After years of back and forth, San Diego County Supervisors voted unanimously to deny an appeal by developers to transform the Cottonwood Golf Club in Rancho San Diego into a sand mine.
Dozens of members of the public who spoke in opposition to the project erupted in applause following the vote.
“This proposal is not just another land use application. It is an industrial scale mining operation proposed in the heart of a residential community,” Oday Yousif, chair Valle de Oro Community Planning Group, told the supervisors.
In July, a major use permit for the project came before the San Diego County Planning Commission. The six commissioners could not overcome two tie votes to approve the project and it was denied under county administrative code.
The developer, Cottonwood Cajon LLC, then filed for an appeal with the supervisors.
Multiple local organizations, like Sierra Club San Diego Chapter and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, opposed the project at the board of supervisors meeting.
Speakers with the group Stop Cottonwood Sand Mine said since 2018, area residents have expressed concerns over the sand mine project’s potential impact on public health, traffic, noise and the environment.
Former county supervisor Dianne Jacob spoke at the meeting.
“I’ve been a part of many land use hearings. In my decades of experience I can tell you I have never seen such a destructive project with such negative impacts on the people who live in a community,” she said.
The sand mine developers proposed converting more than 200 acres and operating for 10 years, Monday through Friday from 7 a.m to 5 p.m.
The project’s mining operations would extract, process, and transport aggregate sand in phases across the site for cement concrete.
Some people like Hamann Construction’s Jake Richards spoke in support, saying more local sand would lower construction costs.
“The costs are skyrocketing, a lot of that is because we're sourcing materials from out of state, out of country,” he said.
Developer Cottonwood Cajon LLC declined to comment after the vote.
“The Cottonwood proposal will ultimately rehabilitate the site and dedicate nearly 150 acres of permanent open space and give that land to the County of San Diego for free. In addition, the temporary, local source of essential construction sand will help offset skyrocketing costs for housing and infrastructure and create hundreds of high-quality jobs,” the organization said in an earlier statement.
