the 1,160 acres to be left unobstructed.
The total project would encompass nearly 2,000 acres, including the new golf courses, a 60-acre county park and other amenities.
Of the two added courses, one would be 18 holes and the other nine holes. The new 18-hole course would be private – open to members of the club or visitors staying at the resort-hotel. While the nine-hole course would include all par-three holes, which in golf are the shortest holes on a regulation course. It, like the current course, would be open to the public, Fuller said.
Regarding the housing development aspect of the project, San Juan Oaks would not be building or selling homes, Fuller emphasized. The company wants to sell the lots of land individually, which would likely become sites of housing constructions.
The market rate lots, not including the cost to build a home, would carry expected costs of $250,000 to $350,000. The lots designated for low- and moderate-income residents would run from $160,000 to $240,000, Fuller said.
The company, which has owned the property since 1989, has considered possibilities for such expansion for more than a decade. San Juan Oaks, he said, has continually complied with perpetually intensifying growth restrictions while cooperating with county officials.
“This project is as much the county’s as it is ours.”
The project’s guidelines have been stamped with preliminary allocations, Fuller said, which means the proposal has a foot in the door – yet nothing has been guaranteed or finalized.
“It’s really in their (county officials’) hands,” he said.
Ideally, if the project moves forward, Fuller hopes to start allocating its first batch of permits in July 2004. Since county officials have asked San Juan Oaks to permit all 30 affordable lots before any others, the lower-priced lots would take up more than a year’s worth of allocations.
“I think, it could be done,” said county planner Fred Goodrich of the July 2004 start goal, “sure, assuming all timelines are hit.”
During the first couple years, many homes would sprout up along holes 10 and 11 of the existing golf course, he said. From there, the increments of housing tracts are to move westward, many alongside the two prospective additional courses.
The resort-hotel is scheduled for completion in two phases, with 100 rooms built at a time. San Juan Oaks has also proposed to build a wastewater treatment plant exclusively for use by facilities on the grounds, recycled water from which San Juan Oaks would use to irrigate the golf courses.
Construction of the new course is slated to begin no later than the third year of the project, while the resort-hotel and permanent clubhouse would break ground no later than year five, according to the proposal.
San Juan Oaks recently submitted an environmental impact report to the Planning Commission. The novel-sized document addressed several potential effects of the plan, including economic impacts. It states a projected employment growth in the county of about 200 jobs, along with net revenue gains from taxes of about $800,000.
“I don’t think they’ve had any other projects pencil out like that,” Fuller said.
The San Juan Oaks project, according to Fuller, would not lead to burgeoning developments on the scenic northwest end of San Benito County. There are too many county restrictions for large developments, he said. Meanwhile, San Juan Oaks awaits the Growth Control Initiative vote in March because its fate could hamper the future of the project.
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s the best project we could devise and comply with all the county’s rules,” he said.
