The San Diego County Board of Supervisors' recent approval of the Harmony Grove Village South development, which opponents say will be located in a high fire-risk area with only one evacuation route, is being challenged in court again with a newly filed lawsuit.
The latest legal challenge alleges the Board of Supervisors approved the development while relying on a decade-old fire safety analysis that didn't account for new, stricter wildfire regulations.
The 111-acre project would feature 453 residential units, 5,000 square feet of commercial/civic space, four acres of private and public parks, two miles of public multi-use trails and pathways, and about 35 acres of biological open space. The location is a little less than one mile west of the city of Escondido, south and east of San Marcos city limits, and north of the Del Dios Highlands Preserve.
The lawsuit filed last week comes from the Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove Town Council — made up of residents from the communities near Escondido and the project's proposed location — and the Endangered Habitats League, a statewide environmental organization. It seeks to have a judge overturn the project's approval.
"We cannot let political expediency or out-of-state development interests dictate the safety of our communities," said JP Theberge, Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove Town Council vice chair. "The county cannot ignore modern wildfire realities or sidestep its own fire codes. This project puts future residents, first responders, and surrounding neighborhoods at unacceptable risk. The county needs to go back to the drawing board and come back with a plan that actually meets today's safety standards."
Representatives of the project developer could not be reached for immediate comment. During the October Board of Supervisors meeting when the project was approved, David Kovach, the Harmony Grove Village South managing partner, insisted the development protection plan "is the gold standard," validated by a qualified safety experts.
"Can we honestly imagine this team overlooking the absence of secondary access if it were truly required?" he asked.
Many residents from the nearby communities packed the October supervisors' hearing, arguing the development could add as many as 1,000 extra vehicles on the lone two-lane road leading out of the area should a wildfire spark. The Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove Town Council says that according to one study, a potential evacuation of the area could take more than seven hours.
The project's approval was also challenged with a lawsuit last month from the Sierra Club, which forwarded similar concerns about the infeasible evacuation plans, as well as excessive greenhouse gas emissions that would be emitted by additional vehicles brought to the region.
"The Harmony Grove project is textbook sprawl development within a high fire-risk area," Sierra Club Legal Chair Dave Hogan said in a statement last month, shortly after the organization's lawsuit was filed. "Surrounded by protected open space and without convenient access to services, the plan conflicts with the Board of Supervisors' own policy for sustainable growth in fire safe and VMT-efficient areas adopted in the 2024 County Climate Action Plan and exposes surrounding communities to dangerous fire conditions."
